· April, 2008

Stories about Brazil from April, 2008

Brazil: Homicide counter on the streets

  30 April 2008

Recife is the first city in Brazil and in the world to have a homicide counter installed on the streets. Since January 1st only, there have been 1,511 deaths in the city, 11 of them today. “Now, the public can monitor our blog's data not only on the Internet but...

Brazil: WordPress attorney blogs about the blocking

  30 April 2008

Marcel Leonardi [pt], the Brazilian attorney who is representing WordPress in the case of a possible ban on the platform in the country, blogs: “In the motion filled by the Automattic Inc. [on Monday], among other pieces of information, it has been highlighted the tremendous damage that the blanket ban...

Brazil: Orkut vs Facebook

  30 April 2008

Raquel Recuero [pt] has a long post explaining why Brazilians love Orkut so much that they have paid no attention whatsoever to facebook – at least so far.

Brazil: Blog gives away tickets to attend to PangeaDay

  27 April 2008

Victor Vasques [pt] is giving away five pairs of tickets to the PangeaDay event in Rio de Janeiro to readers of Com Limão (With Lemon) blog. Contestants only need to send a video or catchphrase about “I want to attend to Pangea Day” via email and the five best chosen...

PangeaDay: Videos to change the world on May 10th

  26 April 2008

On May 10th 2008 at 18:00 GMT, 24 films will be broadcast during a 4 hour event. What makes this different is that this event, PangeaDay will be broadcast from six locations worldwide in seven different languages worldwide to be viewed through internet, television or cellphones with one unique purpose: to make each other know about the lives of others and focus on what makes us similar, instead of what makes us different and let us work together towards peace.

Lusosphera: Remembering the Carnation Revolution

  25 April 2008

On April 25 1974, 34 years today, Portugal's 40-year fascist dictatorship, the longest in the history of Western Europe, came to an end with the Carnation Revolution, which also brought independence for the remaining colonies in Africa and Asia. Today Portuguese speaking bloggers from all over the world comment and celebrate.

Brazil: Against the slave farms

  25 April 2008

Luiz Carlos Azenha, from Vi o Mundo [“I saw the world”, in Portuguese], blogs for the approval of the Congress Bill that changes the Brazilian Constitution to allow for the confiscation of private rural lands where the use of slave work is discovered. Azenha says “It's necessary to confiscate the...

Brasil: Alternative (poetic) justice

  25 April 2008

Hernani Dimantas, from comunix.org [Pt], cheers [Pt] the decision made by a criminal judge in southern Brazil, to exchange the normal penalty to be applied on 3 young Brazilians, accused of commiting internet crimes, by a curious alternative penance: read and review 2 classical Brazilian literature works each trimester. Hernani...

Brazil: Making a child murder into a media show

  24 April 2008

A child dies under mysterious circumstances. Her father and stepmother are the prime suspects chosen by the media and general public since the beginning, but the official investigations are still under way. Is it fair to lead 160 million people to believe someone is guilty of killing his own daughter before the final official pronunciation on the matter? What is around, and behind, the full time reality-show coverage made by the Brazilian media in cases like this? The Brazilian blogosphere talks.

Brazil: Improving the police by the inside

  24 April 2008

The Blog da Segurança Pública [“Public Security Blog”, in Portuguese], from Brasília, lists 10 possible and affordable improvements[Pt] that would make Brasília policemen's lives better, thus improving their performance at their work too. The blog reports successful experiences made by the police of other Brazilian states.

New Oil in Brazil Unleashes a Gusher of Media Controversies

  21 April 2008

Twisted information about the discovery of what may possibly be the third largest oil field in the world turned into a hot issue on the Brazilian blogosphere this week. The trigger was a comment from the head of Brazil's National Petroleum Agency [ANP], Haroldo Lima, mentioning that the recently found Carioca [or Sugar Loaf] field in Brazil’s offshore Santos Basin could potentially contain reserves of up to 33 billion barrels of oil and gas.

Brazil: Debating race

  19 April 2008

Alex Castro [pt] is generating an interesting debate in his series of posts about race, a matter that he considers of utmost importance in Brazil. “Each human being is, above all, who they think they are and who they are perceived as being.”

Brazil, USA: Sex, Crime and the Vatican

  18 April 2008

Antônio Mello, from blogdomello[Pt], blogs about “Sex, Crime and the Vatican” — a BBC documentary (parts 1, 2, 3 and 4)[En, subtitles in Pt] about children sexual abuse by catholic priests and the shelter provided by the Vatican to the accused ecclesiastics — and a Vatican internal document named Crimen...

Brazil: Lending a hand to police bloggers

  17 April 2008

Alexandre de Sousa [pt] is lending a helping hand to other Brazilian police officers who have or wish to have blogs. In the last post of his series of tutorials, he gives some basic tips and blog optimization hints and says he wants to see even more. “The Public Security...

Brazilian political journalism

  16 April 2008

Helio Paz, from Palanque do Blackão[Pt], writes a big post about the Brazilian political media, mainstream and alternative alike, and tells us what he does read, and what he doesn't, and why. There's even a very nice citation[Pt] about Global Voices on the post.

Vlog International: collaboration across borders

Vlog International is a project bringing together Spanish speaking vloggers: people submit their ideas, one is chosen and everyone records their piece, someone edits them together and they are published on their site. They began in 2006, when a group of friends got together to do a video homage for...

Brazil: Bloggers united against WordPress ban

  12 April 2008

The Brazilian blogosphere has not quite yet recovered from its last fright and there is already another threat on the way: a blanket ban on blogs hosted on Wordpress.com after a judicial court passed an order to close down a specific blog. Some bloggers are already campaigning just in case this comes true, while others stress that above all Brazil needs proper legislation (and knowledgeable legislators) to deal with the Internet and the new technologies issues.

Brazil: WordPress might be blocked

  10 April 2008

Leonardo Fontes [pt] on the piece of news that WordPress may be blocked in Brazil after a court decision ruled that one specific blog was to be closed down. “Brazil is the country of the “undiscussed”, in every single day it becomes clear that the thing to do is to...

Brazil: Blogosphere debates infanticide

  9 April 2008

“We are discussing the superiority of Western Christian civilization over the indigenous peoples because of infanticide. Well, we may disagree, and want to do something about it, but the indigenous tribes do what they do for one reason clear: in their way of life, it is very difficult to keep...

About our Brazil coverage

Fernanda Canofre
Fernanda Canofre is the Brazil editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.