News stories by Fabiana Frayssinet, page 12

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 31 (IPS) - The execution-style killing of a leader of the Landless Workers' Movement in a sugarcane plantation in the southeastern Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, where bodies of opponents of the dictatorship were incinerated in the 1970s, recalls one of the most tragic chapters in this country's history.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 29 (IPS) - Hoping to prevent the tragedies that have become an annual event every rainy season, authorities in the southeastern Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro plan to require that municipal governments include environmental risk mapping in their infrastructure projects, in order to prohibit construction in vulnerable areas.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 26 (IPS) - The European Union's serious economic and financial crisis stands in stark contrast to the relative stability and decade-long growth enjoyed by Latin America and the Caribbean and could put the two blocs on equal footing, giving the Southern region more leverage to further its demands and economic growth.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 12 (IPS) - A lot of water has passed under the bridge in Latin America since Hugo Chávez first took office as president of Venezuela in 1999, with left-wing and centre-left governments coming to power and the emergence of paths toward integration that exclude the United States.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 11 (IPS) - Teachers at a local primary school here, the Escola Municipal IV Centenário, are trained to help their pupils find cover in case of gun battles.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 10 (IPS) - Mosquitoes that transmit dengue fever need clean, still water and warm night temperatures to reproduce and thrive. That is common knowledge, but now scientists in Brazil have managed to measure the relation between increased rainfall and temperatures and the risk of dengue epidemics in this city.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 04 (IPS) - Anarkia Boladona has turned the streets of Brazil into billboards against domestic violence. As a self-titled feminist political graffiti artist, she represents a new trend in women's rights that seeks less academic and more daring and popular avenues of expression.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dic 24 (IPS) - Environmental authorities in this southeastern Brazilian city are installing more air quality control stations in the locations where competitions are to be held during the 2016 Olympic Games, so that air pollution will not hurt the athletes' performance.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dic 14 (IPS) - The cyclists riding in the bicycle lanes along the beachfront avenue of this Brazilian city pass the car drivers stuck in rush hour traffic.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dic 12 (IPS) - Opinions are divided in Morro da Providência, Brazil's oldest favela, over construction works for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. While some residents are optimistic about the improvements that lie ahead, others point out that hundreds of dwellings will be demolished.