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Brazilian stocks and those from Latin American in general retreated, as investors continued to fret over the outlook for U.S. inflation and interest rates.
Brazil's Bovespa Index fell 318.04 points, or 0.88%. Mexico's benchmark Bolsa Index plunged 279.26 points, or 1.46%, while Argentina's Merval Index plunged 38.40 points, or 2.37%. Brazilian stocks dipped, amid ongoing concerns that U.S. inflation and interest rates will continue to rise, potentially leading investors to rotate funds out of emerging markets like Brazil and into safe-havens such as U.S. Treasuries. Stronger-than-forecast new home sales data in the U.S. added to interest-rate jitters. Helping to limit the market's losses, however, Brazil's central government posted a 14.9 billion reais primary budget surplus in April, up sharply from the previous month's surplus of 7.0 billion reais and above market estimates that ranged from 11 billion to 13 billion reais. In other positive news, a major investment bank upgraded a number of Brazilian stocks today, including retailer Lojas Americanas and power companies Cemig and Copel. Also, Moody's Investors Service upgraded the foreign currency issuer ratings of the Brazilian states of Ceará and São Paulo, and the city of Curitiba (Paraná state), to Ba2 from Ba3. In other developments, the public's support for the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva rose to 38.3% in May from 37.6% in April, due largely to an improved economy, according to a public opinion poll released by the Sensus polling organization. Elsewhere, Mexican shares sank for a sixth straight session amid continued U.S. interest-rate uncertainty and caution ahead of the Bank of Mexico's monetary policy meeting on Friday. Mexico's central bank is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged at its monthly meeting Friday. At it last meeting on April 21, the bank cut rates by 25 basis points, its ninth straight reduction, but said there was no more room for additional easing in the foreseeable future. In local economic data, the Bank of Mexico said that the consumer price index fell 0.49% in the first two weeks of May, bringing the annual inflation rate down to 2.95% from 3.20% at the end of April. The central bank's target rate is 3%. However, the core index rose 0.07% in the first half of May. Argentine issues dropped, in line with regional equities. Weighing on the Merval, index heavyweight Tenaris fell amid a decline in oil prices. Bank shares also ended the day lower. Argentine markets will be closed tomorrow for a national independence holiday. 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.