RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - President Michel Temer is reiterating Brazil's support for the Paris climate agreement.

Temer said during a ceremony Monday that climate change was "a real problem" that had to be tackled.

In his words, the effects of climate change "have already been felt in the world and in Brazil."

Brazil's President Michel Temer, right, smiles during a ceremony marking World Environment Day at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, June 5, 2017. Temer signed a decree making the Paris Agreement on Climate Change part of Brazilian legislation, however, Brazil is considering measures that would roll back environmental protections that would make it difficult to meet its Paris climate accord targets. Behind is Chamber of Deputies President Rodrigo Maia. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Temer last September ratified Brazil's participation in the accord that includes drastically reducing carbon emissions over the next decades. Brazil is home to the Amazon rain forest.

Despite the public commitment, many environmental groups argue that policy changes being pushed by Temer's government will damage the environment in Latin America's largest nation. They include opening up more land to logging and mining.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced last week that America was pulling out of the Paris agreement.</s>BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil’s top electoral court (TSE) reopened a case on Tuesday about illegal campaign funding by the Rousseff-Temer ticket that could annul their 2014 election victory and unseat President Michel Temer.

Judge Admar Gonzaga reacts during a session by Brazil's electoral court taking up 2014 case that could unseat President Michel Temer, in Brasilia, Brazil, June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

Temer’s opponents see a court ruling as a way out of a political crisis set off by corruption allegations leveled against the center-right leader, but a decision could take weeks if not months and can be appealed by Temer.

The case was postponed in April to allow for new evidence arising from Brazil’s biggest ever corruption scandal involving billions of dollars in kickbacks paid by companies to scores of politicians and government officials.

The court’s decision is key to deciding the political future of Brazil, where the prospect of having a second president ousted in one year has generated political volatility. The uncertainty has weakened the Brazilian currency, stocks and bonds in recent days.

Temer was the running mate of leftist President Dilma Rousseff and replaced her when she was impeached last year.

If Temer is removed from office, lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia would take over and Congress would have 30 days to pick a caretaker to lead the country until elections in late 2018.

Left-wing parties are calling for early general elections for Brazilians to pick a new president directly.

If Temer is found guilty, he is expected to appeal, which could delay the process for months. The government would likely destabilize and prompt members of his coalition to withdraw their support, increasing chances he could be forced to resign.

The main ally in Temer’s governing coalition, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), is waiting for the court ruling to decide whether to abandon Temer’s government, which would sink his fiscal reform agenda.

The electoral court had been expected to blame Rousseff and absolve Temer, but that is now unlikely due to recent plea-bargain testimony by executives of giant meatpacker JBS SA (JBSS3.SA) and engineering group Odebrecht who alleged they gave illegal funds to his campaign.

Temer has refused to resign since the Supreme Court late last month authorized an investigation against him for alleged corruption, racketeering and obstruction of justice.

The investigation is based in part on a secret recording of a conversation with a JBS executive in which Temer appeared to agree to the payment of hush money to silence a key witness in a massive graft scandal.

The political crisis engulfing Temer’s government deepened on Saturday with the arrest of a close aide, former lawmaker Rocha Loures, who was seen in a police video receiving a bag filled with 500,000 reais ($152,000) in cash.

The Supreme Court has given Temer until Friday to answers questions by federal police on his conversation with the JBS executive and whether Loures was a middleman.

Temer’s political standing took another blow on Tuesday with the arrest of his former minister of tourism, Henrique Eduardo Alves, for suspected graft in the building of a soccer stadium in northeastern Brazil for the 2014 World Cup.</s>Brasilia: Brazil's Superior Electoral Court has resumed a trial into allegations that the successful 2014 presidential election campaign that took Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer to power was financed illegally.

The President of the Court, Gilmar Mendes, on Tuesday declared the hearing open, in proceedings that could lead to the removal of embattled President Michel Temer from office, Efe news reported.

The trial, which began in April but had been delayed, has resumed with Temer facing separate corruption allegations.

He was also being investigated by the Supreme Court for alleged crimes of passive corruption, obstruction of justice and illicit association.

The trial began only hours after Temer's ally and former cabinet Minister Henrique Eduardo Alves was detained on suspicion of graft in connection with the 2014 World Cup.

The hearing was expected to last three days, and would look into funds that Rousseff and Temer's campaign received from companies involved in the scandals uncovered at state-owned energy giant Petrobras.

Temer and Rousseff were presenting their defences separately.

Former President Rousseff was impeached in 2016 on charges of misconduct in relation to the federal budget, with her Vice President Michel Temer replacing her after playing a key role in her removal from office.

Both of the accused have called for the annulment of the trial due to lack of evidence.

Temer's lawyers have also demanded that the campaign accounts of both Rousseff and Temer be judged and investigated separately.

They claim that each was responsible for their own collection of campaign donations and funds, denying that there were any fraudulent donations to the current president.

Temer has promised to appeal if found guilty by the electoral court.

If Temer was removed from office, Congress would have to elect his successor within 30 days, with Speaker Rodrigo Maia taking over in the interim.</s>SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – Security around the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) building in Brasilia is being reinforced for the start of the trial that seeks the annulment of the 2014 Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer presidential ticket. This is the first time that a Brazilian court examines a request for annulment of a presidential election result.

The results of the 2014 presidential elections are being questioned by the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democrat Party) that allege there were some irregularities in the winning ticket’s donations, including suspicion that the Rousseff-Temer campaign received funds from the mega-corruption scheme dubbed Operação Lava Jato (Carwash Operation). If irregularities are found to be true, President Michel Temer could be ousted from the Presidency.

According to the PSDB the Rousseff-Temer presidential campaign is guilty of abuse of political and economic power, obtaining campaign donations from companies involved in the Lava Jato scheme and bribing Petrobras executives for contract benefits. Executives from the state-owned oil giant were charged and convicted of receiving millions of dollars from construction and logistics companies for contracts.

Rousseff and Temer are presenting separate and distinct defenses. The defense of former president, Dilma Rousseff, impeached last year for mismanagement of funds, denies any irregularity and maintains that the entire campaign funding was documented and monitored. The defense of President Michel Temer states that the PMDB election campaign has no relation to suspicious activities.

If the Rousseff-Temer ticket is annulled, the Brazilian Constitution states that, after half of the presidential term, if the positions of president and vice-president become vacant, Congress must choose the new representative.

Over the weekend protests in cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo rejected the option of having Congress choose a new leadership if the 2014 results are annulled. Demonstrators called for new presidential elections to be held instead.</s>Brazil's top electoral court (TSE) will start the trial on Tuesday about illegal campaign funding by the Rousseff-Temer ticket that could annul their 2014 election victory and unseat President Michel Temer.

BRASILIA: Judges on Brazil's top electoral court will start deciding on Wednesday whether President Michel Temer received illegal campaign funding in 2014, which could lead to his removal from office.

Temer's opponents see a ruling by the court, called TSE, as a way out of the political crisis set off by corruption allegations levelled against the centre-right leader, but a decision could take weeks if not months and can be appealed by Temer.

The case was postponed in April to allow for new evidence arising from Brazil's biggest ever corruption scandal involving billions of dollars in kickbacks paid by companies to scores of politicians and government officials.

The court's decision is key to deciding the political future of Brazil where the prospect of having a second president ousted in one year has generated uncertainty and weakened the Brazilian currency, stocks and bonds in recent days.

Temer, who was the running mate of leftist President Dilma Rousseff and replaced her when she was impeached last year, has said his campaign accounts received no illegal money.

If Temer is removed from office, lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia would take over and Congress would have 30 days to pick a caretaker to lead the country until elections in late 2018.

If Temer is found guilty, he is expected to appeal, which could delay the process for months.

The main ally in Temer's governing coalition, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), is waiting for the court ruling to decide whether to abandon Temer's government, which would sink his fiscal reform agenda.

The case was filed in 2014 by the PSDB after it lost the election to Rousseff. In final arguments, lawyers for the PSDB called for Rousseff to be condemned but that Temer be absolved.

The electoral court had been expected to blame Rousseff and let off Temer, but that is now unlikely due to recent plea-bargain testimony by executives of giant meatpacker JBS SA and engineering group Odebrecht who alleged they gave illegal funds to his campaign.

Federal prosecutor Nicolao Dino said Odebrecht paid 35 million reais (8.3 million pounds) in illegal contributions to the Rousseff-Temer campaign and called on the court to annul the ticket.

Temer's lawyers argued that plea bargain testimonies where insufficient evidence and the case could not be extended to target the current president.

Temer has refused to resign since the Supreme Court late last month authorized an investigation against him for alleged corruption, racketeering and obstruction of justice.

The investigation is based in part on a secret recording of a conversation with a JBS executive in which Temer appeared to agree to the payment of hush money to silence a key witness in a massive graft scandal. Temer has denied any wrongdoing.

The political crisis engulfing Temer's government deepened on Saturday with the arrest of a close aide, former lawmaker Rocha Loures, who was seen in a police video receiving a bag filled with 500,000 reais in cash.

The Supreme Court has given Temer until Friday to answers questions by federal police on his conversation with the JBS executive and whether Loures was a middleman.

Temer's political standing took another blow on Tuesday with the arrest of his former minister of tourism, Henrique Eduardo Alves, for suspected graft in the building of a soccer stadium in northeastern Brazil for the 2014 World Cup.</s>Brazil's top electoral court (TSE) will start the trial on Tuesday about illegal campaign funding by the Rousseff-Temer ticket that could annul their 2014 election victory and unseat President Michel Temer.

BRASILIA: Brazil's top electoral court (TSE) will start the trial on Tuesday about illegal campaign funding by the Rousseff-Temer ticket that could annul their 2014 election victory and unseat President Michel Temer.

The centre leader's opponents see a court ruling as a way out of the political crisis set off by corruption allegations levelled against him, but a decision could take weeks if not months and can be appealed by Temer.

The court's decision is key to deciding the political future of Brazil, where the prospect of having a second president ousted in one year has generated political volatility. The uncertainty has weakened the real currency against the dollar and depressed stocks on the Sao Paulo bourse in recent days.

Temer was the running mate of leftist President Dilma Rousseff and replaced her when she was impeached last year.

If he is removed from office, lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia would take over from Temer and Congress would have 30 days to pick a caretaker to lead the country until elections in late 2018.

Left-wing parties are calling for early general elections for Brazilians to pick a new president directly.

If Temer is found guilty, he is expected to appeal which could delay the process for months. The government would likely destabilize and prompt members of his coalition to withdraw their support, increasing chances he could be forced to resign.

The main ally in his governing coalition, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), is waiting for the court ruling to decide whether to abandon Temer's government, which would sink his fiscal reform agenda.

The electoral court had been expected to blame Rousseff and absolve Temer, but that is now unlikely due to recent plea-bargain testimony by executives of giant meatpacker JBS SA who alleged they gave illegal funds to his campaign.

Temer has refused to resign since the Supreme Court late last month authorized an investigation against him for alleged corruption, racketeering and obstruction of justice.

The investigation is based in part on a secret recording of a conversation with a JBS executive in which Temer appeared to agree to the payment of hush money to silence a key witness in a massive graft scandal.

The political crisis engulfing Temer's government deepened on Saturday with the arrest of a close aide who was seen in a police video receiving a bag filled with 500,000 reais (US$152,000) in cash.</s>Brazil's top electoral court started deciding Tuesday evening whether embattled President Michel Temer should be pushed out of office over allegations of illegal campaign financing in the 2014 presidential election.

 

 The session opened with Judge Herman Benjamin, the special investigator in the case, starting to read his findings. The hearing was expected to take three days, and there is no deadline for a final ruling of the seven electoral judges.

 

 The suit was brought after the election by the right-leaning Brazilian Social Democracy Party, whose presidential candidate, Aecio Neves, lost to the ticket of then President Dilma Rousseff and Temer as her vice presidential running mate. Ironically, the party has been a key ally of Temer since he took over the presidency after Rousseff was suspended and then impeached last year.

 

 If the court decides the Rousseff-Temer ticket did receive illegal campaign financing, as several plea bargains have suggested, Temer mandate would be annulled and Congress would have to pick some to serve out his term through December 2018. However, the career politician whose popularity is hovering around 8 percent has said he would appeal.

 

 Rousseff claims innocence as does Temer, who argues that his team was not responsible for the fundraising of the ticket.

If Temer is eventually pushed out of the presidency by the court, or decides to resign, Chamber of Deputies Speaker Rodrigo Maia would take over for 30 days while Congress voted in a new leader.

 

 The electoral court scheduled more sessions for Wednesday and Thursday, but those could be postponed if any of the seven judges asks to review the case.

 

 Mauricio Santoro, a political analyst at Rio de Janeiro State University, said he expects the court to postpone the decision or find a way to separate Temer from Rousseff's ticket.

 

 "Temer has built a coalition of supporters in the Supreme Electoral Court under the argument that people may not like him, but there's no consensus about who his successor should be,'' Santoro said.

 

 Horus before the trial began, Temer's political situation deteriorated further with the arrest of a former tourism minister and close ally. Henrique Eduardo Alves was taken into custody on allegations of corruption related to the construction of a 2014 World Cup stadium in Natal.

 

 Globo News captured images of Alves being arrested by federal police. Officials held a news conference later at which they laid out allegations that Alves and Fred Queiroz, Natal's secretary of public works, received bribes from major construction companies.

 

 Alves, a former speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, was tourism minister under both Rousseff and Temer, who assumed the presidency last year when Rousseff was removed for illegally managing the federal budget. Alves gave up the Cabinet post soon after Temer took power in May 2016.

 

 His arrest came just a day after federal police sent Temer a list of questions in a separate criminal probe that involves the president. He had 24 hours to answer the questions, but his lawyers got an extension until Friday afternoon.

 

 Last month, a recording emerged that apparently captured Temer endorsing the payment of hush money to former Chamber of Deputies Speaker Eduardo Cunha, another former ally. Cunha is serving a 15-year prison sentence for corruption and money laundering.

 

 Temer has denied wrongdoing and has vowed to stay in office in the face of increasing calls for him to step down.

 

 "Temer is hanging on by the skin of his teeth,'' said David Fleischer, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Brasilia.

 

 Also on Tuesday, Brazil's top court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal, rejected a petition by Rodrigo Rocha Loures, a former Temer aide, to be released from jail.

 

 Loures was arrested over the weekend for allegedly helping to pay off Cunha. Police released video that apparently showed Loures carrying a suitcase filled with $154,000. Should he reach a plea bargain, his testimony could further implicate Temer.</s>At issue is whether the 2014 campaign of Temer, then vice-president, and former president Dilma Rousseff received illegal financing. If the court finds it did, Temer could be removed from office, adding further to the country’s corruption-fueled political turmoil.

The ruling on revelations from recent plea bargains would be a strong indication of how the court is leaning, and Wednesday’s testy debate showed sharp divisions between the judges who appear to favour accepting the damaging revelations and those who oppose. The latter camp includes Superior Electoral Tribunal President Gilmar Mendes, who has called the president whose political fate he is deciding “a friend of decades.”

RIO DE JANEIRO—Judges on Brazil’s top electoral court argued on Wednesday whether to accept new evidence of alleged illegal campaign contributions that stem from a sweeping probe of graft in Latin America’s largest nation as they consider a case that could force President Michel Temer from office.

Defence attorneys argue that evidence in the case was submitted long ago, and say the court shouldn’t be able to consider new revelations that emerged from plea bargains by 77 executives at the huge construction company Odebrecht, one of the businesses at the centre of a sprawling investigation into kickbacks and bribes at the state-run oil company Petrobras.

The testimony describes myriad details of alleged bribes to many politicians as well as millions of dollars of illegal money that allegedly went into the coffers of the Rousseff-Temer ticket.

Judge Herman Benjamin, who was named by the court to examine the case, argued that the plea bargains were a crucial part of the investigation. Meanwhile Mendes, who in the past has sided with politicians facing legal troubles, called Benjamin’s arguments “fallacious.”

Both Rousseff, 69, and Temer, 76, have denied wrongdoing. The current president has vowed to continue in office despite many calls for him to resign and approval ratings around 8 per cent.

If at least four of the seven judges vote to allow the testimonies, Temer would be one step closer to being pushed out of office, following the path of Rousseff, who was impeached and removed last year for illegally managing the government’s budget.

If the court rules against them, Rousseff could lose her right to hold office for eight years.

The trial was expected to take at least three days, and there is no deadline for a final ruling. It is the first time in Brazil’s history that a sitting president has risked having the job taken away by the electoral court.

The suit was brought after the 2014 election by the right-leaning Brazilian Social Democracy Party, whose presidential candidate, Aecio Neves, lost to the Rousseff-Temer ticket.

Ironically, the party has been a key ally of Temer since he replaced Rousseff.

If the court decides against the Rousseff-Temer ticket, Temer’s mandate would be annulled and Congress would have to pick someone to serve out his term through December 2018. The embattled president has said he would appeal.

If Temer should be forced from the presidency by the court, or decided to resign, Chamber of Deputies Speaker Rodrigo Maia would take over for 30 days while Congress votes in a new leader.</s>BRASÍLIA—Brazil’s top electoral court agreed Wednesday to extend a trial that could cancel the results of the 2014 presidential election and oust President Michel Temer to Friday or even into the weekend after a dispute over the admission of recently uncovered evidence.

Mr. Temer and former President Dilma Rousseff, who won the election with Mr. Temer as her running mate, are under investigation for allegedly funding their campaign using proceeds from a vast corruption scheme at oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, or...</s>Brazil's top electoral court on Wednesday was split over whether to allow new evidence in plea-bargain testimony from construction company Odebrecht in an illegal campaign funding case that could lead to President Michel Temer leaving office.

The issue delayed proceedings on the second day of sessions by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which adjourned until Thursday without voting on whether to annul Temer's ticket in the 2014 election for allegedly receiving under-the-table donations.

Temer opponents expect a TSE ruling against the president to force him from office and help Brazil exit a political crisis stoked by graft allegations against the center-right leader. A TSE decision could take weeks if not months and could be appealed by Temer.

The judge tasked with spearheading the case, Herman Benjamin, said the additional evidence in plea bargain testimony by Odebrecht executives was crucial to determine whether former president Dilma Rousseff and her running mate Temer used illicit funds in their 2014 campaign.

Benjamin, who is expected to vote to annul the ticket and its 2014 election victory, said Odebrecht was the "biggest parasite" among the companies accused of paying billions in kickbacks from overpriced contracts with state-run oil company Petrobras.

But Judge Napoleo Nunes Maia said he would oppose use of the extra plea statements as evidence, arguing that the case would never end if it continued to add information from the avalanche of testimonies in the so-called Car Wash probe.

Temer, who replaced Rousseff when she was impeached last year, has said his campaign accounts received no illegal money.

The defense team of both Temer and Rousseff requested the testimony be scrapped, arguing that it went beyond the scope of the original complaint filed by the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) after it lost the 2014 election. The PSDB's own candidate in that race, Aecio Neves, has since been charged for graft himself, accused of taking millions in bribes from the world's largest meatpacker, JBS SA.

In plea-bargain testimony given in Brazil's sprawling Car Wash graft investigation, Odebrecht executives said the company channeled millions of dollars to the Rousseff-Temer campaign in illegal donations.

If the seven-justice tribunal decides that Rousseff and Temer used illegal money to fund their campaign, it could annul the election result and force Temer from office.

If Temer is removed from office, lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia would take over and Congress would have 30 days to pick a caretaker to lead the country until elections in late 2018.
Brazil's Superior Electoral Court reopens the illegal campaign funding case against President Michel Temer, who was the vice presidential candidate on former President Dilma Rousseff's ticket in 2014. Temer became president in August 2016 when Rousseff was impeached, and could be unseated if the court annuls the Rousseff–Temer election victory.