News stories by Fabiana Frayssinet, page 19

Plans for a Brazilian nuclear submarine that had been postponed since the 1970s are beginning to materialise, as the nuclear-propelled sub is regarded as a strategic necessity to guard Brazil's deep water oil reserves, and to project global power.

Local women's voices have begun to be heard over a community radio station now broadcasting in Complexo do Alemao, a clump of favelas or shantytowns on the north side of this Brazilian city that were ruled until recently by armed drug gangs.

The reputation of Brazilians as cheerful, happy-go-lucky people is starting to be reflected in the cold reality of statistics. A study has put numbers to that state of well-being by quantifying the significant reduction in social inequality in the last few years, an area in which South America's giant has outdone other emerging nations.

By appointing women this month to two key ministries, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has nearly met her goal of having 30 percent of women in her cabinet, and is putting women in predominant roles at the Planalto Palace, the seat of government.

The Brazilian government of Dilma Rousseff is attempting to push through long-delayed reforms of the tax system, which is one of the most onerous and unequal in the world, with a tax burden as heavy as that of many rich countries, but accompanied by deficient public services.

In the powerful verses of the song 'Haiti', Brazilian musicians Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil described similarities between two countries at different ends of the development spectrum in Latin America, summed up by the words 'Haiti is here'.

Four decades after Washington declared its 'war on drugs' and began to spread the doctrine south of the U.S. border, the government of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro decided to shift away from that approach towards a strategy focused on community policing.

Organisations of small farmers and human rights groups are disappointed with the measures announced by the Brazilian government to address the problem of violence in the Amazon jungle region, after four environmental activists were murdered in less than a week.

Microcredit in Brazil still has huge potential for expansion, even though microloans have already grown much more than traditional credit in the last eight years.

The same day that the lower house of the Brazilian Congress approved a reform of the forestry code that would make it easier to clear land in the Amazon jungle for agriculture, a husband and wife team of activists who spent years fighting illegal deforestation in the rainforest were murdered.