Amid joblessness, austerity, scandal, Brazil struggles to keep it together

Country's GDP shrunk by 3.8% in 2015 and over 3% in 2016

As if 134 deaths in a two-week rash of prison riots were not dramatic enough for Brazil, on January 19 a plane crash killed Teori Zavascki, the Supreme Court justice overseeing a high-profile nation-wide corruption case known as Operation Carwash, which has incriminated the upper echelons of national politics.

Brazil, as the saying goes, is not for amateurs. That’s long been true of South America’s most populous nation and biggest economy, which has seen many ups and downs since toppling its military dictatorship in 1985 – including prior