Article - Spot Luck: Great wildlife encounters in Brazil

From the Amazon jungle to the wetlands of the Pantanal, Brazil is home to an astonishing diversity of plant and animal life

It’s a nose. A very long nose. It swings back and forth in our direction, combing the breeze for our scent like some animated Hoover nozzle. Finding nothing amiss, the owner continues her meandering path towards us. What now?

The long grass parts as her outlandish form emerges into full view. Fifteen metres, 10 metres, eight metres. Surely she has seen us. But the wind is in our favour and those stuck-on currants of eyes are fooling nobody. Now we can see her pickaxe front claws and metre-long witch’s broom of a tail. And, best of all, her passenger: a mini-me clinging gamely to mum’s back like some myopic clanger.

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News - Brazil state bank frees up billions for Cup stadia

Brazil’s state development bank BNDES said it will provide up to 4.8 billion reais (US$2.77 billion) for work on the 12 stadia that will stage matches in the 2014 World Cup, despite a promise from organisers that public funds would only be needed for infrastructure.

The credit line will have a ceiling of 400 million reais per stadium, limited to 75 percent of the total cost of the projects, the BNDES said in a statement after a meeting between President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and ministers linked to Brazil’s staging of the tournament.

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Article - The thrill of Brazil: How Rio is already in its stride ahead of hosting the 2016 Olympics

No one throws a party like Rio de Janeiro. And, having just won the race to host the 2016 Olympics, South America’s carnival-loving capital of extravagance has cause to celebrate.

The news follows the city’s successful bid for the 2014 soccer World Cup, and will mean not only a massive boost to tourism, but a huge - and sustained - increase in government spending.

This should result in improvements to infrastructure and services. One knock-on effect will be an increase in property values; another, modelled on Beijing, will be a smartening up of the city, with crackdowns on crime and the removal of the favela slums.

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Article - The Olympic Games – Great for Brazil

As you may know, Brazil won the bid for the Olympic games over Japan and The United States. After police raids on multiple favelas surrounding the Rio area, President da Silva announced that the Brazilian government will devoted sixty million dollars to the local and governmental law enforcement.

Over the weekend, during a turf war between two rival gangs, Police were forced to employ the air support of a helicopter. During the skirmish, the helicopter was shot out of the sky by high caliber machine gun fire. Three policemen died in the crash. Other casualties included 21 gang members/civilians. Violence is rampant in Rio where the high murder rate makes it one of the most dangerous cities in the world. After a third police officer died in a helicopter crash, President da Silva announced his decision to “up the ante” on the corruption facing Brazil.

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Article - Buy Into Brazil

There’s a lot to like about South America’s biggest economy. Hosting the Olympics and World Cup doesn’t hurt either.

Suddenly everyone is talking about Brazil. This makes sense considering that the colossus of South America out-hustled President Obama and his hometown of Chicago to land the 2016 Olympics. It has also benefited by being the “B” part of the BRIC group of emerging nations, in addition to Russia, India and China. It’s an emerging power that some investors have just learned about, though the pros have been hip to it for some time.

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