Clashes between inmates killed 15 people at a jail in Amazonas state in northern Brazil on Sunday, the regional prison authority said.

Standing among sacks of used supermarket shopping bags, soft drink bottles and detergent containers, Evelin Marcele is scornful of Brazil's efforts to recycle plastic waste.

Gunmen killed at least 11 people in a bar in northern Brazil on Sunday, officials said.

A Brazilian appeals court on Wednesday ordered former president Michel Temer back to jail, an official said, weeks after the 78-year-old was freed by another judge.  

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday cancelled plans to attend a New York gala in his honor after several companies withdrew their sponsorship and thousands of people demanded it be scrapped.

The gala, organized by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce for May 14, had attracted widespread criticism over the far-right president's record, with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio describing Bolsonaro as "a dangerous man".

A Brazilian appeals court on Tuesday reduced leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's 12-year sentence for bribery and money laundering.

In a unanimous decision, the four judges on the Superior Court of Justice panel hearing Lula's appeal agreed to uphold his conviction, but cut the sentence to eight years and 10 months. 

The administration of President Jair Bolsonaro is considering a dramatic change in the council that oversees Brazil's environmental policy, replacing a broad-based panel of independent voices with a small group of political appointees, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Activists say they fear the move, which reflects Bolsonaro's oft-stated skepticism about environmental organizations, could lead to more deforestation and less oversight in the nation that holds about 60% of the vast Amazon rainforest, which scientists see as crucial for efforts to slow global warming and for the world climate systems.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro arrived in Israel on Sunday just ahead of the country's polls in which his ally Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a tough re-election fight.

Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday ordered the armed forces to hold "appropriate commemorations" of the March 1964 military coup -- while denying it was a coup.

Brazil is going through a rudderless period as President Jair Bolsonaro lies in a hospital bed following stomach surgery, with high-priority political issues such as pension reform on the backburner until he recovers, analysts and observers say.

The limbo, which has lasted more than two weeks, might finally be coming to an end this week, according to reports.