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07 Jan 2012 10:09

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World: Haitians, devastated by earthquake, moving to Brazil to find work

  • All I want is work, and Brazil, thank God, has jobs for us.
  • Haitian-born Wesley Saint-Fleur • Discussing how, in the wake of 2010’s Haitian earthquake, he and his family moved to Brazil, a quickly-growing part of the world where he’s found it easy to get a job. Not everyone has been so lucky, however: Nearly 4,000 people have moved from Haiti to Brazil since the devastating earthquake in 2010, and many of them have found things just as bad in Brazil. While Brazil’s economic growth has slowed recently, unemployment is still extremely low and the biggest beneficiaries have been those working low-income jobs, where salaries have grown sevenfold in recent years. Even Americans are heading down there for jobs. source
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13 Nov 2011 11:26

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World: Brazil raids notorious Rio de Janeiro slum ahead of World Cup, Olympics

  • An attempt to clean up a big problem: Tanks rolled through Rio’s Rocinha neighborhood early Sunday morning, in an effort to show some authority in the region, which is a hotbed for the country’s drug trade. “We’re taking back this territory for the 100,000 citizens of Rocinha, people who have needed peace,” said Sergio Cabral, the governor of the Rio de Janeiro state. But there’s also a bigger goal happening — officials want to clean up the region ahead of two major events heading to the city in the next few years — 2014’s World Cup and 2016’s Olympics. Roughly a third of the city’s six million residents live in slums — of which Rocinha is the largest one. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP) source
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23 Oct 2011 20:40

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World: One long march later, Bolivia’s indigenous people score major victory

  • cause Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous leader, backed building a major road to link Brazil with the Pacific Ocean, it’d go through the Isiboro-Secure Indigenous Territory National Park.
  • reaction The highway proved very controversial to many indigenous people; some protesters walked hundreds of miles to the country’s capitol, La Paz — a two-month trek that galvanized opposition.
  • result On Wednesday, they completed their trek; on Friday, Morales promised that the bridge, which will still get built, will not cut through the reserve as originally planned. source
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07 Feb 2011 11:13

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World: Rio de Janeiro’s famous carnival props lost in massive fire

  • It looks really funny until you realize the context: Rio de Janeiro’s carnival-building section of town, Samba City, just had a huge fire where lots of stuff got destroyed. Costumes, giant props: They were almost all destroyed. (Nobody was hurt, though.) “We are heartbroken,” said League of Samba Schools president Jorge Castanheria. “Everything was practically ready for the carnival.” It happened so close to the event, which draws hundreds of thousands of people each year, that they may not be able to get everything ready in time. source
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23 Jan 2011 12:08

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World: Mudslides now second-worst disaster in Brazilian history

  • 1,500 died in a meningitis outbreak in the mid-1970s, according to United Nations data
  • 803+ have died in the recent mudslides, caused by a month’s worth of rain falling in 24 hours source
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28 Nov 2010 10:52

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World: Rio de Janeiro police, soldiers raid lawless drug haven

The Olympics may not be headed to Brazil until 2016, but they’re getting ready now by fighting against powerful drug gangs (who have been fighting back). With tanks! source
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01 Nov 2010 11:17

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World: Dilma Rousseff makes winning Brazil’s presidency look easy

In Brazil, yes, you can move beyond a past as a guerrilla leftist to become president of the country. Dilma Rousseff’s victory proves it. source
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28 Oct 2010 22:23

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Biz: Get rich quick scheme: Suing McDonald’s for making you fat

  • 12 x 65 = the number of years a Brazilian McDonald’s employee worked at the restaurant, and the number of pounds he gained while working there
  • $17,500 the size of the judgment for the Brazilian, who should have a Marie Claire article written about how ugly he is any day now source
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21 Aug 2010 21:55

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U.S., World: This dot on this map represents a guy in the middle of nowhere

Poor guy’s been isolated in the Brazilian Amazon for at least 15 years, possibly an uncontacted member of a decaying tribe. Which is kinda awesome. source
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23 Jul 2010 11:09

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Culture: Brazilian backlash: Sylvester Stallone pisses off an entire country

  • Bad move, old action star. Stallone, shown here with Jason Statham in the upcoming (and still awesome-sounding) “The Expendables,” said a couple of stupid things during Comic-Con. Here’s what he said about shooting the movie in the country to get Twitter in a tizzy: “You can shoot people and blow things up and they say, ‘Thank you! Take a monkey home with you!'” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 7 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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