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.
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/ 19 February 2006
The Rolling Stones on Saturday rocked the night away on fabled Copacabana beach with more than 1,2-million fans in one of the biggest concerts the world has ever seen. Sir Mick Jagger, shouted ”Hello Brazil” in Portuguese to a huge roar, and the supergroup worked up a sweat delivering more than 20 of their biggest hits.
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/ 25 January 2006
Environmentalists were caught off guard when South American leaders announced plans to build a massive natural-gas pipeline through the Amazon rainforest. Proponents say the -billion project, still in early planning stages, would help satisfy the growing regional demand for gas.
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/ 23 January 2006
Thirty-two people were killed and another 21 were injured when two buses collided head-on in south-western Brazil, police said on Monday. The crash occurred shortly before midnight on Sunday on the Raposo Tavares highway in Regente Feijo, about 840km west of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo state police Major Claudemir Alcarria said.
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/ 22 December 2005
This Friday, a long chapter in the history of Volkswagen AG ends when the last air-cooled engine will be hoisted into a vehicle seen as a museum piece almost everywhere else across the planet. VW is being forced to change the minivan’s historic rear-mounted engine because of a new Brazilian emissions law to reduce pollution that goes into effect in 2006.
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/ 24 October 2005
Voters overwhelmingly rejected on Sunday a measure to ban gun sales in Brazil, which has one of the world’s highest murder rates. The government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, human rights groups and the Roman Catholic Church all backed the ban. But the public had swung dramatically against the proposal in recent weeks.
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/ 13 October 2005
Brazil has reached an agreement with US pharmaceutical manufacturer Abbott Laboratories to lower Aids drug Kaletra’s price.
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/ 12 October 2005
At least 60 people were injured on Tuesday when thousands of people stormed an already packed soccer stadium in northern Brazil to watch the national team train for a World Cup qualifying match against Venezuela. The incident occurred at Mangueirao stadium in the city of Belem, about 3 040km north of Sao Paulo in the state of Para.
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/ 11 October 2005
Four Brazilian cities in the Amazon jungle state of Amazonas have been declared disaster areas as the worst drought in 60 years dries up rivers that thousands of families depend on to receive food and medicine, authorities said on Monday. In Manaquiri, the hardest hit of the four cities, small rivers have all but disappeared.
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/ 26 September 2005
The new champion in formula one wears blue and yellow, not red. He is young, not old. He has one title, not seven. Next year, Alonso’s blue and yellow Renault will wear the number one instead of Michael Schumacher’s red Ferrari, which has owned it for the past five years and two other times with Benetton.
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/ 24 September 2005
Japanese driver Takuma Sato said here on Friday that he still hopes to be racing in Formula One in 2006 after being dropped by BAR-Honda for next season. BAR confirmed earlier this week that Briton Jenson Button and Brazilian Rubens Barrichello will be their race drivers for 2006 and that Sato would have to drop down to a third driver or leave the team.
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/ 14 September 2005
Argentine striker Carlos Tevez’s complaints about bad soccer refereeing in Brazil were taken personally by some women who are threatening to sue him for discrimination. Tevez said in a televised interview last week that Brazilian league referees often persecuted Argentine players, and criticised the female line judges in Corinthians’ 3-2 loss to Sao Paulo in the Brazilian national championship.
A corruption scandal centred on Brazil’s governing Workers Party has been gathering momentum on a daily basis since it broke two months ago. But the great paradox of the situation is that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvas’s grip on power seems undiminished.
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.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a former union boss elected in a landslide with pledges to make Brazil a ”decent country”, is back on the campaign trail. But this time it’s to save his presidency from corruption charges, regain the trust of voters — and avoid possible impeachment.
A telephone card bearing an image of deposed Iraq leader Saddam Hussein was pulled off the Brazilian market by Telefonica after São Paulo prosecutors threatened the telephone company. The card, featuring a Hussein in the custody of soldiers, was issued by the company in June as part of its ”World History” series.
Police have arrested three South African women accused of trying to leave Brazil with nearly 30kg of cocaine stashed in their suitcases, authorities said on Monday. Stela Khumalo, Patricia Motsoeneng and Roberta Putteing were taken into custody on Saturday night at Sao Paulo’s International airport as they were preparing to board a flight to Johannesburg.
Brazilian football legend Pele (64) broke into tears during a press conference in Sao Paolo as he spoke about his son’s arrest and now-established drug habit. ”It’s regrettable because I’ve always fought intensely against drugs, and I didn’t notice this in my own house,” the football great said.
By the slow-moving Tapajos River, monkeys murmur in the forest and Munduruku Indians with bows and arrows tiptoe along the riverbank, hunting turtles. Two boys fish for the family lunch, not even bothering with bait. To attract the piranha, they simply bang on the side of their boat.
It’s a choice any coach would welcome: When Ronaldo returns, which of Brazil’s soccer stars should he replace? It’s the decision Carlos Alberto Parreira will have to make — and it got tougher on Sunday when Brazil’s improvised front line led a steamroller offence that routed Paraguay 4-1 in a World Cup qualifier.
Three-time Fifa player of the year Ronaldo was dropped from the Brazilian national team for two World Cup qualifiers and the Confederations Cup, the Brazilian soccer confederation said on Monday. ”Ronaldo claimed personal problems that prevent him from dedicating himself to the team at the moment,” Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira said.
Brazil’s 1994 World Cup winning footballer Romario said on Tuesday that the birth of his sixth child with Down’s syndrome had made him ”a happier and more tolerant” person. Ivy, born a month ago, was the 39-year-old footballer’s second daughter from his fourth wife Isabelle Bittencourt, who is in her 20s.
Microsoft launched a scaled-back version of its Windows operating system in Brazil on Wednesday, hoping to get more people using computers in Latin America’s largest country while cutting down on rampant software piracy. Brazil becomes the first country in the western hemisphere to get the low-cost XP Starter Edition.
A Brazilian referee punched a fan who attacked him on the field during a soccer match in the Minas Gerais state championship on Sunday. Referee Luiz Carlos Silva fought back after the fan ran on the field and started punching and kicking him two minutes from the end of a heated game between rivals America and Atletico Mineiro at Mineirao stadium.
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/ 24 November 2004
Nazi war physician Josef Mengele’s last thoughts and views have come to light, including the fact that he did not repent the atrocities he committed, in letters and diary notes recovered from police archives and published on Tuesday in Brazil.
Contents of 85 documents were translated from German to Portugese and have now been published in an exclusive by the Brazilian newspaper Folha.
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/ 29 October 2004
A Brazilian legislator wants to make it illegal to give pets names that are common among people. Federal congressman Reinaldo Santos e Silva proposed the law after psychologists suggested that some children may get depressed when they learn they share their first name with someone’s pet.
Rescuers have failed to free a humpback whale that washed up on a beach over the weekend, and biologists said on Tuesday its chances of survival are slim. More than 100 people still struggled to get the 10-ton whale off Jurujuba beach just across Rio de Janeiro at the entrance to Guanabara Bay and back into the ocean.