Keyword: Brazil

One of the old Fordlandia warehouses. © Thomas Cantaloube

Ninety years ago the American car magnate Henry Ford created a town in the Amazon jungle in order to secure a supply of rubber for his vehicles' tyres. Today it is just a ghost town, another example of the hubris so commonly associated with this region of the world. Mediapart's Thomas Cantaloube reports from Brazil on whether the lessons of that failed venture have truly been learned.

French military intelligence chief told parliamentary committee that his agency was informed of plot by a Brazilian national via a 'partner' agency.

Health minister says woman was not pregnant and is recovering well after contracting virus from her partner who had visited Brazil.

Le sarau fora do eixo, un exemple de rencontre littéraire. © (dr)

Last week Brazil was the 'guest of honour' at the celebrated Paris book fair, the Salon du livre, to which a delegation of 48 leading Brazilian authors was invited. Among them were writers from the favelas, or urban shanty towns, who are behind the 'literature of the periphery', a major cultural trend sweeping the giant South American nation. The emergence of these writers has coincided with a growing taste for prose and poetry among the residents of Brazil's deprived residential districts. This has been fuelled by the phenomenon of grass-roots gatherings known as 'saraus', which are attracting more and more people to listen to and take part in literary readings. Lamia Oualalou reports from Rio de Janeiro on this dynamic movement in Brazilian popular culture, one that might just have some lessons for France's own deprived and troubled suburbs.

Algerians in France celebrated their team's achievement in reaching knockout stages; there were 74 arrests as some fans clashed with police.

June 2009 crash which killed all 228 people on board 'could have been avoided if the crew had taken appropriate action' says expert report.

The couple, suspected of shuttling young women between France and Brazil on discounted tickets, were placed under investigation and jailed.

Dassault's hopes of a multi-billion-euro deal to sell its Rafale fighter jet to Brazil have been dashed after the contract was given to Saab.

A 2-0 defeat in Kiev means France will need stunning performance in Tuesday's return leg in Paris to avoid missing first World Cup since 1994.

British coroner was speaking at the inquest into the deaths of two British men in the Air France jet disaster, which killed 228 people in 2009.

A combination of mistakes by inadequately trained pilots and faulty equipment caused an Air France jet to plunge into the Atlantic in 2009.

© dr

Brazil is one of the world's rising economic powers, and a new and vigorous force on the international scene where it has championed the demand that emerging nations be given a greater role in international governance, notably in the current race of candidates to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Here, Sebastião Velasco (photo), a renowned Brazilian professor of political sciences and international relations, charts the evolution of Brazil into one of the world's largest democracies and fast-growing economic powers, and analyses its role in promoting a new world order.