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
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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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.
Police in Sao Paulo have been accused of embarking on a systematic campaign of revenge attacks after at least 29 fellow officers were killed during a weekend of gang-related violence. At least 93 suspects have been killed over the past five days, many in what the authorities have called ”confrontations with the police”.
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.
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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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/ 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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/ 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.
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.
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.
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.
Author Tom Wolfe said on Wednesday his next book will look at off-the-wall behaviour — wealthy investor types who hide their status, dress like delinquents and act like bad seeds. The book will be non-fiction, ending a string of three novels and marking a return to the genre that made Wolfe famous as a founder of new journalism.
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.
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/ 28 January 2005
Plans to build an underwater branch of the Guggenheim museum are dead in the water, Rio’s mayor said on Thursday. ”The first project offered lots of risks, even functional ones since it was a submerged museum,” said Cesar Maia. Plans for the Rio Guggenheim were attacked almost as soon as they were unveiled.
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.
Inmates at a prison near Rio de Janeiro who shot and killed a guard and held 21 hostages agreed on Monday to a fresh round of negotiations with police on how to end the three day-old revolt, which also left nine other jailers and inmates injured. Fourteen inmates managed to escape, three of whom were recaptured by police.
A child died in a collapsed house and seven fishermen were missing and feared dead early on Sunday as a large spiralling storm lashed the coast of southern Brazil, civil defence officials said. Meanwhile, meteorologists disagreed over whether the storm was a hurricane — the first on record in the South Atlantic.
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While economic growth had been unprecedented since the last World Summit in Rio, economic inequality had deepened and environmental degradation accelerated, said President Thabo Mbeki in Brazil.
A 14-year-old girl in southeastern Brazil gave birth to a boy with two heads, doctors and media said.
When world leaders were flying into Rio for the 1992 Earth Summit, their nostrils were assailed by a particularly nasty example of the ills they were here to debate: the dense, putrid stench of Guanabara Bay.