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Latin American stocks gained ground, with Brazilian and Mexican shares getting a boost from upbeat local economic data. Strength on Wall Street amid optimism about U.S. earnings also fueled buying interest.
Brazil's Bovespa Index added 85.19 points, or 0.22%. Mexico's benchmark Bolsa Index climbed 129.87 points, or 0.66%, while Argentina's Merval Index jumped 20.94 points, or 1.16%. Brazilian stocks edged up, as upbeat industrial production figures added to optimism about the economy's outlook. The Brazilian Census Bureau reported today that Brazil's industrial output rose a seasonally adjusted 1.2% in February from January. Analysts' forecasts had ranged from a decline of 0.60% to growth of 0.90%. Output jumped 5.4% in February from the same month a year ago. Some analysts viewed February's strong industrial output as a positive sign for Brazil's gross domestic product this year. Shares were also supported by growing confidence that the new finance minister Guido Mantega will continue the market-friendly economic policies of his predecessor Antonio Palocci. Since his appointment last week, Mantega has repeatedly pledged to maintain fiscal and monetary austerity policies, reassuring investors that Brazil's economy will continue to grow amid a climate of gradually falling interest rates and low inflation. In corporate news, oil giant Petrobras' board approved a 2006 capital budget of 26.2 billion reais at a general assembly. Petrobras earmarked 21.2 billion reais for direct investments, with 66% of the funds allocated to oil and natural gas. The company is working towards Brazil's long-running goal of becoming a net exporter of crude in 2006. Meanwhile, an influential investment bank started coverage of airline TAM with an "outperform" rating on its American Depositary Receipts. "We rate the shares outperform relative to our EM (emerging market) universe due to leverage from a strong macro backdrop, its dominant share in an oligopolistic market and valuation," the bank said. Mexico witnessed another record-breaking session, alongside soaring consumer confidence. Enthusiasm for U.S. shares, amid optimism for first- quarter earnings, also lent power to Mexico. On the economic front, the National Statistics Institute, or Inegi, said that Mexico's consumer confidence rose to its highest level in nearly five years this past March to 112.4 from 108.1 in February. The most recent figure compared to 105.7 in the corresponding period a year ago. Home builder Ara intends to pay dividends and propose a stock split at its shareholder meeting on April 20. Ara will propose a dividend of 3.80 pesos a share. A major investment bank issued a note on retailer Walmex. The brokerage expects the firm will post same-store sales growth of about 1% in March, as there will likely be a negative impact from Easter falling in April this year, compared to March last year. Argentine shares strongly rebounded today, after recent lackluster trading. Meanwhile, local reports speculated that the presidents of Argentina and Uruguay may meet this week with the aim of ending tensions regarding pulp mills being built on the Uruguayan side of a river bordering the two countries. Thomson Financial - www.thomsonfinancial.com
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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. 
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).