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. 

Brazilian ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hinted strongly at seeking a return to power Monday in a fiery speech that dismissed corruption charges against him as persecution.

Lula, who was massively popular when he left office in 2010 and remains a giant of the Latin American left, was campaigning in western Rio de Janeiro on behalf of Jandira Feghali, a communist candidate running for mayor in local elections next Sunday.

Brazil's former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday slammed as a "farce" his pending prosecution for allegedly masterminding the large-scale plundering of the state oil giant Petrobras.

"I am sad because I just learned (Judge Sergio) Moro accepted the charge lodged, even though it is all a farce, a huge lie," the ex-president said from Brazil by videoconference to New York, where his lawyers held a solidarity event for him.

Eduardo Cunha, Brazil's scandal-plagued former congressional speaker who spearheaded the drive to remove president Dilma Rousseff from office, could be stripped of his seat Monday if his peers vote him out.

Cunha, who is often compared to the dark, manipulative hero Frank Underwood of the hit Netflix series "House of Cards," used his position as speaker of the lower house to put Rousseff on an unstoppable path to impeachment.

Michel Temer expects to become Brazil's full president if his rival Dilma Rousseff gets impeached this week. If he trips up, the country will fall deeper into crisis, analysts warn.

Here are some of the economic, political, social and legal challenges facing him if he secures the job of dragging Latin America's biggest economy out of recession.