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Latin American stocks edged up in quiet trading, with the session being the last one of the year in select markets. Optimism about LatAm's various economies continued to provide support. In particular, pleasing inflation data in Brazil helped the Bovespa lead the region.
Brazil's Bovespa Index jumped 317.46 points, or 0.96%. Mexico's benchmark Bolsa Index gained 142.10 points, or 0.80%, while Argentina's Merval Index added 5.72 points, 0.37%. Brazilian stocks gained ground after the IGP-M price index for 2005 showed inflation of only 1.21%, the lowest level since the index debuted in 1989. The report fueled hopes for further interest rate cuts. Corporate news was scarce in the last trading day of the year in Brazil. Of note, the government's antitrust bodies ruled that low-cost airline Gol can charge super-low promotional fares to expand market share, lifting a ban imposed by the local civil aviation department. Meanwhile, Mexican issues rebounded from Wednesday's declines, with investors consolidating their holdings, after the IPC kept breaking new records late in the year, amid economic optimism. U.S. counterparts, however, flipped-flopped for most of the session, ending lower, amid mixed economic data. On the bright side, the U.S. Chicago PMI had a December reading of 61.5, down from 61.7 the prior month, but above expectations for 60.4. However, U.S. existing home sales slipped by 1.7% in November, following a 2.7% decline in October. Economists had predicted a smaller drop of 1.3%. Elsewhere, Argentine shares managed slight gains in late trading, after spending most of the session in negative territory. Many market players have remained on the sidelines in recent sessions, ahead of the holidays. The market will be closed tomorrow. Of note, in local news, the trade surplus for November totaled US$ 522 million, the lowest level of the year, due to a significant slowdown in export growth. 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.