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Brazilian and Latin American stocks in general dropped, in line with the U.S. market, on concerns about rising U.S. inflation and interest rates. In Argentina, new economic data showed local inflation eased in May.
Brazil's Bovespa Index tumbled 1202.32 points, or 3.17%. Mexico's benchmark Bolsa Index dropped 466.81 points, or 2.40%, while Argentina's Merval index plunged 42.66 points, or 2.52%. Brazilian shares declined on concerns about inflation overseas as interest rate concerns eclipsed news of a government move to buy back up to US$ 4 billion in external debt. According to analysts, investor sentiment about emerging market investments received a boost early today from Brazil's decision to repurchase some US$ 4 billion in bonds. The buyback, which was aimed at improving Brazil's external debt profile, underlines the strong economic fundamentals in the country, analysts said. In addition, a lack of inflationary pressures raised expectations for the Brazilian Central Bank to continue its recent monetary easing cycle. In May, the bank reduced the Selic base interest rate to 15.25% per year, the eighth-consecutive rate cut. Among the movers, mining giant Companhia Vale do Rio Doce declined. Late Friday, the company said its bid to develop an iron ore deposit in the African country of Gabon was unsuccessful. Steelmakers were lower across the board, with Arcelor Brasil, the umbrella company for No. 2 global steel giant Arcelor's Brazilian steelmaking assets, down at day's end. In Mexico City, shares sank, with some traders saying the summer season and Friday's World Cup opener were slowing trading activity. Bucking the downtrend, share of wireless phone giant America Movil were higher. Deutsche Bank raised the stock to "buy" from "hold" Monday. Elsewhere, Argentinean issues fell, despite news that inflation eased in May, as food prices showed the effect of new government price accords. According to INDEC, the consumer price index rose 0.5% in May from April, and 11.5% from a year earlier, a halving in the monthly rate from that of April and comfortably below a median forecast of 0.7% taken from a Dow Jones Newswires survey of five economists. After easing earlier this year from the 12.3% it hit at the end of last year, the annual inflation rate jumped back up to 11.6% in March from 11.1% in April. Meanwhile, Bolivia said that negotiations over the price of its natural gas exports to Argentina have stalled after Argentina said it was shipping some of the gas to Chile, Bolivia's longtime rival. Thomson Financial Corporate Group - 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.