South America, Brazil | featured news

More than 150 nightclubs, restaurants and bars in Brazil are declared unsafe and closed by authorities, following a fire that killed 236 people.

Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry states, “The extinction of Brazil’s indigenous peoples is a blot on the country’s history, and it’s shameful that the same cruelties and abuses rife during the colonial era are being endorsed by the Brazilian justice system today. The Pyelito Guarani’s heartrending plea couldn’t be clearer: life without their land is so full of misery and suffering,that it is not worth living. Brazil must act before it allows another of its peoples to be destroyed”.

The snuffing out of the Olympic flame in London Sunday marks a conclusion for most, but for 2016 host city Rio de Janeiro it kicks off four years of pre-games jitters and a race against the clock to ready this notoriously laid-back beach city for the global sports showcase.

For a country that’s faced the worst economic recession in a generation, the U.S. is doing marvelously well by comparison to every major economy except for maybe China. GDP growth, still around 2 percent and expected to end the year close to that, is better in the U.S. than it is in Brazil, a country which grew China-style in 2010 at 7.5 percent. Once the shining start of the Latin American economies, Brazil is now at stall speed.

Booming Brazilian city spreads into Amazon habitats. Marcelo Gordo is standing in the back garden of a small house in a suburb of Manaus, the capital of Brazil's Amazonas state, hoping to catch sight of a pied tamarin.

Police in Brazil's southeastern Sao Paulo state are investigating the theft of 50 metric tons (55 U.S. tons) of corn from a moving train. A police report says the thieves greased the train tracks, making the wheels of the 54-wagon locomotive skid and slow down before they used a tow truck with a hook to remove the corn-filled containers.

President Obama arrived in Brazil Saturday for his first trip to South America, a five-day tour intended to underscore economic ties to the region.

It was like a tsunami from the sky in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state as flood water gushed through hill towns and giant boulders catapulted from hillsides instantly crushing cars and houses.

Dilma Rousseff takes the reins from Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the country's popular outgoing president, who many credit for leading the country onto the world stage and helping millions in Brazil out of poverty.

Authorities launched a massive sweep of the Alemao favela complex in northern Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday morning. Military police told reporters they were entering the virtually impenetrable labyrinth of slums, searching for drug gang ...