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Latin American stocks including those from Brazil dropped as the election of a socialist candidate in Bolivia fueled concerns about the outcome of upcoming elections elsewhere in the region. Mexican and Brazilian shares were further pressured by profit taking.
Brazil's Bovespa Index lost 286.55 points, or 0.86%. Mexico's benchmark Bolsa Index fell 71.18 points, or 0.40%, while Argentina's Merval Index tumbled 22.06 points, or 1.45%. Brazilian stocks fell, as investors took profits following recent strong gains on optimism about local interest rates. Shares were also pressured by Bolivian presidential election results, in which socialist candidate Evo Morales appears to have won by a landslide. Among individual shares, Petrobras was active following the Bolivian election news. President-elect Morales has said he wants to nationalize Bolivia's energy sector. Meanwhile, Petrobras has invested US$ 1.5 billion in Bolivia since 1996. Steel maker Gerdau slumped after the European Commission gave Gerdau, along with Grupo Santander Central Hispano and Bogey Inversiones, the green light to acquire Sidenor Steel Products Manufacturing. Gerdau and Spanish bank Santander said in mid November that they would each buy 40% of Sidenor. Bogey Inversiones will acquire the remaining shares. On the up side, electric power holding firm Eletrobrás climbed after the company took three concessions in a government auction Friday for rights to build and operate new hydroelectric projects. Also, Brasil Telecom gained after the company announced plans to invest a total of 2.5 billion Brazilian reais in its operations in 2006. Elsewhere, Mexican stocks dropped for a third straight session as investors continued to lock in recent strong gains on optimism about the local economy. Among individual shares, Homex sank. The home builder filed with the Mexican stock exchange for a second share offering. Argentine issues retreated, as investors continued to react to the government's surprise announcement last week that it plans to pay off its total US$ 9.8 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund before the end of the year. Some investors are concerned about a significant reduction in the country's foreign currency reserves. In corporate news, workers at Telecom Argentina and Telefonica de Argentina went on strike to demand shorter hours and a 40% pay increase. The union indicated that forcible occupations of the companies' operational centers could be an option. Thomson Financial Corporate Group - www.thomsonfinancial.com
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.