Page 11 - ATD 03OCT,2015

WORLD NEWS A11
Saturday 3 October 2015

Brazil president shuffles Cabinet, combines ministries

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff announces reforms at Planalto Minister Joaquim Levy, implemented,” said Lucia- cabinet post, Rousseff was
which is battling a reces- no Dias, an analyst at the seeking to ensure the par-
presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, Oct. 2, 2015. sion. Brasilia-based Institute of ty’s support for the fiscal re-
She said Defense Minister Political Studies. forms and block the efforts
Rousseff announced she’s closing eight government ministries, Jacques Wagner will be- In addition to consolidat- of some congressmen to
come her chief of staff. ing ministries, Rousseff an- initiate impeachment pro-
where about 3,000 work. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) He’s believed to have bet- nounced a 10 percent cut ceedings.
ter relations with lawmak- in ministers’ salaries, a 20 The PMDB is Brazil’s largest
STAN LEHMAN troduce fiscal reforms. The ers than outgoing Aloizio percent cut in ministry ex- party and it controls both
Associated Press changes also appear to Mercadante, who was penses, the elimination of houses of Congress. It has
SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil- be aimed at countering ef- shifted to education minis- 3,000 positions and spend- been the glue that’s held
ian President Dilma Rous- forts to impeach her. ter. ing limits on telephone calls together the ruling coali-
seff reduced the size of While the Cabinet was Wagner is a former gover- and travel. tion led by Rousseff’s Work-
her Cabinet on Friday and slimmed to 31 members nor the northeastern state The government has esti- ers’ Party since 2003.
announced spending cuts from 39, Rousseff made no of Bahia and a close ally mated that the measures Rousseff appointed PMDB
to shore up support for her changes to the economic of Rousseff’s predecessor will save about $50 million, congressman Marcelo
government’s efforts to in- team headed by Finance and mentor former Presi- a tiny sliver of the budget Castro to head the health
dent Luiz Inacio Lula da Rousseff submitted a bud- ministry, which has the
Silva. get to Congress in August highest budget in the fed-
“It is almost certain this will with a built-in deficit of eral administration. He re-
stop any impeachment about $10 billion. placed Arthur Chioro of
process in the short run, By giving the Democratic the Worker’s Party. “Rous-
but we have to check how Movement Party, known seff is desperate to stop an
well those reforms will be as the PMDB, a seventh impeachment process.q

Guatemala mudslide kills at least 9

SONIA PEREZ D. The man pulled alive from
Associated Press the wreckage, Rony Pu, 23,
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — A was rescued from a home
rain-sodden hillside hun- near the edge of mudflow.
dreds of feet tall collapsed At its center, the landslide
onto a neighborhood on buried houses under a
the outskirts of Guatema- layer of rocks and earth as
la’s capital, killing at least much as 50 feet (15 me-
nine people and leaving ters) deep. Raul Rodas,
dozens more missing. an assistant village mayor,
Rescue workers used shov- said about 150 families had
els and backhoes in a des- lived in the area where the
perate effort to reach sur- mudslide occurred, but
vivors Friday, pulling one didn’t know how many
man alive from the rubble might be trapped. Julio
of his collapsed home Sanchez, spokesman for
more than 15 hours after the Guatemala’s volunteer
the landslide hit late Thurs- firefighters, said 36 people
day. were injured and taken to
The hill that towers over the hospitals, while the nine
village of Cambray, about dead were carried to an
10 miles (15 kilometers) improvised morgue where
east of Guatemala City, weeping relatives identi-
partly collapsed onto a fied their bodies. Sanchez
200-foot (60-meter) stretch said the dead included
of the hamlet just before Quani Bonilla, 18, who
midnight, burying an esti- played on the national
mated 68 homes. squash team.q