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Latin American stocks advanced strongly, with Brazilian shares getting a boost from an upgrade to the country's sovereign long-term debt rating and improved hopes for continued monetary easing.
Also participating the region's rally, Mexican shares climbed on bargain hunting, while positive local economic data lifted Argentina's equity market. Brazil's Bovespa Index jumped 567.48 points, or 1.47%. Mexico's benchmark Bolsa Index surged 352.42 points, or 1.88%, while Argentina's Merval Index rallied 27.82 points, or 1.62%. Brazilian stocks posted solid gains in an abbreviated session following the Carnaval holiday, as investors were cheered by news that Standard & Poor's Ratings Services upgraded Brazil's long-term sovereign credit ratings to BB from BB-, citing "the continued and marked improvement in Brazil's external debt indicators." S&P's outlook for Brazil is stable. Adding to upbeat sentiment, analysts and economists polled in the Brazilian Central Bank's most recent weekly survey reduced their forecasts for year-end 2006 inflation and predicted the central bank will quicken the pace of interest-rate cuts. Analysts, on average, cut their forecast for 2006 inflation as measured by the official IPCA consumer price index, to 4.59% from last week's 4.64%. The central bank's full-year inflation target is 4.5%, with a tolerance band that allows maximum inflation of 6.5%. In 2005, inflation was 5.69%. Given tame inflation so far this year, analysts' latest forecast for the year-end Selic interest rate declined to 14.50% from the previous week's forecast of 14.75%. In corporate news, paper and pulp company Aracruz said it has launched an initiative to repurchase bonds coming due in 2011 and 2012. Separately, the company said it is also preparing to issue new 10-year bonds in international markets. Aracruz said the repurchase is aimed at reducing "the total of higher-coupon yield bonds" within its overall debt profile. Elsewhere, Mexican shares rallied on the day, rebounding sharply from three-straight down sessions, alongside solid gains in the U.S. Volume was boosted by a series of trades in cement firm Moctezuma's shares. In other cement-related news, Mexico and the U.S. are set to ratify on March 6 an agreement that will end their cement trade dispute. Part of the deal includes domestic firms being able to ship up to three million metric tons of cement a year to the U.S. for three years for US$ 3 per metric ton in duties, down sharply from the current US$ 26.28. Elsewhere, members of the National Mining and Metal Workers Union called an indefinite work stoppage at all 130 union chapters nationwide. The move comes amid a challenge to the union's current leadership. Grupo Mexico SA was among those firms affected by the strike. Meanwhile, Argentine issues took part in the broader regional rally today. Economic reports were a focus, and investors were looking forward to steel pipemaker Tenaris' results, due out after today's close of trading. In economic headlines, the national statistics agency, or Indec, said that the domestic unemployment rate tumbled to 10.1% in the fourth quarter from 11.1% in the third quarter. The most recent rate marked a two percentage point decline from a year ago when the rate was at 12.1%. In other economic reports, Argentina posted an US$ 837 million trade surplus in January, slightly narrower than the US$ 872 million surplus posted a year ago. Exports rose 14% to US$ 3.2 billion in January from US$ 2.8 billion in the year-earlier period. Imports, meanwhile, grew at a faster 22% rate to US$ 2.3 billion from US$ 1.9 billion last year. On the earnings front, Banco Macro Bansud said that its fourth-quarter net profit leapt 67% to 75 million pesos from 45 million pesos a year ago. For 2005, net profit rose to 263 million pesos from 192 million pesos in 2004. Elsewhere, textile manufacturer Alpargatas SAIC said late yesterday that it signed a deal with the government to freeze prices on seven different lines of shoes for one year. Thomson Financial - www.thomsonfinancial.com
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Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
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.