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Brazilian stocks an those of Latin American retreated, as investors continued cashing in recent market gains, as they assess the outlook for U.S. interest rates.
Brazil's Bovespa Index dropped 904.43 points, or 2.17%. Mexico's benchmark Bolsa Index fell 345.80 points, or 1.59%, while Argentina's Merval Index sank 38.57 points, or 2.03%. Brazilian stocks tumbled, as investors continued to fret over the outlook for U.S. interest rates, while digesting a flood of local earnings reports. Fueling worries that U.S. interest rates will continue to rise, oil prices surged today and economic reports showed that U.S. business sales and inventories both climbed 0.7% in March. That followed comments from the U.S. Federal Reserve yesterday that left the door open for further rate hikes. In earnings news, mining giant CVRD said late yesterday that its first-quarter net profit jumped 68% to US$ 1.17 billion from US$ 698 million a year earlier on higher iron ore prices and robust sales volumes. Meanwhile, brewer AmBev posted a first-quarter net profit of 655.9 million reais, up sharply from 144.2 million reais a year ago, as warm summer temperatures boosted beverage consumption. Also reporting, Banco Unibanco's first-quarter net profit rose 29.7% to 520 million reais from 401 million reais a year earlier, helped by further growth in its credit portfolios and higher financial services revenue. Petrochemical firm Suzano Petroquímica reported a first-quarter net loss of 28.4 million reais, reversing a year-earlier net profit of 27 million reais. In other corporate news, Telemar said it will pay dividends of 3 billion reais for 2006 and a further 3 billion reais for 2007, once the telecom giant has completed a restructuring program. In local economic data, Fiesp reported that manufacturers in São Paulo state added 40,000 jobs in April from March, representing a rise of 1.92% in the workforce. Elsewhere, Mexican shares dropped on continued profit taking and uncertainty over the outlook for U.S. interest rates. In the news, a major investment bank said that it has lowered its exposure to Mexico while upgrading Peru and Argentina. The bank downgraded Mexico to "underweight," citing volatility ahead of the country's July presidential elections. "Absent the anticipated political noise in the upcoming months, we remain positive about Mexico's prospects on the macro front for the remainder of the year," the bank said. Argentine issues dropped in a quiet news day for the market. Among the headlines, power generator Endesa Costanera posted a first-quarter net loss of 12.3 million pesos, compared with a year-earlier profit of 34.9 million pesos. 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.