s World Cup T-shirts blunder exacerbated a wider problem of how Brazilian women are perceived "Do you go to the beach topless?" This is a question that Brazilian women find themselves being asked when interacting with people (mostly men) who are not Brazilian. I am sorry to disappoint, but I have never once in my life gone to the beach with no top on – nor should anyone be asking me that. The hypersexualisation...
s ministry of women's affairs said shirts were offensive Adidas agreed on Tuesday to stop selling two raunchy T-shirts in the run-up to the World Cup after the Brazilian government complained that they associated the country with sexual tourism. One shirt shows a bikini-clad woman with open arms on a sunny Rio de Janeiro beach under the words "Looking to Score". The other has an "I love Brazil" heart...
t panic. But there could be a global coffee shortage. Usually, during this time of year, the delicate arabica coffee plants in the mountains of Brazil, where most of the world's coffee comes from, are maturing. White, fragrant flowers have appeared, followed by cherrylike fruit, each containing two seeds: arabica coffee beans, the most popular in the world. But last month the worst drought in decades...
ve since heard countless explanations, including TV broadcasters' demands for late-night match schedules, high ticket prices and the exodus of big-name players to Europe. The reason that makes most sense on a visceral level was the one told to me when I first suggested to Brazilian friends that we go and watch a match. "It's too dangerous," they replied. While I have been to plenty of matches without...
City ‘selfies’, overcrowding misconceptions and how weather affects New Yorkers’ generosity feature among the best city content we’ve seen online this week Marta Bausells ...
s light at the end of the tunnel. As of last month, the Brazilian government is giving people such as Rodrigues a "cultural coupon" worth $20 a month – enough, the 26-year-old said, to buy a book to enliven her daily ride. The money, loaded on a magnetic card, is designated for purposes broadly termed cultural – though that could include dance lessons and visits to the circus in addition to books and...
s largest potential wind resources and vast biomass capacity, but renewables in Central America have grown rapidly; Mexico is challenging Brazil in wind, leads the region in solar and has huge geothermal reserves. The potential scale of Brazil's green economy hints at the overall size of this market, with the Carbon Trust pointing to the country's " $200bn low carbon opportunity". In 2013 the UK's...
England manager Roy Hodgson takes a tour of Arena Amazonia where England will play their opening World Cup match against Italy ...
s football was banned in Brazil. Now ex-drug traffickers are tackling prejudice in the game by training future soccer stars from the favelas The Astroturf on the football pitch in Rio de Janeiro's Penha favela complex is torn and covered with litter, while graffiti on the bullet-ridden, pockmarked walls vows "death to the police". "Stray bullets are part of my life here," says Jessica, a 17-year-old...
t afford them? As environmentalism goes mainstream, corporations are marketing the word "green" as a panacea for the world's climate crisis. Today the word describes a set of prescribed, mostly consumerist actions: buy local, organic and fresh; go vegan; eat in season; skip the elevator, take the stairs. "Green" has come to mean shopping at Whole Foods and possessing a Prius. Meanwhile, leading corporate...
A sneak peak at Arena Amazonia, the stadium in the heart of the Amazon jungle where England will play their first World Cup match against Italy ...
About 100 dogs have had their day at a pre-Carnival bash in Rio de Janeiro. A 10-man brass band and a singer belting out Rio’s anthem Cidade Maravilhosa (Marvellous City) kicked off the four-footed fest as dog owners gathered to party on Copacabana beach. ...
s office was just the latest alarming episode in the runup to June's tournament Another week, another storm of teargas and rubber bullets at a World Cup host city in Brazil. This time, the clashes were in the capital, Brasília, where 15,000 protesters from the Landless Workers Movement marched from the Mané Garrincha football stadium to the Palácio do Planalto state office of the president, Dilma Rousseff...
s image before the 2014 World Cup could have serious implications for sex workers As preparations for the World Cup accelerate, Brazilian authorities are attempting to sanitise the country's image by clamping down on sex-related businesses. More than 2,000 websites have been targeted, and prostitutes are being threatened with prison sentences for displaying advertisements in phone boxes. Fuelling this...
s Landless Workers Movement celebrates 30 years on the agricultural frontline this week with a raucous gathering in Brasilia that aims to set a new course for the flagging campaign for agrarian reform. An estimated 15,000 activist farmers have descended on the capital, setting up camp outside the World Cup stadium, marching on the president's palace and clashing with police in a cloud of teargas. They...
s difficult for conservative candidates to move forward because inequality is such an entrenched issue," said Ana Quintana, a Latin America expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "And it's hard to implement free-market, institutional reforms when you need to make sure a significant portion of the population can get enough to eat." Latin America's right could once identify itself as pro-business...
s impact goes beyond health. Recent studies on the impact of dengue put the economic cost at approximately $2.1bn per year in the Americas and more than $950m per year in Southeast Asia . Despite these high figures, the true economic impact could be much worse when accounting for under-reported and misdiagnosed infections. As dengue fever continues to spread and threaten the stability of health and...
s economy and US Federal Reserve bond plans European stock markets posted fresh losses on Monday, with London leading the way, as fears of an emerging markets crisis continued to alarm investors and sent shares sliding in Asia overnight. Shares were also hit by predictions that the US Federal Reserve would trim its bond-buying stimulus programme on Wednesday, despite recent market volatility, and concerns...
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It means a lot to be able to give something back to the fans. They've suffered a lot,' says Flávio Caça-Rato, or Flávio the Rat Catcher, Santa Cruz's forward The northeast is Brazil's poorest region, and Recife – a sprawling, occasionally beautiful coastal city of around 4 million – is a very nordestino kind of town. Santa Cruz, the city's most benighted team, are a very nordestino kind of football...