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/ 19 October 2006
And then there was one. One race, this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix, the final race of the Formula One season to decide the drivers’ title between Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher. One race to determine the team crown between Renault and Ferrari. And one last race in Schumacher’s career.
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/ 18 October 2006
The chequered flag comes down on the greatest Formula One career of all on Sunday with Michael Schumacher chasing one last win and, just possibly, an unprecedented eighth title. The Ferrari ace, signing off with a string of records that may never be bettered, will fire up his engines for a final showdown with Renault’s Fernando Alonso in the Brazilian season-ender.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was battling to secure the votes needed to clinch an outright victory in Sunday’s presidential election after public disgust over corrupt politics eroded his support in the final days of campaigning. Failure by Lula to win more than 50% of the vote would mean he faces a run-off against his closest rival on October 29.
Military searchers parachuted down on Saturday to the wreckage of a Brazilian passenger plane that crashed a day earlier in remote Amazon jungle with 155 people on board. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said there was no sign of survivors. The brand-new Boeing 737-800 probably plunged into the ground nose, the head of Brazil’s airport authority Infraero said.
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/ 30 September 2006
Rescue planes found the wreckage of a Brazilian passenger jet on Saturday, a day after it disappeared with 155 people on board over the Amazon jungle, Brazil’s airport authority said. ”The plane was found. The wreckage was found,” Jose Carlos Pereira, president of the airport authority Infraero, told reporters. The crash site was found in an area of ”difficult access”, Brazil’s Globo TV reported.
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/ 30 September 2006
Rescue teams on Saturday searched for a Brazilian GOL airline Boeing 737-800 with 155 people aboard that went missing during a flight from the Amazon jungle to Brasilia, officials said. Authorities were trying to establish whether the airliner had collided with a Legacy executive jet whose pilot made an emergency landing on Friday in Cachimbo, near the area of northern Brazil where the Boeing was reported missing.
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/ 14 September 2006
The leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa solidified their ties Wednesday at a summit that highlighted the regional powers’ role as reprasentatives for the developing world. The leaders pressed for United Nations reform, urged richer nations to yield on heated trade talks and agreed to boost their cooperation on energy.
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/ 13 September 2006
The leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa met on Wednesday to discuss a trade agreement between three of the world’s most vibrant emerging economies. The meeting is the first summit of the India, Brazil and South Africa Group, or IBSA, formed in 2003, as an informal group for political consultations between the three countries.
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/ 7 September 2006
Trade ministers from 21 developing nations will try to find ways to restart talks on a global trade treaty during a weekend gathering of the Group of 20 (G20) in Rio de Janeiro. Led by Brazil and India, the group of emerging-market nations will hold two days of talks at Rio’s famous Copacabana Palace hotel.
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/ 6 September 2006
Brazil, the world’s largest ethanol exporter, and Britain want to develop the production of ethanol from sugar cane in Southern Africa, officials from both governments said on Tuesday. The move is intended to diversify cheap ethanol production globally to meet fast-growing international demand.
A street parking attendant in Brazil’s crime-ridden city of Rio de Janeiro was charged with sawing a woman in two over a parking-space dispute, police said on Wednesday. The 29-year-old male suspect was arrested on Tuesday night and confessed to murdering businesswoman Edna Souza (51) in a house she was trying to rent, a police spokesperson said.
The leader of a militant Brazilian peasant organisation says it will take to the streets to force President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva toward more social and land reform if he wins re-election in October. Joao Pedro Stedile, chief of the Landless Rural Workers Movement, said that if Lula stuck with the fiscally conservative policies he would lose his grass-roots political base.
Brazil’s 1994 World Cup-winning coach Carlos Alberto Parreira has accepted the post of South Africa coach with the task of taking Bafana Bafana through the 2010 World Cup final, it was reported on Wednesday. The 63-year-old agreed the deal with the South African Football Federation on Tuesday, according to his lawyer.
A powerful crime gang torched courthouses and threw small bombs at police stations for the third straight night in Brazil’s richest state of São Paulo on Wednesday, and the federal government offered to send in the army to quell the violence.
Former Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira said on Friday he is close to reaching an agreement to manage 2010 World Cup hosts South Africa, a deal that would mark his return to the continent after nearly 40 years. Parreira, who resigned from Brazil last week, met with officials from the South African Football Association (Safa) in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
Brazil’s tarnished crown jewel of aviation Varig fell to a United States-Brazilian investor group for a knockdown $24-million — saving the once-proud national carrier from liquidation. The new owner announced an immediate "temporary" halt to all 25 international and national flights except those between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
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Angry Brazilian football fans have destroyed a seven-metre tall statue of World Player of the Year Ronaldinho following the national team’s World Cup quarterfinal exit at the hands of France. The statue, made out of resin and iron, in the southern town of Chapeco in Santa Catarina state, was burnt overnight on Saturday, after the Selecao’s 1-0 defeat to Les Bleus
Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Saturday accepted his nomination by the leftist Worker’s Party (PT) to run for a second term in October elections. ”I’m here today to tell you that the dream has not ended and that hope has not died,” Lula (60) said at a national PT convention in Brasilia.
A Brazilian court on Friday cancelled the sale of bankrupt airline Varig to an employees group after it failed to make a deposit on time, and delayed a decision on the carrier’s fate until next week. Like the two previous days, about two-thirds of Varig’s flights were cancelled on Friday.
The survival of Brazil’s flagship airline Varig is on the line as a group of employees scramble to raise money for a first payment on the carrier, which faces liquidation if the money isn’t paid or another suitor doesn’t emerge. The workers’ group faces a Friday deadline to make the -million payment.
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Brazil is engulfed in World Cup mania with optimism high that Ronaldinho and company can bring home a record sixth title. The country is dripping in green and yellow. Roads, buildings, shop windows, and even beaches have all been decked out in the national colours that will set pulses racing in stadia across Germany starting from Friday.
A bankruptcy court judge has postponed Monday’s scheduled auction of Brazil’s debt-ridden flagship airline Viacao Aerea Rio-Grandense (Varig), the company said on Friday. The auction was rescheduled at the request of potential buyers, Varig said in a statement.
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Crazy as it sounds, not all Brazilians will be rooting for their country in the 2006 World Cup. To be fair, most would have been happy to help their countrymen — but they couldn’t catch on with Brazil’s team, so they’ll take part as members of other national squads instead.
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After a season dogged by questions over his form and fitness, Ronaldo is planning once again to use football’s greatest stage as his platform to provide the answers. He has endured a miserable season in Madrid that has seen him jeered and booed by his own fans at the Bernabeu.
The jailed leader of São Paulo’s fiercest gang, which launched an offensive that has claimed more than 150 lives in less than a week, warned on Thursday that the violence would get worse. ”We are ready for much more, we have the means for much more,” Marcos Camacho said in an interview broadcast on local television Bandeirantes.
Police shot dead at least 22 people on Wednesday in an iron-fisted crackdown against a powerful criminal gang blamed for lethal attacks in São Paulo as Brazil’s president criticised local authorities for refusing federal assistance. The clashes claimed the lives of 40 police and four members of the public, and 18 prisoners have died in prison riots blamed on the PCC gang.
Police shot dead at least 18 assailants early on Wednesday, media reported, in the latest clashes in a five-day explosion of gang violence in São Paulo that has claimed about 150 lives. The city has been gripped by fear since a powerful gang launched attacks on police stations, banks and buses, as well as prison uprisings.
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.
At least 67 people were killed over the weekend in the largest organised attack yet by drug gangs against Brazilian police and security forces, officials confirmed early on Monday. The apparent offensive by organised crime groups was launched on Friday night and continued until Sunday in Brazil’s commercial capital, São Paulo, and outlying regions of São Paulo state.
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.
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/ 28 February 2006
Rio happily swapped a group of ageing British rockers for scantily clad dancers and the relentless beat of hundreds of drums on Monday as Brazil’s top-tier groups faced off in the yearly carnival’s annual samba parade. For two nights, 14 of the city’s top-tier samba groups present 80-minute parades costing about -million each.
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/ 26 February 2006
Tens of thousands of Brazilians crammed the streets of Rio on Saturday, dancing to powerful samba rhythms in their world-famous street party that this year provided the perfect getaway for thieves who snatched art treasures worth millions and used the cover of carnival crowds to make their escape.