WorldcrunchStay updated with comprehensive news on Brazil from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Brazilian politics, economic developments, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and events like the Rio Carnival.
A Brazilian Justice Ministry committee has officially apologized and offered reparations to the Aikewara, decimated in the early 1970s by army soldiers. But one more step is still needed.
SAO PAULO – Nearly 3,000 years after King Solomon built the first Holy Temple in Jerusalem, Bishop Edir Macedo has inaugurated his own replica in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Drawing on Biblical depictions of the temple and archaeological findings, an extraordinarily elaborate shrine has come to life. It’s $300 million, a 74,000-square-meter building on 40 plots […]
SÃO PAULO — When it comes to freshwater, Brazil, home to somewhere between 12% and 16% of the world’s total supply, is a very wealthy country. Inhabitants only use 0.7% of the 43,000 cubic meters of water per year that could, theoretically, be available to each and every one of them. In this regard, Brazil […]
Will Divine Providence, or “Bible roulette,” play a role in the outcome of next month’s Brazilian elections?
The electoral horizon looks unsympathetic for disaffected Brazilian voters after the death of a charismatic presidential aspirant. Will Rousseff win again, despite politics-as-usual fatigue?
SAO PAULO — Vitamin D was named as such when it was first discovered in 1910, but it wasn’t until two decades later that its real structure was identified. In fact, it is a steroid hormone. Even today, the use of the term “vitamin” is a source of debate among health professionals. Vitamin D deficiency […]
Like hip hop in American cities, funk carioca was born in Brazil’s inner cities, and now has arrived in one of Rio’s most prestigious theaters. Yet police remain wary of what’s behind the beats.
Can Brazil apply the successful “Copa template” to everyday life and political leadership? Too often, the country tends to disappoint when the rest of the world isn’t watching.
Media in emerging economies must start to challenge the dominant voice of the Western press, argues Xinhua News Agency chief Li Congjun in a guest column for America Economía.
BRASILIA — What will be the political and economic reverberations of Tuesday’s historic humiliation of Brazil’s soccer team? The government of President Dilma Rousseff is already on alert, fearing that the national bad mood left by the 7-1 defeat at the hands of Germany may deepen the already rather bleak Brazilian economic forecast, and have […]
The international movement of talent has helped level the playing field of top national soccer teams. Among other things, it has also produced the most wide-open World Cup in memory.
SAO PAULO — Asking “How are you?” in English was the way Igor Mendes, a 26-year-old car dealer, approached Marcela Paes one night in Vila Madalena, the “in” district for Brazilians and foreigners enjoying La Copa in Sao Paulo. Unaware that Marcela is a reporter and fluent in English, he presented himself as a Scot. […]
Gislaine Nunes, 47, is the most prominent soccer attorney in Brazil. From Pelé to Ronaldinho, she has defended many stars, and her success has earned her as much fortune as hostility.
Juliano Alves Pinto hadn’t walked since a 2006 car accident. Then, just a few days ago, the world watched as he wore a mind-controlled exoskeleton to make the opening kick of the World Cup in Brazil.
A Latin American call for the global soccer chief to step aside amidst ongoing corruption investigations. Yet even a Blatter-less FIFA would still have a long road to rectitude.
Many outsiders regard Latin America as monolithic about soccer. But as the World Cup begins in Brazil, a closer comparison of the region’s top two teams might surprise you.
Kneeling on the sidewalk, Guilherme and his friends are busy preparing their banner ahead of a protest march against the World Cup, which starts in São Paulo on Thursday. In the nation of soccer, people have grown increasingly disenchanted and the Copa is growing more unpopular by the day. Only 48% of Brazilians support the […]
Brazil’s national sport of ‘futebol’ is the expression of all that is right in a sometimes troubled country. Plans by protestors to take out their anger on the World Cup are destined to fail.
The Brazilian Congress has passed a new law that requires no fewer than 20 percent of its civil service employees in the public sector to be of African origin. Good motives, bad policy.
An experiment in the Amazon forest will test a hypothesis that higher levels of CO2, due to climate change, can avert the drought and high temperatures it was supposed to cause.
Economic growth has brought more people into Latin America’s middle class, a first but insufficient sign of progress in one of the world’s most unequal regions.
-Op-Ed- SAO PAULO — Brazil’s military rule, which began 50 years ago with the coup on April 1, 1964, and lasted until 1985, has since been the target of well-deserved and widely-shared aversion. The solid establishment of a modern democracy over the last three decades helped shine a light on all that was wrong with […]
President Dilma Rousseff’s once widespread popularity is sinking. But if Brazilian protests reignite when the World Cup begins, it could have major consequences on her October reelection bid.
While much of the West has seen the danger in abusing psychoactive drugs such as Valium, sales of these drugs in Brazil are skyrocketing, and doctors warn that it’s out of control.
For the Greek philosopher Diogenes, self-control and self-sufficiency were the essential values. He lived a life with no possessions, except for a cloak, a purse and a barrel made out of clay in which he would sleep. Intrigued, the emperor Alexander The Great went to visit him. “I’m the most powerful man in the world. […]
French hotelier Alain Auneveux moved to Buenos Aires eight years ago and is utterly enchanted by the Argentine capital, which some have called the Paris of Latin America.
SAO PAULO — With the arrival of the summer season and hot temperatures in South America, a new revolution has begun in the Brazilian workplace — for the right to wear bermuda shorts at the office. Author and fashion consultant Gloria Kalil calls the would-be movement this season’s “sensation.” To encourage and convince directors and […]
A quick farewell to the USS Forrestal, after its symbolic link to the Brazilian military coup and a part of John McCain’s eventful biography.
Six months from kickoff, two economic assessments, pro and con, as the world’s most popular sporting event lands in the ‘B’ of BRICS.
As the Brazil’s “commodities supercycle” grinds to a halt, Dilma Rousseff’s economic policy has failed to find a new path. Is World Cup excitement enough to avoid a national bust?
BRASILIA — The Brazilian government doesn’t like to talk about it publicly, but top officials are worried about the impact that Uruguay’s decision to legalize the production and sale of marijuana — the first nation to do so — will have on its larger neighbor to the north. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff talked about it […]
-Editorial- SAO PAULO — It’s the image that became the symbol of Nelson Mandela’s memorial in Soweto: the handshake between U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro. And it’s only fitting that this is the image that remains. The United States and Cuba have been living in open animosity since the Cold War. […]
A poor education ranking in the latest international PISA report failed to humble the country’s top education official, who instead hailed the outcome as a “great triumph.”
Google is leading a project in Brazil to use balloons to bring Internet connection to the remote corners of the Amazon.
Some 100 million people have emerged from poverty since the 1980s. Is that enough?
-Op-Ed- SAO PAULO — Globalization is an inescapable process. It’s even affecting the new forms of protest against different governments and in different social contexts on our vast, beautiful planet. The problem is that this copycat trend is happening out of context. The Brazilian “black blocs” and Mídia Ninja (a group of independent journalists) are […]
Monday, November 17, 2014 ISIS EXECUTES U.S. AID WORKER U.S. President Barack Obama confirmed yesterday the killing of American aid worker Peter Kassig, who was executed by ISIS, and described it as an act of “pure evil,” The New York Times reports. A video released by the terrorist organization shows Kassig’s beheaded body as well […]