BG Group set to invest up to $5bn in Brazil

John Rumsey and Ed Crooks-Financial Times, 01/14/2009
BG Groupplans to invest up to $1.25bn (£862m) a year in Brazil over the next four years as it develops its share of the world’s most exciting oil discoveries for many years.
Frank Chapman, the oil and gas company’s chief executive, who was in Brazil meeting government officials yesterday, told [...]

Coffee shortage brewing after poor Brazil crop

Chris Flood-Financial Times, 01/14/2009
A substantial fall in Brazilian coffee production this year looks likely to drag the global coffee market into a supply deficit in 2009-10, according to the International Coffee Organisation which released its latest monthly report yesterday.
The ICO said Brazil’s coffee production, which follows a biennial cycle (high output one year followed by [...]

Report: Brazil Indian suicides rise

Associated Press, 01/13/2009
A new report says suicides among Brazil’s Indian population is on the rise. But murders of Indians have dropped. The Catholic Church-backed Indian Missionary Council says in a Tuesday report that suicides among Indians in the Amazonian state of Mato Grosso jumped 50 percent in 2008 compared to 2007.
At least 34 Indians there [...]

Brazil May Expand Family Aid Program as Growth Slows

Andre Soliani and Iuri Dantas-Bloomberg, 01/13/2009
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva may add 2 million poor families to a program that makes cash handouts as part of the government’s response to slowing economic growth, the official responsible for the program said.
The expansion, which requires Lula’s approval, would extend benefits to about 5 million more [...]