The Brazilian judge planning to question former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva this week in the vast Petrobras corruption scandal urged protesters to stay away from the courthouse where the two are due to meet.

Brazil's corruption crisis struck the heart of President Michel Temer's government Tuesday with the opening of probes into up to nine ministers and scores of lawmakers.

What Brazilian media called "the bomb" and even "the atomic bomb" landed when the Supreme Court authorized probes against 108 politicians in the already giant "Car Wash" investigation.

Brazil has sternly criticized Israel's approval for renewed large-scale settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

Tens of thousands of Brazilians returned to the streets Friday to protest reforms backed by President Michel Temer's conservative government.

The fallout from Brazil's rotten meat scandal accelerated Monday when China, a huge client, suspended imports and the European Union demanded a partial ban.

Another ban on Brazilian meat imposed by Chile sparked fears of a trade spat between the two South American partners.

Brazil's prosecutor general sought Tuesday to open probes against scores of politicians in a dramatic widening of an already vast graft scandal shaking Latin America's biggest country.

Although the names of those being targeted remained sealed, Brazilian media quoted anonymous sources confirming expectations that the list contained a Who's Who of the political elite.

Six months after her humiliating departure from Brazil's presidency following an impeachment trial, Dilma Rousseff is contemplating her political future.

During an exclusive interview with AFP, she appeared more relaxed than she was during August's emotional impeachment spectacle.

In the face of pending corruption allegations likened to a ticking bomb, Brazilian President Michel Temer is building himself a bunker.

An embezzlement and bribery probe called Operation Car Wash has already shaken high level Brazilian politics for almost three years. But far from winding down, it's expected soon to escalate.

At least three inmates were brutally executed and decapitated Saturday in a prison in Brazil's north, just days after 100 detainees died in prisons during gang-related bloodletting, officials said.

The violence erupted at the Alcacuz correctional center, the biggest in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, when members of one gang were able to storm into another where rival gang members were held.

A UN rights committee said Thursday it will study a petition filed by Brazil's embattled former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva claiming the country's courts violated his rights over a huge corruption scandal.

"I can confirm that the UN Human Rights Committee has formally registered a petition submitted by the former president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva," said Elizabeth Throssell, a spokeswoman at the United Nations human rights office.