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Brazilian stocks retreated on concerns that the U.S. Federal Reserve's interest-rate hiking cycle will continue longer than expected. Mexico's stock market was closed for a national holiday.
Brazil's Bovespa Index dropped 805.52 points, or 2.11%, while Argentina's Merval Index fell 10.79 points, or 0.59%. Brazilian stocks sank, as hawkish comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke stoked concerns that U.S. interest rates have further to rise. The comments fueled expectations that the Fed will hike interest rates at its meeting next week and again in May. Adding to rate concerns, U.S. producer price index data released this Tuesday, March 21, showed that core inflation was higher than expected in February. Higher U.S. interest rates tend to divert investment flows away from emerging markets like Brazil. In local economic news, Brazil posted a February current account surplus of US$ 725 million, reversing a January current account deficit of US$ 452 million. That brought the 12-month current account surplus to US$ 13.54 billion, equal to 1.69% of gross domestic product. Meanwhile, Brazilian retail sales volume rose a seasonally adjusted 2.35% in January from December. In December, retail sales volume rose 1.19% compared with November. Retail sales gained 6.54% in January from a year earlier. Retail sales for the 12 months ended January 31 rose 4.87%. In corporate news, Petrobras said it won 10 exploration and production blocks off the U.S. coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Petrobras agreed to pay US$ 22.3 million for the ten blocks, and the firm's U.S. unit plans to invest US$ 305 million in oil and gas exploration and production development activities in 2006. On a down note, the Rio de Janeiro government said Petrobras owes it 800 million reais in special royalty arrears, a local newspaper reported. Mining firm CVRD and steelmaker Usiminas are mulling a plan to build a US$ 3 billion steelmaking complex in Brazil's southeast region, news services reported. Argentine shares turned lower on the day, in line with Brazil. Investors are also jittery regarding U.S. interest rates, following last night's speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, which failed to signal an end to the current cycle of interest-rate increases. Last night, the Treasury Secretariat reported that Argentina posted a primary surplus of 1.904 billion pesos in February, up 37% from a year ago In corporate news, Banco Patagonia SA said that it is still in the early stages of planning for a public listing, which could happen within a year. Thomson Financial - 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.