News stories by Fabiana Frayssinet, page 25

Biodigester technology, which originated in Asia as a natural process for treating sewage waste, is reemerging in Latin America as an integrated system providing cheap energy, improved sanitation, and even attractive landscaping.

The growth of agribusiness in Brazil, with its vast monocultures of soybean or sugarcane, is responsible for the expansion of large estates belonging to fewer and fewer landowners, according to small farmers' organisations and agricultural experts.

Although Brazil has the reputation of being more sexually liberal than its Spanish-speaking neighbours, Brazilians suffer their own fears of stigma when it comes to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) — the target of a new public health campaign.

On stage, singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil highlighted Brazil's 'genetic and cultural' connection to 'Mother Africa,' to applause from a predominantly light-skinned audience at a concert that black people generally could not afford - symbolic of the country's 'veiled racism' at an international festival organised to combat it.

Brazil's discovery of vast offshore oil and natural gas reserves raises the question of how to tap the newfound wealth without causing severe environmental impacts and without leaving aside the development of clean energy alternatives.

Achieving sustainable growth is one of the major challenges facing Brazil, an emerging power and the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. To do this it will have to curb emissions, 30 percent of which are caused by industry, power generation and the transport sector.

The sixth ministerial meeting of the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) forum agreed Tuesday in Brasilia to strengthen the dialogue between the three emerging powers in order to establish common positions on regional and international matters and boost South-South cooperation.

On what he referred to as 'a new independence day for Brazil,' President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced Monday proposed new legislation that would increase state control over the management of the country's enormous offshore oil finds, with the aim of channeling much of the state's oil revenue into a national social fund.

A likely presidential bid by former Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva, who quit the ruling Workers Party (PT) this week, has shaken up the political scene ahead of the 2010 elections.

Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Felipe Calderón of Mexico agreed Monday to explore the possibility of a free trade agreement as part of a strategy to reduce their dependence on the industrialised world.