Brazil president vetoes bill limiting Indigenous land claims

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will partially veto a bill that restricts Indigenous groups’ claims to ancestral lands, overriding Congress’s recent approval of the legislation. The president’s veto will reject a core stipulation of the bill that only recognized Indigenous peoples’ right to claim territories they occupied or disputed legally in October 1988. The land rights legislation is seen as an attempt to counteract Lula’s efforts to protect the environment and Indigenous land.