A Roman Catholic priest who floated off under hundreds of helium party balloons was missing on Monday off the southern coast of Brazil. Rescuers in helicopters and small fishing boats were searching off the coast of Santa Catarina state, where pieces of balloons were found.
An unprecedented wave of attacks by a notorious drug gang in South America’s largest city, São Paulo, entered into its fourth day on Monday, with reports of at least 20 more killings that raised the death toll to more than 70. Masked gang members hurled grenades at police stations and sprayed them with automatic weapons over the weekend.
South American nations will have to choose whether they want continental unity or individual trade agreements with the United States — but not both, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said on Wednesday. ”You either have one or the other … they’re like oil and water,” Chávez said.
Thieves spent three months tunneling under a busy city avenue in northeastern Brazil to break into a Central Bank vault and pull off one of the world’s biggest heists. The robbery netted 156-million reals (,8-million) from a vault at the Central Bank in the city of Fortaleza, 2 500km northeast of São Paulo.