Brazil

• Saturday, July 13th 2013 - 13:34 UTC

  Mercosur blasts EU countries over Morales incident and condemn US electronic surveillance

  

  Mercosur leaders agreed on Friday to call home for consultation their ambassadors to Spain, France, Italy and Portugal to protest last week's forced diversion of the Bolivian president's aircraft. They also strongly defended their right to offer asylum Friday, venting anger at claims of US spying in the region while intelligence leaker Edward Snowden's fate hangs in the balance.

• Saturday, July 13th 2013 - 02:24 UTC

  “Mercosur has closed its doors to Paraguay”, reacts Asuncion to the Venezuelan presidency of the group

  

  “Mercosur has closed its doors to Paraguay and it’s not good for Latinamerican integration”, was the first reaction from Asuncion after the group announced the presidency for Venezuela and lifting the suspension of Paraguay next 15 August.

• Friday, July 12th 2013 - 19:22 UTC

  Rousseff bites back to protests: highway-blocking banned and organizers will be fined

  

  Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff reacted swiftly to the latest national stoppage saying that her government will not tolerate protests blocking highways or streets and with the Ministry of Justice will draft rules to fine those organizations responsible for such actions.

• Friday, July 12th 2013 - 08:28 UTC

  Despite US ‘spying’ Rousseff’s state visit to Washington is still on, says Brazilian congress

  

  Disclosures alleging that the United States has collected data on billions of telephone and email conversations in Brazil will not affect Brazil-U.S. relations, said the head of the country’s joint congressional committee on intelligence.

• Friday, July 12th 2013 - 08:16 UTC

  Mercosur will lift Paraguay’s suspension next August 15, announced Uruguay

  

  This coming August 15, Mercosur will lift the suspension on Paraguay's participations that has held since June 29 2012, Uruguay Minister Luis Almagro announced on Thursday during a meeting of the group’s foreign ministers in Montevideo.

• Thursday, July 11th 2013 - 17:02 UTC

  Brazil ups basic rate to 8.5% to combat inflation; markets forecast 9.25%/10% by end of the year

  

  Brazil’s central bank raised the benchmark interest rate a third consecutive time and anticipated that the tightening cycle may be extended through the rest of the year as policy makers fight inflation.

• Thursday, July 11th 2013 - 16:57 UTC

  Brazilian workers on “national struggle day” block the country’s main highways

  

  Tens of thousands of workers across Brazil have walked off their jobs on Thursday in a nationwide strike demanding better working conditions and improved public services. Organized by Brazil’s biggest trade union federations, strikers are partially or completely blocking 17 highways in seven states.

• Thursday, July 11th 2013 - 07:26 UTC

  Summit in Montevideo could further expose the fragility of a Mercosur turned political

  

  President-elect Horacio Cartes will not make any comments on the ongoing dispute of Paraguay with Mercosur until after the group’s summit in Uruguay next Friday, when official decisions on the subject are expected to be made public. However for both sides any decision will most probably be challenging and ratify that Mercosur has become a political group far from its original trade and investment purposes.

• Thursday, July 11th 2013 - 06:53 UTC

  Time for China to become more Brazilian

  

  By Markus Jaeger (*) - What could China possibly learn from Brazil, economically? After all, real GDP growth in Brazil averaged 2.75% annually over the past three decades, compared to 10% in China. Moreover, Brazil’s consumption-oriented growth model is about to exhaust itself, while China’s investment-focussed strategy continues to generate high, if somewhat diminished economic growth.

• Wednesday, July 10th 2013 - 17:35 UTC

  Brazil’s research company which turned the country into world breadbasket turns 40

  

  Embrapa (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisas Agropecuarias) created tropical agriculture in Brazil, thus allowing the country to become the giant food producer it is today. Hailed for the work done in adapting soybeans to the hot, humid, acidic climes of the Cerrado savannah, where nearly 17% of the world's beans are now cultivated, the state-run research company is a national treasure.