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/ 22 October 2007
The McLaren Mercedes-Benz Formula One team said on Sunday night they were ready to appeal against a stewards’ decision at the Brazilian Grand Prix, keeping alive Briton Lewis Hamilton’s title dream. The announcement followed the stewards’ decision not to punish the BMW Sauber and Williams teams for using allegedly irregular fuel.
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/ 18 October 2007
World championship leader Lewis Hamilton this week rested at his hotel ahead of the weekend’s Formula One world title showdown, knowing he will need all his energy and focus to emerge triumphant from a three-way battle for glory. As the sprawling city of São Paulo buzzed with anticipation, the 22-year-old Briton and his main rival, Fernando Alonso, kept a low profile.
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/ 15 October 2007
Brazilian and Argentinian palaeontologists have discovered the largely complete fossil of a new species of giant dinosaur that roamed what is now northern Patagonia about 80-million years ago. The herbivorous Futalognkosaurus dukei measured between 32m and 34m from head to tail.
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/ 28 September 2007
Brazil’s march to the final of the Women’s Soccer World Cup final in China is doing far more than just helping the growth of the sport in the South American country where it was once banned by law. A stellar performance by Marta saw Brazil demolish tournament favourites the United States 4-0 in the semifinal on Thursday.
At least eight people were killed and more than 100 injured when a packed passenger train ploughed into a slow-moving train on Thursday in a northern suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Officials said the death toll could go higher. ”It is a tragedy,” said fire department chief Pedro Marcos.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Monday launched a massive, -billion initiative to tackle high levels of violence in a country that records more than 40 000 homicides per year. The Citizens’ National Security Programme is a five-year plan that primarily targets juvenile delinquents.
A lever to control engine speed was in the wrong position and probably a major case of a Brazil’s worst air accident last month, according to flight-recorder data cited by a newspaper on Wednesday. An Airbus A320 operated by Brazilian carrier TAM Linhas Aereas barrelled off the wet runway upon landing at Congonhas airport in São Paulo on July 17.
The light from the cellphone screens allowed surgeons to complete an emergency appendix operation during a blackout in a city in central Argentina, reports said on Saturday. Leonardo Molina (29) was on the operating table on July 21, when the power went out in the Policlinico Juan D Peron, the main hospital in Villa Mercedes.
Old habits die hard and that’s certainly the case for former triple Formula One champion Nelson Piquet, who has lost his driving licence for repeated speeding offences. As punishment the 54-year-old Brazilian has had to suffer the indignity of being sent back to school to brush up on the rules of the road.
Brazil descended again into air chaos on Wednesday after the nation’s number-one airline cancelled dozens of flights to and from the country’s busiest airport, causing a ripple effect nationwide that stranded thousands and sent tempers flaring. On Tuesday, ticket purchases were halted at São Paulo’s Conghonas airport.
Brazil’s deadliest air disaster provoked anger over safety conditions in the aviation sector as rescuers on Thursday pulled more bodies from the burned-out wreckage. All 186 passengers and crew aboard the Airbus 320 were believed to have been killed in Tuesday’s fiery crash at São Paulo’s Cagonhas airport, along with a number of people on the ground.
Lack of infrastructure in the Pan American Games venues upset fans in the first two days of competition. Traffic jams and difficulties buying food and finding bathrooms inside the venues prompted about 100 fans to protest to organisers on Friday. ”We want to eat! We want to eat!” they chanted at the Riocentro complex.
Juan Roman Riquelme scored two second-half goals as Boca Juniors beat Gremio 2-0 away on Wednesday to win the South American Libertadores Cup. Riquelme, playing the final match of his spell on loan from Spain’s Villareal, took his tally to eight goals as the Argentines completed a 5-0 aggregate win over their Brazilian opponents in the two-leg final.
The Brazilian and Mexican governments have tentatively approved the use of genetically modified corn seed, according to a report on the Science and Development Network website. However, environmental activists are already accusing Brazil’s technical commission on biosecurity of ignoring public safety concerns.
Visiting Pope Benedict XVI’s pronouncements in favour of sexual abstinence and against abortion are falling on deaf ears in Brazil, whose government hands out free condoms to schoolboys as part of a drive to curb HIV/Aids and teenage pregnancy.
Up to a million faithful are expected to throng a São Paulo park as Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a mass to canonise Brazil’s first saint, a Franciscan monk still credited with miracle cures nearly 200 years after his death. The canonisation Mass follows close on the heels of a rally late on Thursday.
Army troops have been moved in to control access to one of Brazil’s top tourist attractions, Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer monument, after police broke up a huge embezzling scam. Federal police arrested 20 people on Thursday for allegedly embezzling $150Â 000 to $250Â 000 a month from funds tourists paid to visit the fabled landmark.
São Paulo state prosecutors on Wednesday denounced what they called degrading working conditions at facilities where ethanol is made. Brazil is a global pioneer in the alternative fuel. In a report on five plants in the Marilia region of the state, labour prosecutors found that 40% of sugar-cane cutters were victims of bad treatment.
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/ 20 February 2007
Brazil’s Carnival has always been a raucous affair and beauty queen Angela Bismarchi took it another step further on Monday night when her only item of clothing fell off mid-parade. Bismarchi quickly conjured up a thong and laughed off the incident with an old Brazilian saying: ”A well prepared woman is worth two.”
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/ 19 February 2007
Thousands of Brazilian dancers, singers and musicians kicked the annual Carnival bash into high gear on Sunday with a spectacle of floats, costumes and Latin beats. At the Sambadrome, the 13 top samba schools were grabbing the spotlight for about an hour each over two nights, featuring about 5 000 performers each.
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/ 23 January 2007
As the rich and slim flocked to waterfront convention centre for Rio de Janeiro’s glitzy biannual fashion show, prostitutes in a downtown square took to a cobblestone catwalk for a show of their own. Sex workers from Davida, a Brazilian organisation that defends the rights of prostitutes, strutted through the streets wearing their new line of fall/winter clothes.
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/ 14 January 2007
Searchers dug through tonnes of rubble on Saturday in search of as many as eight people believed buried by a construction accident at a commuter rail tunnel in South America’s biggest city, São Paulo. Officials said a passenger bus was buried at the bottom of a 40m-deep pit dug for an underground railway station.
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/ 22 November 2006
Geneticist Adil Pacheco took blood samples on Friday from three puppies in a poor neighbourhood in Passo Fundo in southern Brazil to settle a dispute over a claim they were born from a cat. ”It’s rather simple really. If the puppies prove to have 78 chromosomes, they are dogs. If they have 38, they are cats,” said Pacheco.
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/ 21 November 2006
The mayor of a small Brazilian town has begun handing out free Viagra, spicing up the sex lives of dozens of elderly men and their partners. ”Since we started the free distribution of sexual stimulants, our elderly population changed. They’re much happier,” said Joao de Souza Luz.
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/ 14 November 2006
Brazil’s Minister of Health, Agenor Ãlvares, has admitted that the public health system is imbued with racism, stirring up more controversy over policies for specific treatment plans targeting Brazilians of African descent. There are clear signs of discriminatory practices, the minister said two weeks ago in Rio de Janeiro.
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/ 6 November 2006
Brazil, home to the world’s largest rainforest, will ask rich nations to back a plan to help it slow deforestation at global climate talks this week, a senior environmental official said. The plan marks a first step toward including deforestation in global climate agreements to cut emissions of carbon.
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/ 31 October 2006
Former Brazilian national team coach Carlos Parreira admitted for the first time that he made mistakes in preparing his squad for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, in a published interview on Monday. Parreira, now the national coach of South Africa, said he regrets having taken his star-studded squad to the Swiss town of Weggis.
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/ 30 October 2006
Celebrating a landslide re-election, Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva vowed on Sunday to fight for social justice while spurring economic growth. "The poor will take precedence," the self-styled defender of the downtrodden told several thousand jubilant supporters after garnering almost 61% of the vote.
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/ 24 October 2006
Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso has played down his chances of matching the achievements of the retired Michael Schumacher. The 25-year-old Spaniard reclaimed his crown at the Brazilian Grand Prix, and in so doing, ended Schumacher’s bid to add to his record of seven drivers’ championships.
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/ 23 October 2006
Three South Africans were among four passengers in a helicopter that crash-landed in a built-up area of São Paulo, Brazil, on Sunday. ”All survived the emergency landing,” said Foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa in Pretoria on Monday. He said one of the three injured South Africans was in a critical condition in a São Paolo hospital.
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/ 22 October 2006
Fernando Alonso celebrated clinching his second drivers’ world title in his final race for Renault on Sunday with a rich tribute to his team and retiring seven-times champion Michael Schumacher. The 25-year-old Spaniard finished second behind victorious home-city hero Felipe Massa in the Brazilian Grand Prix.
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/ 22 October 2006
Michael Schumacher’s chances of retiring from Formula One with one final championship took a hit on Saturday. Schumacher’s Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa, racing in front of his home crowd, won the pole position in one minute, 10,680 seconds at the 4,3km Interlagos circuit.