Brazil began an investigation Monday into whether telecommunications firms operating in the country cooperated with the U.S. as part of a spying program that has collected data on billions of telephone and email conversations. Anatel, the government agency that regulates the telecom sector in Brazil, said in a note that it's working with federal police and other government agencies on the investigation.
The Brazilian government, under pressure to improve public health services, has dropped plans to import a contingent of Cuban doctors and is instead looking to hire physicians in Spain and Portugal, the Health Ministry said on Monday.
Lawmakers in Brazil said Monday they want to question Washington's ambassador here about revelations that the United States has collected and stored the e-mail and telephone records of millions of Brazilians.
Brazil will demand an explanation from the United States over reports its citizens' electronic communications have been under surveillance by US spy agencies for at least a decade, foreign minister Antonio Patriota said on Sunday.
President Dilma Rousseff sent Congress reform proposals on Tuesday intended to make Brazilian politics more representative in a bid to recoup popularity she lost in a wave of angry protests against the country's political establishment.
Aditya Birla Group is a late entrant to Latin America and came very much later than the Tatas and Reliance, the other big iconic Indian business groups. However Birla has made up for lost time by emerging as the Indian company with the largest annual business turnover in Latin America, which was around 1.8 billion dollars last year. Birla is also the largest investor from the Indian private sector in Latin America.
As protests again turned violent near the stadium where Brazil’s national team was playing arch-rival Uruguay, legislators kept up a lawmaking spurt aimed at quelling the biggest street demonstrations in two decades by increasing penalties for corruption.
The defence industry is booming in Latin America amid economic growth and greater concerns regarding national security, said the renowned security and defence consultancy firm IHS Jane's. Imports of weapons soared 16% in the subcontinent in 2008-2012, climbing from 3.42 billion to 3.96 billion dollars annually, the firm said in a report called The Balance of Trade.
Brazil's congress late Tuesday evening rejected controversial amendment PEC 37, which would have limited the power of federal prosecutors to investigate crimes, and designated all royalties from newly discovered oil fields to education and healthcare.
The president of Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal (Supreme Court) Joaquim Barbosa argued in favour of diminishing the influence of political parties in decisions referred to the Brazilian people’s interest and supports the introduction of what he called “puffs of popular expression” in the current political system.