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Brazil army aids Rio dengue fight The military clinics are aiming to take the pressure off public hospitals The Brazilian military has opened three new field clinics in Rio de Janeiro to help officials tackle a surge in dengue fever that has overwhelmed hospitals. Officials say 13 people have died since Friday, bringing the number of deaths this year in Rio de Janeiro state to 67, with some 45,000 people infected. The mosquito-borne disease causes high temperature, headaches and muscle pain and, in extreme cases, can be fatal. President Lula has said all levels of government have mishandled the crisis....

This amazing photograph gives whole new meaning to the phrase "May God strike me with lightning if ..." Rio de Janeiro's world-famous statue of Christ the Redeemer was struck by lightning during a thunderstorm over the Brazilian city on Sunday. Scroll down for more ... The statue - which towers over the city as the largest statue of Christ in the world - did not appear too damaged after the strike, according to Brazilian reports. The statue stands 39.6 metres (130ft) tall, is made of 700 tons of reinforced concrete, and is located at the peak of the 700-metre (2,296ft)...

Brasilia - A Brazilian judge has banned a float portraying the Holocaust from taking part in this year's carnival in Rio de Janeiro. The judge also banned the use of Adolf Hitler costumes and swastikas in Sunday's parade. Jewish interest groups in Brazil had demanded that the float, which used mannequins to portray victims of the Holocaust, be banned from the carnival. The float's designer, who believes that the carnival should also broach social themes, said he wanted the off-putting tableau to offer a warning and so help prevent an event such as the Holocaust ever happening again. The judge...

Amid news that, in preparation for Brazil's Carnival celebrations, the government will be handing out millions of free condoms, Reuters indulges in some editorializing: Recife city also plans to distribute morning-after contraceptive pills -- a move that has angered the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.The church opposes Brazil's much lauded anti-AIDS campaign on the grounds that it promotes contraception.Wait a minute. How exactly does the morning-after pill prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS? That's right, it does not. Therefore, the distrubtion of morning-after pills can in no way be taken as being part of an "anti-AIDS campaign." Furthermore, the church does...

NEW YORK - Debate over U.S. control of core Internet systems threatens to overtake an international meeting in Brazil next week that was meant to cover topics including spam, free speech and cheaper access. The Internet Governance Forum is the result of a compromise world leaders reached at a U.N. summit in Tunisia two years ago. They agreed to let the United States remain in charge. But they established an annual forum to discuss emerging issues, including whether control of how Internet addresses are assigned — and thus how people use the Internet — should remain with the U.S. government...

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian police killed 13 suspected gangsters during five hours of gunbattles in a Rio de Janeiro slum on Wednesday in a show of force before next month's Pan American Games, a security official said. More than 1,300 policemen backed by armored cars invaded the Alemao slum, or favela, in a raid aimed at arresting drug traffickers and seizing drugs and weapons. Gangsters erected barricades and created oil slicks to prevent the armored cars from climbing the steep streets, witnesses said. The gunfire was intense and numerous grenade explosions were heard, Agencia Estado news reported. A...

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A floating house built out of trash in a reeking channel of a Rio de Janiero slum will be preserved as a model for recycling in a government anti-pollution campaign. Luiz Bispo says his house, kept afloat by hundreds of empty plastic bottles, had been set to be demolished by authorities. But popular support and unexpected help from the new state environment secretary, Carlos Minc, have turned it into something to boast about. "They were threatening to evict me and all of a sudden I'm recognised by the state government and called to be an...

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's raucous Carnival celebrations kicked off in Rio de Janeiro on Friday with tens of thousands dancing and singing in the streets, defying a recent surge of gun violence in the city's slums. Carnival's samba-dancing King Momo -- the Lord of Misrule -- and his shimmying Queen and Princess were handed a giant symbolic key to the city in a sun-lit park as a band played Rio's boisterous anthem "the Marvelous City." "The city has its problems but now we're full of hope, and we salute all those who come to visit us for the...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Breathtaking views high above Rio de Janeiro's beaches and mountains can be yours for just a few dollars a day -- if you skip pricey hotels and sleep in a slum. Rio's slums, or favelas, are infamous for drug and gang violence. But a new hostel called "The Little Slum Inn" is attracting adventurous tourists, mainly from Germany, France and the United States, who dare to live amid the grit and poverty. "This place isn't for wimps. If you are uptight, you can go stay at the Copacabana Palace," said co-owner and shantytown dweller...

ALARM - Flights of works of Picasso, Monet, Dali and Matisse with the museum of Rio RIO OF JANEIRO - works of El Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Claude Monet were flights Friday in a museum of Rio by a group of men armed which moreover attacked foreign tourists, according to the museum.

The Japanese company that makes the Rio line of MP3 players is shuttering its portable digital-audio division. Rio parent D&M Holdings said on Friday that the ultra-competitive business no longer fit its market strategy. Although it has only a small market share compared to Apple Computer's iPod, the Rio brand name has been linked with the early days of digital-music history since weathering a lawsuit from the recording industry that aimed to shut down the MP3 hardware business. D&M Holdings--which also owns high-end home audio brands including Denon and Marantz, and is close to acquiring Boston Acoustics--said the portable MP3...

I don't know how to post the pics but at the link there is a slideshow of pics of these tiny babies - the size of a man's thumb... Baby Monkeys Rescued After Mom's Death Babies Torn From Mother's Womb POSTED: 11:59 am EDT August 24, 2005 UPDATED: 12:12 pm EDT August 24, 2005 RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Two baby monkeys in Brazil were rescued from a Rio de Janeiro neighborhood after their mother was killed by a car. Both of the monkeys were torn from the mother's womb during the crash. They were discovered by firemen at the...

Oscars Best Original Song ''Al Otro Lado del Rio'' from The Motorcycle Diaries plagiarism?? it's not that original after all.

Suspect Recants Killing Shell Executive and Wife, Says Two Others Committed Crime RIO101 Apr 2, 2004 By Michael Astor/ Associated Press Writer/ RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - A day after a public confession, a handyman denied Friday he killed an American couple and blamed two other Brazilians for the crime. Jociel Conceicao dos Santos, 20, was placed into Brazil's witness protection program after recanting his confession delivered at a police news conference, said Rio state security secretary Anthony Garotinho. Dos Santos claimed that two others "were the real authors of this crime and he only collaborated with them," Garotinho...

RIO JOURNALAn American Family Abroad: Horror Strikes in the Night By TONY SMITH IO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 2 — The detectives at Rio de Janeiro's homicide division are a world-weary bunch, inured to the horrors of violent crime by their daily hunting down of killers in one of the world's most dangerous cities. But the grisly assault last weekend that left Zera Todd Staheli, a 39-year-old American oil executive, dead and his wife, Michelle, 34, in a coma has shocked even the most case-hardened officers. [Michelle Staheli died of her wounds early Thursday, Reuters reported.]According to the police chief, Álvaro...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - An American executive with Shell oil company was found slain in his Rio home, and the city's top police official said Monday investigators are trying to determine how attackers entered the heavily guarded house. Todd Staheli, 39, vice president for joint ventures in the Southern Cone gas and power unit of oil giant Shell, was found dead Sunday morning by one of his four children. His wife, Michele Staheli, suffered face and head wounds and remained in critical condition Monday at the Copa D'Or Hospital following emergency brain surgery. Mrs. Staheli is "in a deep...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazilian (news - web sites) authorities urged residents of Rio de Janeiro on Friday to be careful after lab samples of cholera and typhoid fever were stolen with a biologist's car. Doctors and police in the Brazilian city said the bacteria had been securely packed and represented no risk if not opened, but acknowledged the samples could be dangerous if removed from the package. Silvio Valle, a biosecurity expert with the government's Fiocruz research institute, graded the biohazard of the stolen material as two on a scale of four in televised comments, asking viewers...

U. S. Department of Energy promotes "sustainable development" in accordance with United Nations' scheme By Sue Forde, Citizen Review OnlinePublished 08. 18. 02 at 20:26 Sierra Time The U. S. Department of Energy has joined in promoting the concept of "sustainable development", as revealed by their website.  One of the "solutions" offered is "relocation" of property owners.  This is something we are seeing on a local level here in Clallam County, Washington.[1]“Sustainable Development” was first introduced by Maurice Strong, socialist, senior adviser to the Commission on Global Governance and driving force behind the concept of “sustainability”. When introducing the...

THE AXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL EVIL By Alan CarubaAugust 13, 2002 NewsWithViews.com The evil that is environmentalism will be on full display in Johannesburg, South Africa, from August 26 through September 4. The United Nations summit to be held there comes ten years after the Rio Summit that generated the hoax of global warming. It put in motion the mechanism of "sustainable environment" and the vast propaganda campaign that the Earth was running out all its natural resources. The answer, they said, was a massive restructuring of capitalism to "save" the Earth. Restructuring isn't the right word. Elimination is the right word....

Looks like Bart Simpson will never be a diplomat. The spiky-haired brat of Fox's long-running The Simpsons and his animated clan are being decried by Brazilian (news - web sites) officials for an episode they say sullied the reputation of international party destination Rio de Janeiro. In fact, not only are they decrying, they're crying lawsuit. According to reports out of the South American country, Rio's tourism agency, Riotur, has asked its legal counsel to file a civil lawsuit (in a U.S. court) against the network over the March 31 Simpsons installment, "Blame it on Lisa." Riotur had a cow...