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SAO PAULO (AFP) — Brazil should have a role as a leader in Latin America to counter "disturbing" leftist trends embodied by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez or Colombia's FARC guerrillas, US presidential candidate John McCain has told one of the biggest Brazilian newspapers. "There are disturbing trends in the region, like the anti-American socialism of Hugo Chavez.... Against these trends, Brazil represents something totally different, a successful country with a brilliant future," Tuesday's O Estado de S. Paulo daily said McCain wrote in an e-mail interview. The US Republican candidate said, according to the Portuguese translation of his comments, that...

MADRID - FIFA is in talks with authorities in Brazil about staging the 2010 World Cup if South Africa should be unable to host the event, a Spanish newspaper reported Thursday -- though Brazilian officials denied the claim. "The South American country, which was chosen to organize the World Cup in 2014, has become the first option if South Africa is not able to organize" the 2010 edition, the sports newspaper AS said. South African organizers remain confident of the nation's readiness for the first World Cup to be held on the continent, despite delays in the construction of stadium....

Christians will face prison for speaking out against homosexuality if Brazil's Senate passes a bill approved unanimously by its House of Representatives. The measure is considered the country's newest attempt to promote homosexuality, disguised as an act to prevent discrimination, the Catholic News Agency reports. If anyone prevents actions of "homosexual affection" in public or private locations open to the public, they could face up to five years in prison for doing so, the Association of the Defense of Life reports. The bill also seeks to penalize private and public school administrators with up to three years in prison if...

From his Cessna a mile above the southern Amazon, John Carter looks down on the destruction of the world's greatest ecological jewel. He watches men converting rain forest into cattle pastures and soybean fields with bulldozers and chains. He sees fires wiping out such gigantic swaths of jungle that scientists now debate the "savannization" of the Amazon. Brazil just announced that deforestation is on track to double this year; Carter, a Texas cowboy with all the subtlety of a chainsaw, says it's going to get worse fast. "It gives me goose bumps," says Carter, who founded a nonprofit to promote...

Americas Brazilian law would prohibit Christian teaching on homosexuality Rio de Janeiro, Jul 15, 2008 / 01:36 pm (CNA).- The Brazilian Senate is considering a bill approved unanimously and without debate by the country’s House of Representatives that aims to promote homosexuality and prohibit Christian teaching on the issue, under the guise of combating discrimination. According to the Association of the Defense of Life, the bill would make it crime punishable by five years in prison to impede expressions of “homosexual affection” in public places or private places open to the public. It would also punish those who deny employment...

Oil workers at Petrobras, Brazil's national energy giant, halted extraction at most of the country's main fields in the Campos basin at the outset of a planned five-day strike, a union official said on Monday. Campos accounts for more than 80 percent of Brazil's crude output of 1.8 million barrels per day, or around 2 percent of world supply. Worries about the strike helped push up world oil prices CLc1 last week to a new record on Friday above $147. "Of the 42 platforms, 33 are now stopped," said Jose Genivaldo Silva, director of the United Oil Workers' Federation, an...

Thirteen young diabetics in Brazil have ditched their insulin shots and need no other medication thanks to a risky, but promising treatment with their own stem cells — apparently the first time such a feat has been accomplished. Though too early to call it a cure, the procedure has enabled the young people, who have type 1 diabetes, to live insulin-free so far, some as long as three years. The treatment involves stem cell transplants from the patients’ own blood.

A Brazilian student lost in the Amazon rainforest for almost 50 days died in his father's arms within minutes of being rescued. Edilson dos Santos refused to give up the search for his son Jonathan Alves, 18, who went missing on May 11 while on a hunting trip with friends in the dense jungle. Weeks after authorities gave up all hope of finding the student alive Mr dos Santos, 40, a farmer from the northeastern district of Manaus, continued to search the river banks and paths in the area where his son went missing. On Saturday shortly after 9 am...

Brazil will at least triple its oil reserves by exploring the new Tupi offshore area, and will use the future revenues on healthcare and education for the country, according to Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva. "This is very promising for Brazil. We have to take advantage of this oil to develop the country," Lula told Bloomberg Television. "It's a chance for the Brazilian poor to use this money as opposed to having people with a lot of oil and three or four watches and a Rolex in their pockets. We want to take advantage of these riches to...

Brazil honoured the great Pele on Thursday and the other eight surviving players from its maiden FIFA World Cup™ triumph in 1958, a victory that put the nation on the football map and paved the way for four more titles. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gave the nine men medals of honour at a banquet dedicated to their 5-2 final victory over hosts Sweden 50 years ago. "You helped us understand...we could make Brazil a winner," Lula told the players at the ceremony. Brazil, the most successful football nation with five FIFA World Cup titles, is now in a...

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Recent photos of an "uncontacted tribe" of Indians near the Brazil-Peru border have sparked media reports of a hoax, but the organization that released the images defends its claims and actions. The photographs, which showed men painted red and black and aiming arrows skyward, were released in late May by Survival International, a London-based organization that advocates for tribal people worldwide. The release stated that "members of one of the world's last uncontacted tribes have been spotted and photographed from the air," and quoted the Brazilian government photographer saying, "there are some who doubt [the tribe's] existence" as justification for...

While Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama insists drilling for more oil in off-limits federal lands won’t help gas prices come down, there’s at least one thing that would: lifting tariffs on imported ethanol. Problem is, the Illinois senator’s ties to the powerful U.S. ethanol lobby would prevent him from doing it. “I got to tell you – ethanol mafia is a powerful thing, Jim,” CNBC “Street Signs” host Erin Burnett said June 23, noting all the breaks the industry is getting from the U.S. government. “The ethanol emperors – or they are the mafia.” “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer...

Uncontacted" Amazon Tribe Actually Known for DecadesKelly Hearn for National Geographic NewsJune 19, 2008 Recent photos of an uncontacted tribe firing arrows at a plane briefly made these Amazon Indians the world's least understood media darlings. Contrary to many news stories, the isolated group has actually been monitored from a distance for decades, past and current Brazilian government officials say. No one, however, is known to have had a face-to-face meeting with the nomadic tribe, which lives along the Peru-Brazil border. And no one knows how much, if anything, these rain forest people know about the outside world. The tribe—whose...

A group of Brazilians has been resuced from five smugglers holding them captive in Mission. Acting on an anonymous tip, officers responded to the 800 block of Dawson Street Wednesday afternoon. Mission Police Chief Leo Longoria said 15 Brazilians immigrants had been at the home for 14 days. The immigrants told authorities that the alleged smugglers demanded more cash for their release. Longoria said Mission police arrested five men. They are all facing unlawful restraint charges.

Consider: The Brazilian government has a 58 percent controlling stake in Petrobras's voting shares and 32percent of its total shares, which means that some of the profits go straight to the government's bottom line, giving the politicians more money to spend on bribing their constituents. In the United States, American politicians do not benefit from a successful oil industry, since corporate profits go to shareholders, pensioners and employees; therefore Congress has a much greater incentive to respond to the concentrated power of the special interest group known as the "greens." There are plenty of other examples, says O'Grady: In Mexico,...

Petrobras and its partners, BG Group and Repsol YPF, have made another light oil discovery in block BM-S-9 located in the ultra-deepwater of Santos Basin offshore Brazil. Block BM-S-9 is composed of two exploratory areas. In the largest part, the 1-BRSA-491-SPS well (1-SPS-50), known as Carioca was drilled which resulted in the discovery announced on September 5, 2007. The Assessment Plan for this area was recently approved by the ANP. The new well, 1-BRSA-594-SPS (1-SPS-55), known as Guara, is located in the smaller area of the block, approximately 310 kilometers off the coast of the State of Sao Paulo and...

...One reason for Mr. Gabrielli's optimism is last year's discovery of the offshore Tupi field, which is said to contain between five billion and eight billion barrels of black gold. Another, equally important reason is that, according to Mr. Gabrielli, neither environmentalists nor Brazilian politicians have raised concerns about exploiting oil in the waters off the Brazilian coast. ...I have another theory. And mine fits the pattern of resource development – or lack thereof – all over the Western Hemisphere. It comes down to this: Where government has the property right, restrictions on development tend to be low. But when...

snip..."I think that the American electorate is undergoing a revolution. If Obama wins it will be a huge step forward. It would be one of the biggest events in the last 100 years." snip..."The United States needs to stop viewing Latin America with a conspiratorial eye. There is no one left pushing for revolution in Latin America anymore," he said.

SAO PAULO: US presidential hopeful John McCain backs Brazil's inclusion on the UN Security Council and in an expanded G8, and would bump Russia from the exclusive club of leading world economies, a Brazilian newspaper reported Sunday. McCain "supports a permanent seat on the UN Security Council for Brazil and an increased participation for the country in the G-8," the O Estado de Sao Paulo daily reported, after interviewing the Republican presidential contender. Echoing remarks he has made in the past, McCain reportedly told the daily that he is also in favour of India's admission to the G8, while he...

SAO PAULO, Brazil — U.S. presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain supports ending subsidies for U.S. ethanol production and would back Brazil’s inclusion on an expanded United Nations Security Council, a Brazilian newspaper reported Sunday. In comments published by the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, McCain also said he would support Brazil’s addition to the Group of Eight industrialized nations and lauded the nation’s drive to find clean energy sources. The United States has “committed a series of errors in not adopting a sustainable energy policy,” McCain was quoted as saying. “One of those is the subsidies for ethanol from corn.”...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney's office acknowledged on Thursday that he was mistaken when he asserted that China, at Cuba's behest, is drilling for oil in waters 60 miles from the Florida coast. In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Cheney said on Wednesday that waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, long off limits to oil companies, should be opened to drilling because China is already there pumping oil. ''Oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida,'' the vice president said. ''We're not doing it, the Chinese are, in cooperation...

...One thing Brazil and the U.S. have in common is the price of oil: It is priced in dollars, and everyone in the world now knows what the price is. Another commonality is that each country has vast oil reserves in waters off their coastlines. Brazil discovered only yesterday (November) that billions of barrels of oil sit in difficult water beneath a swath of the Santos Basin, 180 miles offshore from Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The U.S. has known for decades that at least 8.5 billion proven barrels of oil sit off its Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts,...

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Barack Obama's campaign for the U.S. presidency has generated huge interest in Brazil, a country whose African heritage is a key part of its identity but where many blacks still struggle to progress in society. Democrat contender Obama would be the United States' first African-American president should he defeat Republican John McCain in November's election. Obama's progress has been avidly debated in Brazil, from student refectories to newspaper columns. His portrait was on the front cover of this week's Veja magazine, a leading Brazilian news weekly, along with a 10-page report. "Obama looks like my father,"...

Petrobras' board approved the contracting of 12 drilling rigs on a charter party basis for use in ultra-deepwaters (between 2,400 and 3,000 meters of water depth). Of the 12 rigs to be contracted, 10 will be the property of Brazilian companies. Due to the lack of capacity in Brazilian shipyards, the 12 rigs will be built overseas and delivered for operation by the middle of 2012. These 12 units are part of the first phase of the plan for contracting 40 drilling rigs all of which will be operational by 2017, as already announced. The next lot of rigs are...

A Grupo TACA airplane overshot a runway and slammed to a stop on a city street Friday in the Honduran capital, leaving a pilot and a passenger dead and injuring several others. Television images showed the plane's fuselage buckled and broken apart in places. The cockpit was smashed under a billboard, and firefighters hosed down at least two cars trapped under the Airbus 320's left engine.

Brazil's state oil company Petrobras on Thursday announced a new "important" find of light oil 36 API grade in the shallow waters of the Santos basin off Sao Paulo state's coast. Unlike a slew of recent discoveries in the subsalt cluster at great depths at sea, the find was made above the layer of salt about 6,560 feet (2,000 meters) under the ocean floor and and at a water depth of just 770 feet (235 meters), which should make future output easier. Petrobras is the only company working the BM-S-40 block, where it expects to start drilling a second well...

A new South American union was born Friday as leaders of the region's 12 nations set out to create a continental parliament. Some see the new organization, Unasur, as a regional version of the European Union. Summit host Brazil wants it to help coordinate defense affairs across South America and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez calls it a counterweight to the United States. "The number one enemy of the union of the south is the empire of the United States," Chavez said, claiming that the U.S. is "trying to generate wars in South America" to "divide and conquer." Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio...

Brazil's state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, will start a long-term production test at its giant Tupi field in March 2009, Chief Financial Officer Almir Barbassa said in a conference call Tuesday. The test will last two to three months, during which the company will produce 30,000 barrels a day from the field from three wells, Barbassa said. The company already has a platform available for the long-term test, and it is already searching for a rig for a pilot production of 100,000 barrels of oil and 4 million cubic meters of gas a day at the field...

Brazil has come a long way, baby! Back in the 1980s, it defaulting on its debt and the currency, the real, was a laughingstock. Even in the 1990s, Brazil was still so strapped with debt that no one really considered a bond, stock or currency investment there anything but pure speculation. Roll forward to today and Brazil looks very different. For starters, Warren Buffett owns this currency. When the conservative, long term holder from Omaha owns a currency, you know he sees a great future for a very long time. After all, as he says, he's not a trader and...

On Saturday the President and Vice Presidnet attended their last White House Correspondence Dinner of their administration, they were accompanied by their wives and the President spoke. See Daisyscarlett's excellent weekend thread for photos and more details which doubled for a live thread for the event. Click HereTranscript of the speech Today the President met with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom in the Oval Office. He attended a meeting of the U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. He also met in the Oval Office with Marty Conaster, National Commander of the American Legion. The White House announce d...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, April 22, 2008 – Forty-eight business, civic and local government leaders visited the USS George Washington about 80 miles off shore from here April 20, and a lucky dozen got to spend the night on the ship. “It reminds me that the best and the brightest are right here representing our country,” said Neal Denton, a senior vice president of government relations and strategic partnerships for the American Red Cross, based in Washington, D.C. Denton and the other visitors are participating in the 75th iteration of the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference, a defense secretary-sponsored program...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, April 22, 2008 – Since the fourth grade, Wendy Wachtell’s son, Jameson, has wanted to attend the U.S. Naval Academy. She thought his desire would wane with age, like wanting to be a fireman in the fourth grade. But it soon became clear that was what he wanted, she said. Now, with Jameson a sophomore in high school, conversations and considerations for his future are taking a more serious tone. Naturally, she conceded, as a mother, Wachtell is concerned about her son joining a military force while the nation is at war. But, yesterday, as...

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest who floated off under hundreds of helium party balloons was missing Monday off the southern coast of Brazil.Rescuers in helicopters and small fishing boats were searching off the coast of Santa Catarina state, where pieces of balloons were found.Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli lifted off from the port city of Paranagua on Sunday afternoon, wearing a helmet, thermal suit and a parachute.He was reported missing about eight hours later after losing contact with port authority officials, according to the treasurer of his Sao Cristovao parish, Denise Gallas.Gallas said by telephone that...

A Roman Catholic priest who used 1,000 helium balloons to try to break a flying record has gone missing off the southern coast of Brazil. Rev Adelir de Carli lifted off from the port city of Paranagua on Sunday, equipped with a parachute, thermal suit, satellite phone and a GPS device. A sea and air rescue operation is under way after he lost contact with port authority officials late on Sunday. He wanted to break a 19-hour record for the most hours flying with balloons. As well as his GPS and satellite phone, Rev Carli was equipped with a buoyant...

A Roman Catholic priest who floated off under hundreds of helium party balloons was missing Monday off the southern coast of Brazil. Rescuers in helicopters and small fishing boats were searching off the coast of Santa Catarina state, where pieces of balloons were found. Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli lifted off from the port city of Paranagua on Sunday afternoon, wearing a helmet, thermal suit and a parachute. He was reported missing about eight hours later after losing contact with port authority officials, according to the treasurer of his Sao Cristovao parish, Denise Gallas. Gallas said by telephone that the...

Brazil and Russia signed an agreement on Tuesday to jointly develop top-line jet fighters and satellite launch vehicles. Brazil's Strategic Affairs Minister Roberto Mangabeira Unger told reporters the agreement will lead to the development of fifth-generation jet fighters that are built using sophisticated engineering, such as composite materials, stealth technology and advanced radar. The agreement signed by Unger and the deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, Valentin Sobolev, includes the construction of rockets capable of hurling several kinds of satellites into space. Brazil builds its own small and medium-size rockets that are launched from the Alcantara base in the northeastern...

A discovery off Brazil’s Atlantic coast could prove to be the world’s third-largest oil field, the director of Brazil’s National Oil Agency said. The Carioca field in the Santos Basin off the coast of Sao Paulo state has estimated reserves of 33 billion barrels, Haroldo Lima said on Monday. “It could be the world’s biggest discovery in the past 30 years,” he said. Brazil’s state oil company, Petrobras, which controls 45 percent of the field, said in a statement that the exact size of the find would be announced in the coming days after further studies were done. PROFITABLE? Petrobras...

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- A deep-water exploration area off Brazil's coast could contain as much as 33 billion barrels of oil, the head of Brazil's National Petroleum Agency said Monday. That would make it the world's third-largest known oil reserve. ... If proven, the oil in the Carioca exploration area would also be five times larger than the Tupi oil field, whose estimated reserves of 8 billion barrels were announced by Petroleo Brasileiro SA in November. Petrobras also announced a blockbuster find of natural gas in February in an Atlantic Ocean field nicknamed Jupiter.

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico -- Police rescued 83 illegal migrants Friday from the hidden compartment of a cramped, sweltering cargo truck carrying animal feed through southern Mexico. At a roadblock near the Guatemalan border, the panicked migrants alerted officers to their presence by screaming and banging on the walls of the truck, Mexican immigration agent Mario Lopez said. Lopez said the migrants were dehydrated, bruised and scraped. He said 76 were from Guatemala, five from El Salvador and two from Brazil. Earlier this week, 54 illegal migrant workers from Myanmar suffocated in the back of an unventilated truck in Thailand. In...

Brazil army aids Rio dengue fight The military clinics are aiming to take the pressure off public hospitals The Brazilian military has opened three new field clinics in Rio de Janeiro to help officials tackle a surge in dengue fever that has overwhelmed hospitals. Officials say 13 people have died since Friday, bringing the number of deaths this year in Rio de Janeiro state to 67, with some 45,000 people infected. The mosquito-borne disease causes high temperature, headaches and muscle pain and, in extreme cases, can be fatal. President Lula has said all levels of government have mishandled the crisis....

At the tiny airport on the outskirts of the city of Governador Valadares a plane draws up to the terminal building, bringing with it just a handful of passengers. On board - as with many flights these days - is a Brazilian who has decided that the "American dream" is no longer for him, after seven years away from his family. Faced with a falling US dollar and a tougher climate for immigrants generally, Francisco Silva says many Brazilians are finding it harder to make a living in the US and are either returning home or going elsewhere. Rodrigo Alves...

Argentina and Brazil are to scrap bilateral commercial transactions in U.S. dollars and start using their own currencies from August, an official in charge of currency settlement at the Argentine Central Bank said here Saturday. The new payment system is aimed at reducing costs in commercial transactions and would benefit small and medium-sized enterprises, the official said. Under the new system, there will be a unified exchange rate between the real and peso, the so-called reference rate, which will be applied by Brazilian and Argentine central banks at the end of each day. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva...

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - A team from Brazil's Labor Ministry found "degrading" living conditions for 133 sugarcane workers employed by an ethanol company whose investors include former President Clinton and other high- profile financial players. At five sites inspected, workers "complained they were suffering from hunger and cold, and all of the locations were overcrowded and with terrible sanitary conditions," according to a statement issued Friday by Jaqueline Carrijo, who led the inspections last month. The target of the probe, Brazil Renewable Energy Co., known as Brenco, apologized over the weekend and said it is fixing the problems at...

Francisco Teixeira is up at 6 every morning, taking care of his 7-month-old daughter. The 33-year-old then heads to the Brazilian Convenience Store on Main Street, which he runs with his wife. They keep it open until 8 every night. Teixeira has been in the United States for the past 12 years, including his first eight in Massachusetts. After a four-year stint in Florida, he moved here to take over the store last month. The state has become his second home. After having a child, he said, he isn't considering going back to Brazil, and is looking to buy a...

Last week I had the opportunity to experience some of the customs of the Brazilian people, and to learn first-hand some of the similarities and differences between Brazil and the United States. The customs and similarities were not surprising, and often quite enjoyable, but one big difference really took me by surprise – namely, Brazil’s energy independence. Brazil’s reputation for the production of quality beef, coffee and sugar is well deserved, especially when experienced at a traditional Brazilian barbeque. It is a meat lover’s dream. And experiencing one of their traditional adult beverage concoctions, called “caipirinha”, is like drinking lemonade,...

The mummified remains of two nuns, the head of one lying on the shoulder of the other, have been found in the walls of a Sao Paulo convent in Brazil, media reported. The bodies were discovered in one of six burial niches bricked over in the 234-year-old Mosteiro da Luz, that continues to be the home of the reclusive Order of the Conceptionist Sisters as well as a museum of sacred art. An official at the University of Sao Paulo's archaeology department, Sergio Monteiro da Silva, said it appeared the nuns had been put in the niche sometime between 1774...

Are we seeing the first indications that a Raul Castro-led Cuba will want warmer relations with the US? Yesterday, Brazil's Folha de Sao Paulo reported that Raul thanked Hugo Chavez for assisting Cuba, but thinks that US-friendly Brazil makes a better dance partner for the future (via Brian Faughnan): The newspaper reports that during the January Brazilian presidential visit to Havana, Raul Castro praised Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez for having helped Cuba “in a particularly tough moment of the ongoing confrontation with the United States George W Bush administration”. Nevertheless Fidel Castro brother is quoted saying that Brazil “is a...

BRASILIA, Brazil - Encouraged that all major U.S. presidential candidates vow to protect the environment, lawmakers from industrialized nations and big emerging economies met Wednesday to craft solutions to global warming and rising deforestation. Scores of legislators and officials from China to Cameroon were considering approval of a document demanding "ambitious absolute emission reductions for developed countries" to fight climate change. Proposals in the draft document included a global carbon market in which nations would be able to trade and sell credits, sharp increases in funding for developing countries to reduce emissions and even a worldwide ban on incandescent light...

France ready to transfer technology for fighter planes, submarine to Brazil The Associated Press Tuesday, February 12, 2008 SAINT-GEORGES DE L'OYAPOCK, French Guiana: France is ready to transfer technology to Brazil so that an attack submarine, helicopters and a fighter plane — notably the French Rafale — can be built there, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday. Sarkozy met with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in Saint-Georges de Oyapock, on the French border with Brazil on the second and last day of his trip to French Guiana. The Brazilian leader crossed a river for the meeting. In...