BrazzilMag

In Rio, last night, at around 8:30 pm, a 21-story building collapsed following what eyewitnesses described as two or three loud explosion-like sounds. A bystander claimed that plaster fell off the building just before it came down.

The international freedom of press organization Reporters Without Borders has placed Brazil in the 99th position in the 2011/2012 ranking of press freedom, which evaluates the working conditions of journalists in 179 countries. This was a drop of 41 places when compared to the previous report in 2010. 

Brazil, on January 13, announced measures to limit the number of Haitians entering the country. Among the new rules: a visa requirement. The Ministry of Foreign Relations reports that a total of exactly two visas have been issued to Haitians since the new rules went into effect. The visas issued are temporary work visas valid for five years.

Brazil posted a record-high current account deficit in 2011 on rising profit remittances by multinational companies and massive spending abroad by Brazilian tourists, but the deficit was more than covered by another record, this time for foreign direct investment, the central bank said Tuesday. 

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil's former president, currently undergoing treatment for throat cancer, returned Tuesday to Brazilian capital Brasília and the political stage after three months of absence, for the inauguration ceremony of two new ministers from the cabinet of President Dilma Rousseff.

Brazil's state-controlled oil and gas multinational Petrobras, the sixth most profitable company in the world in 2009 and one of the fifty biggest, is going to have a new president. And for the first time, the president will be a woman.

More than half of the Brazilian population now belongs to the middle class or at least that's what Brazilians are being told. According to a recent report, the middle class in Brazil during the last decade expanded to reach 90 million out of a population of almost 200 million, according to DataFolha.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and seven ministers of state will participate on Thursday, January 26, in a special session at the World Social Forum in the capital of Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul.

FIFA's president Sepp Blatter is not hiding his displeasure at the way Brazilian are getting ready for the next World Cup. Blatter let it be known that Russia is already better prepared to host the 2018 World Cup than Brazil, which will stage the 32-team soccer competition in 2014.

Brazilians should be the beneficiaries of a less severe policy to allow their entrance in the United Sates. According to an official release, the US Department of State is committed to improving the visa process, decreasing interview wait times in Brazil and increasing the number of visas issued.

Dilma Rousseff, the president of Brazil, will have a very busy month of March since she should be meeting her US peer Barack Obama in Washington, DC, that month, when she is also scheduled to hold talks with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and attend a BRIC group summit. 

The Brazilian economy grew at its fastest pace in over a year and a half in November, reversing a three-month contraction, as a recovery in consumer spending helped Latin America's largest economy shrug off a global slowdown. Yields on interest rate futures rose. 

Brazilians have a public health system called SUS (Unified Health System). It is a formidable structure in paper: universal health care for every Brazilian, free of charge, from the cradle to the grave. Public hospitals and doctors who are civil servants. On paper it looks really good and it is in the constitution.

Five-time world champion Brazil, according to International Federation of Football Association (FIFA) has been making too many demands while negotiating the conditions for hosting the 2014 World Cup. A legal dispute, however, should be settled within days, says FIFA. 

Rio's most famous event during the city's Carnaval celebrations is, of course, the huge parade ("desfile") of the main samba schools ("escolas de samba") that have as many as 5,000 participants.

Brazil will have to rethink its immigration policy due to the economic impact generated by the increasing entry of illegal aliens in the country in search of better living conditions. This is the opinion of Brazilian Defense minister, Celso Amorim, who for nearly a decade was Foreign Minister in the governments of president Itamar Franco (1993-1995) and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010).

Brazil's minister of National Integration, Fernando Bezerra Coelho, went before a special commission specially convoked to hear him during the congressional recess. The commission consisted of 17 deputies and 7 senators.

The year 2011 was the year of Greece. More than Ireland, Iceland, Spain, Portugal or Italy, Greece symbolized the worldwide crisis. Even more so than the United States in 2008.

Edmar Bacha, a leading Brazilian economist and one of the architects behind the 1994 Plan Real that stabilized Latin America's largest economy, says Brazil is at risk of becoming entirely dependent on natural resources exports and urged greater savings to invest in diversification.