3 November 2026
Brazil's Federal Senate on Tuesday passed PEC 18/2025, the proposal known as the Public Security amendment. The vote was unanimous, 73 in the first round and 75 in the second, so the amendment now goes for promulgation. It was sent by the Executive and cleared under a special calendar that waived the usual waiting periods. Its central change is to write the Sistema Unico de Seguranca Publica (Susp) into the Constitution. The text also widens the federal government's role in policing, lays down rules for setting up municipal police forces, and brings in stricter measures against members of criminal factions and militias, along with victim protection and more money for public security. Amendments that would have lowered the age of criminal responsibility were split off and will travel as a separate proposal; that split passed 38 votes to 36. Rapporteur Rogerio Carvalho turned down other changes so the text would not have to return to the Chamber of Deputies.
Proposal:
PEC 18/2025
Votes, first round:
73
Votes, second round:
75
Rapporteur:
Rogerio Carvalho
Senate President:
Davi Alcolumbre
Why it matters for exams: A named constitutional amendment, PEC 18/2025, puts the Sistema Unico de Seguranca Publica (Susp) into Brazil's Constitution and sets rules for municipal police; the Federal Senate is the upper house of Brazil's National Congress.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Susp Sistema Unico de Seguranca Publica — Brazil's single public security system, now named in the Constitution.
PEC Proposta de Emenda a Constituicao — The Portuguese name for a proposal to amend Brazil's Constitution.
3 November 2026
Brazil's Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade, and Services has released the first scorecard of the Mercosur-European Union trade agreement. From May through September, the first five months in which the treaty's trade provisions applied provisionally, Brazilian exports of goods getting lower or zero import tariffs in the European market rose 21 per cent over the same months of 2025. Tariff preferences came into force on 1 May. Fresh avocados led the jump at 421 per cent, followed by honey at 367 per cent, corn oil at 266 per cent and ferrosilicon-manganese at 173 per cent. Raw aluminium rose 107 per cent, fuel oils 102 per cent and ethanol 95.2 per cent. Electrical transformers, which had sold nothing in the same months of 2025, brought in USD 39 million. Talks on the agreement began in 1999 and the documents were signed in January this year. The deal links markets of about 720 million people with a combined GDP above USD 22 trillion.
Rise in covered exports:
21 per cent
Tariff preferences in force from:
May 1
Largest single rise:
Fresh avocados, 421 per cent
Combined market:
720 million people
Combined GDP:
over USD 22 trillion
Why it matters for exams: The Mercosur-European Union trade agreement, signed in January 2026 and provisionally applied from 1 May 2026, is Brazil's biggest new trade treaty, and the figures were published by Brazil's Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade, and Services.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Mercosur Common Market of the South — The South American customs union Brazil founded with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
2 November 2026
UNESCO has added Valongo Wharf, the Sociedade Protetora dos Desvalidos and Serra da Barriga to its Network of Historic and Memorial Sites Related to Slavery and the Slave Trade. Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs put in the application and welcomed the listing in a press release. Valongo Wharf, in the port area of Rio de Janeiro, keeps the remains of one of the main landing points for enslaved Africans in the Americas and has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2017. The Sociedade Protetora dos Desvalidos in Salvador, Bahia, was founded in 1832 by Manoel Victor Serra and other free black men and is Brazil's first black civil institution to have run without a break. Serra da Barriga, in Uniao dos Palmares in Alagoas, holds the Quilombo dos Palmares Memorial Park and has been a national heritage site since 1988. The Network was set up in 2024 under UNESCO's Routes of the Enslaved: Resistance, Freedom, and Heritage initiative. Brazilian sites already on it include the Museu da Inconfidencia in Minas Gerais.
Sites added:
Valongo Wharf, Sociedade Protetora dos Desvalidos, Serra da Barriga
Valongo Wharf World Heritage since:
2017
Network created:
2024
Applicant:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Why it matters for exams: Valongo Wharf, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2017, joins UNESCO's Network of Historic and Memorial Sites Related to Slavery and the Slave Trade, created in 2024 under the Routes of the Enslaved initiative.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization — The UN agency for education, science and culture, which runs the World Heritage List.
31 October 2026
The 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity closed in Yerevan, Armenia with a final document agreed by consensus in the early hours of Saturday and named the Yerevan Path. Brazil's proposal on the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from genetic resources was taken onto the agenda, and the decision that followed makes consultations with countries, indigenous peoples and local communities a requirement, with countries also asked to put forward options for strengthening the sustainable use of those resources. Brazil also pressed for ecological connectivity and for green and blue conservation corridors, but its aim of adding a fifth programmatic element to the Programme of Work on Protected Areas was not adopted and the subject was only referred to for later forums. The COP17 presidency announced more than USD 1.8 billion in financial commitments from governments, multilateral institutions, philanthropies and private initiatives. Parties also set up a working group to turn at least USD 500 billion of nature-harming support into positive subsidies. The Cali Fund, created at COP16, remains stalled.
Conference:
COP17 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity
Host city:
Yerevan, Armenia
Outcome document:
Yerevan Path
Financial commitments:
more than USD 1.8 billion
Why it matters for exams: The Yerevan Path is the outcome document of COP17 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, and Brazil's accepted agenda item was on fair and equitable benefit sharing from genetic resources.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
CBD Convention on Biological Diversity — The UN treaty on conserving biodiversity and sharing the benefits of genetic resources.
16 October 2026
The Brazilian Congress has promulgated the constitutional amendment that ends the six-day working week with one day off, known in Brazil as the 6x1 schedule, and brings in a five-day week with two days off, the 5x2. The new rule takes effect within two months. The amendment was promulgated at a formal session attended by Senate President Davi Alcolumbre, Chamber of Deputies President Hugo Motta and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, with ministers, senators and federal deputies of the governing coalition filling the Senate chamber; opposition leaders stayed away. Alcolumbre said the measure's impact was incalculable and that the legislature had chosen the right path rather than the easy one. Motta said ending the 6x1 schedule touched millions of Brazilians who wake before dawn and travel across whole cities to work. Lula compared the arguments against the change with those once made against Brazil's legally mandated thirteenth-month payment in the early 1960s.
Old schedule:
6x1
New schedule:
5x2
Takes effect:
within two months
Senate and Congress President:
Davi Alcolumbre
Chamber of Deputies President:
Hugo Motta
Why it matters for exams: A constitutional amendment promulgated by Brazil's National Congress replaces the 6x1 working week with a 5x2 week, taking effect within two months.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
6x1 six days of work for one day of rest — The Brazilian shorthand for the working pattern the amendment ends.
2 October 2026
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has designated Embrapa Florestas a Reference Center for Planted Forests, the first such FAO centre for planted forests anywhere in the world. Rome carried the announcement: it was made at FAO headquarters while the 28th Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry was sitting alongside the 10th World Forest Week. Embrapa Florestas is the forestry arm of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Company, Embrapa. Reference Centres work with FAO by sharing knowledge, technical advice, data, research, training and technology transfer with the organisation and its member states. Embrapa Florestas is expected to work on productive, resilient and low-carbon planted forests built into farming systems. Its listed fields include silviculture and sustainable forest management, genetic improvement, forest health and biological pest control, carbon metrics and the forest bioeconomy. FAO's 2025 data put planted forests at about 304 million hectares worldwide, 157 million of them intensive plantations. Embrapa President Silvia Massruha called the designation a seal of excellence built on nearly 50 years of forestry research.
Designation:
Reference Center for Planted Forests
First in the world:
Yes, for planted forests
Announced at:
28th Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry, Rome
Embrapa President:
Silvia Massruha
Planted forests worldwide:
about 304 million hectares
Why it matters for exams: Embrapa, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Company, now holds FAO's first Reference Center for Planted Forests, announced at the 28th Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry in Rome.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Embrapa Brazilian Agricultural Research Company — Brazil's public agricultural research corporation; Embrapa Florestas is its forestry unit.
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations — The UN agency for food and agriculture, with headquarters in Rome.
26 October 2026
The Tropical Forest Forever Facility, the international financing mechanism conceived by Brazil and launched at the 30th UN Climate Change Conference in Belem in 2025, has drawn a fresh pledge of USD 500 million, announced on Monday by the Dutch government and to be paid out over ten years. With it the Netherlands joins a coalition that already includes Brazil, Norway, Luxembourg, Indonesia, Germany, France, Portugal and the United Kingdom. The fund works by selling securities that pay investors fixed, stable interest, while countries that keep and restore standing forest are rewarded. Payments are released only after satellite imagery confirms that deforestation has stayed below set thresholds. At least 20 per cent of each country's payment is to go to indigenous peoples and traditional communities, who protect forests directly. Its designers reckon the facility could protect more than 1 billion hectares of forest across more than 70 countries. Its fundraising goal stands at USD 125 billion or more: governments are to put up USD 25 billion, while the remaining USD 100 billion is to be sought from private investors.
New pledge:
USD 500 million
Spread over:
10 years
Fundraising goal:
at least USD 125 billion
Share for indigenous and traditional communities:
at least 20 per cent
Forest it could protect:
more than 1 billion hectares
Why it matters for exams: The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) is Brazil's own forest finance mechanism, launched at COP30 in Belem, and it reserves at least 20 per cent of national payments for indigenous peoples and traditional communities.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
TFFF Tropical Forest Forever Facility — A fund conceived by Brazil that pays countries for keeping tropical forest standing.
Background
Brazil's exports to the European Union rose 21 per cent in the first five months of the Mercosur-EU agreement, so it is worth knowing the bloc Brazil negotiated through. The Common Market of the South, Mercosur, was created on 26 March 1991 with the signing of the Treaty of Asuncion by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Its stated aims include a zone for the free circulation of goods and services, a Common External Tariff known as the TEC, the coordination of international and macroeconomic policy, and the harmonisation of national laws in specific sectors. The institutional structure was defined by the Ouro Preto Protocol in 1994, which set up six organs: the Council of the Common Market, the Common Market Group, the Mercosur Trade Commission, a Joint Parliamentary Commission, an Economic and Social Consultative Forum, and an Administrative Secretariat. The Mercosur Trade Commission is the technical body that manages the common trade policy instruments, including competition questions, through its Technical Committee No 5 on Competition Defense.
Founding treaty:
Treaty of Asuncion
Founding members:
Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay
Institutional structure:
Ouro Preto Protocol
Shared tariff:
Common External Tariff (TEC)
Why it matters for exams: Mercosur, the Common Market of the South, was created by the Treaty of Asuncion signed by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and its institutions come from the Ouro Preto Protocol.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
TEC Common External Tariff — The single tariff Mercosur members apply to imports from outside the bloc.
Background
The MapBiomas mapping covers only the Brazilian share of the Amazon, but the basin is shared, and the body that holds its countries together is the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization. ACTO is an intergovernmental organisation of the eight Amazonian countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. It rests on the Amazon Cooperation Treaty, signed in 1978 and described by the organisation as the first international agreement aimed at the joint protection and development of the Amazon. The treaty was institutionally strengthened in 1998 with the creation of ACTO itself. Since 2003 its Permanent Secretariat has been based in Brasilia, coordinating regional action. ACTO launched the Amazon Regional Observatory in 2021, and its recent political mandates were set out in the Belem Declaration of 2023 and the Bogota Declaration of 2025. Its stated mission is cooperation, integration and sustainable development across the eight countries, balancing conservation, development and social inclusion.
Members:
Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela
Treaty signed:
1978
ACTO established:
1998
Permanent Secretariat:
Brasilia, since 2003
Why it matters for exams: The Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), created in 1998 from the 1978 Amazon Cooperation Treaty, has eight member countries and keeps its Permanent Secretariat in Brasilia.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
ACTO Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization — The intergovernmental body of the eight Amazonian countries, seated in Brasilia.