News stories by Fabiola Ortiz, page 8

, Sep 27 (IPS) - Cíntia Rose Regis, 23, not only breastfeeds her 16-month-old daughter Zelda but has also been donating 600 ml a week of breast milk to a mothers’ milk bank in Brazil over the last year.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 25 (IPS) - You do not need to live in the countryside to grow vegetables, as hundreds of thousands of people involved in urban agriculture from Havana to Buenos Aires know very well. Now they are being joined by residents of Rio de Janeiro’s “favelas”.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 18 (IPS) - The “pacification” of the favelas in this Brazilian city, aimed at driving out armed groups and fighting drug trafficking, has not yet become a fully effective public policy, says Eliana Sousa Silva, who has lived in one of Rio’s shantytowns for nearly 30 years.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 28 (IPS) - Issam Ali Hassan spent more than four years in an isolated desert camp in Jordan before he was taken in by Brazil. The son of Palestinians had been living as a refugee in Baghdad when he had to escape after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 21 (IPS) - The policy of pacification of Rio de Janeiro’s violent favelas, or shantytowns, could serve as a model in some respects in Palestinian refugee camps, says Filippo Grandi, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine refugees, in this interview with IPS.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 20 (IPS) - The Sete Quedas or “seven waterfalls” on the Teles Pires River, which runs through the Amazon rainforest states of Mato Grosso and Pará in central Brazil, are a spiritual oasis venerated by several indigenous groups.

The state of Rio de Janeiro in southeast Brazil will introduce a pioneering policy in March to reduce the under-registration of crimes against transvestites and transsexual people, who will be able to identify themselves with their preferred names when they report crimes to the police.

The lack of transparency in the preparations for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil is raising concerns over the social implications of hosting the football championship and fears that the country's most democratic and popular sport will only be accessible to the wealthy.