BRASILIA, May 16 (Reuters) – Brazil’s Congress approved
legislation on Thursday that opens up state-owned ports to
private investment and lifts restrictions on the building of
private ports in a bid to eliminate serious bottlenecks
strangling the country’s export growth.

The reform bill, which may yet change if President Dilma
Rousseff decides to veto parts of it, is an effort to make
Brazil’s clogged, costly and badly managed ports more efficient.
That, backers believe, can help restore robust growth to
Brazil’s once-booming economy.

BRASILIA (Reuters) – President Dilma Rousseff added a new minister to her Cabinet on Thursday, further enlarging a federal government whose rapid growth since her leftist party came to power a decade ago has increased Brazil’s heavy tax burden.

Rousseff, who is seeking re-election next year, swore in Guilherme Afif Domingos to head the newly created Ministry of Micro and Small Businesses, the country’s 39th ministry.

BRASILIA, May 8 (Reuters) – The Brazilian government sought
to appease the country’s powerful farm lobby on Wednesday by
broadening the decision-making process used to designate land
for Indian reservations, following controversial expropriations.

President Dilma Rousseff’s chief of staff Gleisi Hoffmann
told angry congressmen from agricultural states that more
government agencies will have a say in land decisions that have
been the exclusive purview of the Indian affairs office FUNAI.

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Roberto Azevedo, picked on Tuesday to head the World Trade Organization, is in every respect the quintessential Brazilian diplomat: a well-spoken, competent and smooth negotiator with a knack for wooing adversaries into his corner.

A career diplomat with two decades of experience dealing with trade disputes, Azevedo will need those qualities more than ever to bridge the gap between developed and developing nations if he wants to reboot stalled global trade negotiations and breathe new life into the Geneva-based WTO.

BRASILIA, May 2 (Reuters) – Soccer fans attending next year’s World Cup in Brazil will have no problem going online from stadiums, but they might want to use a local cellphone chip to keep their charges low, Brazilian Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo said on Thursday.

Each of the 12 stadiums hosting the 32-nation soccer tournament will have two separate 50-gigabyte networks connected to Brazil’s fiber optic backbone, he told reporters.

BRASILIA/RIO DE JANEIRO, April 10 (Reuters) – Brazil’s
Supreme Court on Wednesday declared a partial end to double
taxation of foreign units of Brazilian companies, in a split
decision that may fail to resolve a dispute over billions of
dollars in back taxes on Vale SA and other Brazilian
multinationals.

Six of the court’s 11 justices said Brazil’s practice of
taxing profits of Brazil’s foreign subsidiaries that have
already been taxed by other governments was unconstitutional,
provided the subsidiary was based outside a tax haven.

BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – More than half a million tickets have been sold for the Confederations Cup in June, but host nation Brazil has yet to finish the main stadiums to be used in the dress rehearsal for the 2014 soccer World Cup.

On the eve of yet another FIFA deadline, Brazil has delivered only three of the six venues for the eight-nation warm-up starting in two months.

BRASILIA/SAO PAULO, April 10 (Reuters) – More than half a million tickets have been sold for the Confederations Cup in June, but host nation Brazil has yet to finish the main stadiums to be used in the dress rehearsal for the 2014 soccer World Cup.

On the eve of yet another FIFA deadline, Brazil has delivered only three of the six venues for the eight-nation warm-up starting in two months.

BRASILIA (Reuters) – The Brazilian government postponed until next year increases in taxes on the sale of cars and trucks in a bid to stimulate demand for manufactured goods and spur economic growth, the Finance Ministry said on Saturday.

The IPI tax on manufactured products was reduced last year for vehicles as part of a barrage of tax breaks and other stimulus measures by President Dilma Rousseff’s government to restore life to a flagging economy in Latin America’s largest nation.

BRASILIA (Reuters) – A Brazilian doctor who was charged with killing seven patients to free up beds at a hospital intensive care unit may have been responsible for as many as 300 deaths, according to a Health Ministry investigator.

Prosecutors said Dr. Virginia Soares de Souza and her medical team administered muscle relaxing drugs to patients, then reduced their oxygen supply, causing them to die of asphyxia at the Evangelical Hospital in the southern city of Curitiba.