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Brazil's stock market inched ahead, while Mexico receded. Investors are awaiting meaningful data from earnings season, which unofficially kicked-off with U.S.-based Alcoa's financial release. Closer to home, Walmex posted results.
Brazil's Bovespa Index rose 38.66 points, or 0.11%. Mexico's benchmark Bolsa receded 129.45 points, or 0.65%, while Argentina's Merval Index slipped 0.98 points, or 0.06%. Brazilian issues inched forward Monday, July 10, alongside light trading volume. In local economic reports, a central bank survey revealed that economists expect the IPCA consumer price index to fall to 3.81% this year from a prior expectation for 3.98%. Elsewhere, the Trade and Development Ministry said that the country's foreign trade surplus reached US$ 1.693 billion in the July 1 to 9 period, bringing the year-to-date figure to US$ 21.226 billion. In the year-earlier period, the trade surplus stood at US$ 20.034 billion. On the research front, a major investment bank reduced its price targets for American Depositary Receipts for telephone firms Telemar and Brasil Telecom. The news follows the firms' recent rollback in rates. Within the airline group, Brazilian Airline Varig's prospects dimmed on a report from Deloitte, the court-appointed restructuring administrators, that said liquidation is the preferable option for creditors rather than accepting a US$ 500 million offer from investment group Volo do Brasil. Mexican shares traded lower, as investors continued to ponder the outcome of the presidential election. Although Felipe Calderon won the election, rival Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador is demanding a complete recount, and the Federal Electoral Tribunal has until the end of next month to access allegations of fraud. The tribunal will need to issue its final ruling on the election by September 6. In earnings headlines, Wal-Mart de Mexico posted a second quarter net profit of 2.67 billion pesos, compared to 2.01 billion pesos a year ago. Sales jumped 17% to 45.07 billion pesos, while operating profit surged 32% to 3.45 billion pesos. EBITDA, meanwhile, climbed 24% to 4.24 billion pesos. Argentine issues were little changed on the day, amid mixed trading elsewhere in Latin America. Investors are waiting for earnings season to get underway. 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.