Brazil News

July 31st. Today, in Zurich, Brazil officially presented their bid to be the host of the Football World Cup in 2014. Following a tradition, the Cup in 2014 will be in South America, and Brazil is the only bidder (Colombia, the other potential candidate, withdrew last April).

Ricardo Teixeira, President of CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation), presented […]

Nelson Piquet, three times Formula-One World Champion (in 1981, 1983 an 1987), had his driving license seized by the Police, and is now taking driving lessons to get the license back.
According to the Brazilian Code of Transit, besides being fined, a driver gets penalty points every time an infraction occurs; if a driver reaches 20 […]

Fortune Magazine published recently its annual list of the 500 largest companies in the World, ranked by total revenue.
Five Brazilian companies were listed: Petrobras, in 65th position (up from 86th in 2006); Banco Bradesco, 224th, up from 269th; Banco Itaú, 288th, up from 415th; Banco do Brasil, 291st, up from 323rd; and newcomer mining giant […]

Until September 29th 2006, Brazil seemed to have a reasonable aerial transportation system. Two private airlines (TAM and Gol) concentrating nearly 80% of the market; a State company (Infraero) managing the airports; a sector of the Minister of Defense controlling radars and air traffic, including civil transportation; an independent agency (ANAC - Agencia Nacional de […]

Notice: this post contains a list of several events. More recent events are at the top. The posting date is update whenever a new event is added.

July 24th: Mangabeira Unger, who was recently appointed as Minister of Long Term Planning, parked his official car in a forbidden place (reserved for disabled).

Original text (in Portuguese) by […]

Antônio Carlos Magalhães, commonly referred to as ACM, died today at age 79, of multiple failure of organs; ACM spent the last 40 days in a hospital, most of them under intensive therapy.

ACM was the most important politicians of Bahia, one the largest States in Brazil; his current term as Senator would finish in 2010.
ACM […]

Brazil has a very high tax burden, compared to countries of similar social and economic situation.

August 22nd 2007. Tax burder in 2006 was 34.23% of GNP, according to Receita Federal. This is up from 33.38% in 2005, and is a new all time high in Brazil. These figures were already adjusted by the new methodology […]

Brazil is one of the countries with highest interest rates in the world.

July 19th: Central Bank cuts interest by 50 basis points. The SELIC is now 11.5% p.a. The decision is taken by seven directors of the Central Bank; this time, four directors voted for a reduction of 50 points, whereas two voted for 25 […]

An Airbus A320 operated by TAM Airlines crashed when attempting to land on the airport of Congonhas, in São Paulo.

The airplane touched down the runway, but the pilot could not stop it. The airplane ran over the end of runway, flew over Avenue Washington Luis(one of the busiest thoroughfare in São Paulo) and crashed against […]

Below, some of the major events about the Brazil Men’s Football team in 2007.

July 16th. The Brazilian team beat Argentina by 3×0 yesterday and became champion of the America Cup 2007, which took place in Venezuela.

The victory was a pleasant surprise to Brazilians. Brazil didn’t bring the best team to Venezuela; Ronaldinho and Kaká, the […]