RIO DE JANEIRO/SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Largely shut out by traditional international lenders, Argentina still had a place to turn last year for the billions of dollars it needed to renovate its decrepit railway system — Beijing.

The $10 billion package agreed with the China Development Bank was another clear sign of China’s surging influence in Latin America, transforming the region’s economies and undermining U.S. dominance in its traditional “backyard.”

RIO DE JANEIRO/SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Largely shut out by traditional international lenders, Argentina still had a place to turn last year for the billions of dollars it needed to renovate its decrepit railway system — Beijing.

The $10 billion package agreed with the China Development Bank was another clear sign of China’s surging influence in Latin America, transforming the region’s economies and undermining U.S. dominance in its traditional “backyard.”

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – The glamour of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival seemed a distant dream at the final practice session of the Paraiso de Alvorada (Dawn Paradise) samba group on a wet Sunday night.

Several hundred residents of the Alemao slum, which until late last year was a dangerous no-go zone in Rio’s drug wars, danced and belted out samba songs on a borrowed sports court whose floor was soaked with rain and spilled beer.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Adson Amazonas gazed with well-earned pride at the monstrous black and polka dot spider looming over him.

The 34-year-old and his fellow workers had to build the complex model not once, but twice, after it was ravaged by a fire last month that seemed to turn the Carnival dreams of three of Rio de Janeiro’s top 12 samba groups to ashes.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – In the hit sequel to the Brazilian movie “Elite Squad,” Rio de Janeiro’s police steal weapons, kill their own colleagues and set up a parallel state with the backing of their political bosses.

For viewers unfamiliar with Rio, it may seem a stretch to believe that a web of corruption could have spread so thickly through a city’s security forces.

BRASILIA/RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 16 (Reuters) – President Dilma
Rousseff faces on Wednesday the biggest test yet of her ability
to harness her coalition and tame surging inflation in Brazil
when Congress votes on a rise in the national minimum wage.

Rousseff, who last week ordered $30 billion in budget cuts
for 2011, has held firm in the face of calls from union leaders
and their backers in Congress to allow an increase in the
monthly minimum wage beyond her proposal of a 6.9 percent rise
to 545 reais ($326). [ID:nN11131412]

RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA, Feb 11 (Reuters) — President
Dilma Rousseff is facing intense political pressure to water
down $30 billion of budget cuts that seek to cool Brazil’s
overheated economy and restore its fiscal credibility among
investors.

Ministries and labor unions are already clamoring for
special treatment or to be made exempt from the 50 billion
reais in cuts, which Finance Minister Guido Mantega unveiled on
Wednesday and said could not be made without “pain.”
[ID:nN09134882]

RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA (Reuters) – President Dilma Rousseff will swing the budget axe this week but probably not hard enough to convince markets that inflation stoked by Brazil’s public spending splurge is under control.

In the most closely watched decision of her young presidency, Rousseff’s government will detail cuts expected to total about 40 billion to 50 billion reais (£15-£18.6 billion), seeking to turn the page on a fiscal mess left by her popular predecessor.