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Brazilian shares were higher today, ending a gloomy string of sell offs prompted by ongoing concerns about the U.S. interest-rate-hiking cycle and the prospects for inflation. Meanwhile, U.S. inflation data showed an increase in consumer prices.
Brazil's Bovespa Index rose 93.85 points, or 0.29%. Mexico' benchmark Bolsa Index rebounded 148.95 points, or 0.89%, while Argentina's Merval Index was up 12.4 points, or 0.83%. Brazilian shares managed to track the U.S. into the black today, with state oil company Petrobras rising on international oil prices. Issues managed to move back into the black, after shares dipped earlier on cautionary comments from U.S. Federal Reserve officials. Shares in Brazilian online retailer Submarino SA soared, after the company announced its intention to buy back some of its own shares. Elsewhere, Mexican shares also rose, ending a seven-session losing streak sparked by the recent flight from emerging-market assets continued. There was some concern earlier in the session, following a U.S. economic report that showed consumer inflation rose on surging gasoline prices. The consumer price index posted a 0.4% increase in May after an even bigger 0.6% rise in April. Excluding energy and food, core inflation rose by a larger-than-expected 0.3%. In corporate news, Mexican conglomerate Alfa SA said a group of shareholders sold 34.0 million shares at a price of 48.50 pesos a share. In a filing with the Mexican stock exchange, Alfa said it paid 844.7 million pesos for 17.4 million of the shares, or 3.0% of its outstanding shares. The total sale accounted for 5.9% of outstanding shares. Alfa used money from its share buyback fund to purchase the shares at the market price; its shares were higher at the close. On the research front, a major investment bank upgraded retailer Walmex to "buy" from "neutral," as it sees recent weakness in the firm's shares as an opportunity to buy. Walmex jumped in response. Elsewhere, Argentine stocks finally broke out of a seven-session losing streak that had pulled the benchmark Merval Index to a six-month low. The Index ended higher. Air carrier Aerolineas Argentinas is reportedly negotiating to give the government a 5% stake in the firm in exchange for a fare increase and subsidies for unprofitable routes, according to Spanish news agency Europa Press. Thomson Financial - www.thomsonfinancial.com
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Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
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.