11+ min ago (361+ words) When Brazil's President Luiz In'cio Lula da Silva stood in Mozambique and declared that Brazil "will not be an exporter of critical minerals," it sounded, to many foreign ears, oddly familiar. The message is close to the one Donald Trump has repeated for years: if you want access to our best asset, you must bring your factories here. Trump's version is built around the U.S. consumer market. The pitch is simple: if you want to sell into the richest market on earth, you either build plants and jobs in the United States or you face tariffs and pressure. Car makers, electronics giants and even allies in Europe and Asia have learned that this threat is not just theatre. Lula is now trying a similar move using a different lever. Instead of consumers, he is offering Brazil's underground treasure: lithium, rare earths,…...

21+ min ago (356+ words) A year ago, cocoa was the poster child of food inflation. Futures more than doubled as drought, disease and aging trees in West Africa squeezed supplies and sent chocolate makers scrambling. Today, that same market has fallen back to earth. Prices in London are around half their peak and New York contracts have dropped to their lowest levels in almost two years. What changed is a mix of weather, farm decisions and politics. In Ivory Coast, the main producer, rains have improved and cocoa deliveries to ports are catching up after a weak start to the season. Global forecasters now expect a small surplus instead of another deep shortage, which takes fear out of the market and reminds traders that high prices eventually draw out more supply. Then comes policy. In Washington, the recent decision to scrap an extra forty…...

35+ min ago (348+ words) Banco Master was not a household name, even in Brazil. Yet its sudden collapse has become one of the biggest tests of the country's financial safety net " and a revealing case study in how deals around state-linked banks can go badly wrong. Federal Police now say the bank sold fake bundles of these loans to Banco de Bras'lia (BRB), a state-controlled lender, for about R$12.2 billion ($2.3 billion). The portfolios largely did not exist; investigators describe forged documents and a scheme designed to make bad assets look solid. When the operation, tellingly named "Compliance Zero," went public, Master's owner, Daniel Vorcaro, was arrested at S'o Paulo's main international airport as he prepared to leave the country on a private jet. The Central Bank stepped in and ordered the bank into liquidation. Its president, Gabriel Gal'polo, used a speech in S'o Paulo…...

35+ min ago (348+ words) Banco Master was not a household name, even in Brazil. Yet its sudden collapse has become one of the biggest tests of the country's financial safety net " and a revealing case study in how deals around state-linked banks can go badly wrong. Federal Police now say the bank sold fake bundles of these loans to Banco de Bras'lia (BRB), a state-controlled lender, for about R$12.2 billion ($2.3 billion). The portfolios largely did not exist; investigators describe forged documents and a scheme designed to make bad assets look solid. When the operation, tellingly named "Compliance Zero," went public, Master's owner, Daniel Vorcaro, was arrested at S'o Paulo's main international airport as he prepared to leave the country on a private jet. The Central Bank stepped in and ordered the bank into liquidation. Its president, Gabriel Gal'polo, used a speech in S'o Paulo…...

40+ min ago (368+ words) French hotel group Accor is quietly drawing a new economic map of Brazil. Over the next three years it plans 68 new hotels worth R$3 billion ($550 million) in investment, on top of the 325 properties and about 51,500 rooms it already has in the country. Almost all the fresh money will come from Brazilian investors, not from Paris. The model is straightforward. Accor lends global brands like Ibis, Novotel, Mercure, Pullman, Fairmont and Sofitel, plus booking systems and training. Local partners put up the buildings and take most of the financial risk. Today roughly half of Accor's Brazilian hotels are run directly and half by partners. In the new projects, about 90 percent of the money will be invested by franchisees. Where they are building tells an important story. The expansion is not centered on Rio's beaches or S'o Paulo's business districts. The new…...

40+ min ago (368+ words) French hotel group Accor is quietly drawing a new economic map of Brazil. Over the next three years it plans 68 new hotels worth R$3 billion ($550 million) in investment, on top of the 325 properties and about 51,500 rooms it already has in the country. Almost all the fresh money will come from Brazilian investors, not from Paris. The model is straightforward. Accor lends global brands like Ibis, Novotel, Mercure, Pullman, Fairmont and Sofitel, plus booking systems and training. Local partners put up the buildings and take most of the financial risk. Today roughly half of Accor's Brazilian hotels are run directly and half by partners. In the new projects, about 90 percent of the money will be invested by franchisees. Where they are building tells an important story. The expansion is not centered on Rio's beaches or S'o Paulo's business districts. The new…...

42+ min ago (624+ words) A dramatic U-17 World Cup semifinal day in Doha set the regional tone. Brazil fell to Portugal on penalties, while Austria upset Italy to reach a first final. In Mexico, the men's Liguilla quarterfinals were locked in with an unusual schedule to ease security and traffic around Mexico City. Brazil's Monday slate in S'rie A delivered a clean Mirassol win and a survival-shaping draw for Santos in Porto Alegre. Colombia's cuadrangulares stayed heated off the pitch as officials released VAR audio from a debated Junior goal. Argentina's knockout round produced heavyweight movement, and Chile and Peru added clear-scoreline wins to close the night. Key facts: The semifinal finished 00 over 90 minutes before Portugal prevailed 65 in the shootout in Doha. Brazil converted four of the first five but missed in sudden death. Portugal advanced to the final for a first shot at the…...

1+ hour, 26+ min ago (415+ words) Brazil's stock market is shrinking. In recent years, companies such as Zamp, Santos Brasil and Wilson Sons have launched buyouts or restructurings that end with their shares leaving the B3 exchange, blaming high interest rates, heavy rules and depressed valuations. Iberdrola is also delisting a company " but in order to own more of Brazil, not less. The Spanish utility already controls Neoenergia, Brazil's largest electricity distributor by number of customers. It now wants to buy the remaining 16 percent it does not own for R$ 32.50 ($6) per share, spending about R$ 6.5 billion ($1.2 billion) and valuing the group at roughly R$ 39 billion ($7.2 billion). The price matches what Iberdrola paid in September, when it spent around R$ 11.5 billion ($2.1 billion) to purchase the stake held by pension fund Previ and lift its holding to about 84 percent. Neoenergia is a classic infrastructure play. It supplies electricity to…...

1+ hour, 34+ min ago (353+ words) Brazil's biggest traditional bank is quietly investing in the digital upstart that forced it to change. Ita" Unibanco, long the symbol of old-style Brazilian banking, has now built a stake of about 106 million dollars in Nubank after buying another 3.8 million shares in the third quarter of 2025. Those shares represent roughly 3.6% of Ita's investment portfolio, sitting alongside global blue chips like Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla and Coca-Cola. For decades, banking in Brazil was shaped by a small group of big institutions, heavy regulation and a close relationship with the state. Fees were high, lines in branches were long, and millions of poorer Brazilians either used basic public-bank services or stayed outside the formal system. Credit often depended as much on political priorities and subsidies as on efficiency and competition. Nubank came in as the opposite. No branches. A simple app. Low or…...

1+ hour, 35+ min ago (374+ words) Brazil's Army is quietly building something new in the Para'ba Valley: combat units designed from the ground up around drones. One will be a full drone battalion inside the Army Aviation Command in Taubat; another, a drone company embedded in the 12th Light Infantry (Airmobile) Brigade in Ca'apava. From there, they can be flown or trucked to almost any border or hotspot in the country within hours. On the surface this looks like a tech upgrade. The real story is deeper: Brazil's generals watched Ukraine turn cheap drones into the central weapon of modern land warfare. Ukrainian officers told them bluntly in a recent conference in Poland: adapt or your soldiers die. Drones there spot enemy trenches, guide artillery, deliver ammunition and even evacuate wounded. Whole battalions have been reorganised around operators, coders and electronic-warfare teams instead of only classic infantry....