Brazil’s impeachment of its president will serve little on its own, but must be the catalyst to drive changes in a country languishing, writes Luiz Felipe d’Avila

Brazil must close ranks if it is to win the war against the pest that carries Zika, writes Liz Braga

The director of the Pan American Health Organisation has said confirmation that the Zika virus can be transmitted sexually would change the paradigm of the quickly spreading epidemic.

Venezuela’s opposition has won control of the National Assembly by a landslide, delivering a major setback to the ruling party and altering the balance of power after 17 years of socialist rule.

President Dilma Rousseff was counting on Brazilians’ gratefulness for a decade of progress to overcome concerns about a sluggish economy as the leftist leader sought re-election after a bitter, unpredictable campaign.

Brazilian presidential candidate Eduardo Campos has died after a small plane he was travelling in crashed, according to reports.

Brazil is trying to assure World Cup tourists that they will not face problems at airports, even though many upgrades will not be finished for kick-off time.

The latest outbreak was too violent, and too close to a popular tourist area, to be ignored, Patricia Rey Mallon writes.

Less than half of Brazilians favour the nation’s hosting of the World Cup in June, with a majority in the football-crazed nation believing that the tournament will do more harm than good, a poll reveals.

Abusive price hikes of hotel rates and plane tickets during next year’s World Cup will be monitored by a committee created by the Brazilian government.

Pope Francis has begun his seven day visit to Brazil.

More than 5,000 anti-government protesters marched near the Maracana stadium before a major football match, venting their anger about the billions the Brazilian government is spending on major sporting events rather than public services.

About 5,000 anti-government protesters fought police last night near a stadium that hosted a semi-final at the Confederations Cup football tournament.

Brazil awoke to city centres still smouldering after a night that shocked the nation: One million anti- government protesters took to the streets in scores of cities, with clusters battling police and destroying swaths of storefronts and buildings.

Police and protesters fought in the streets into the early hours today as an estimated one million Brazilians swarmed through more than 80 towns and cities in the biggest demonstrations yet against a government viewed as corrupt at all levels and unresponsive to its people.

The repercussions of a nightclub fire that killed more than 230 people in southern Brazil widened yesterday.

Brazilian police yesterday detained the owners of the nightclub where a fire killed 231 people, as well as two band members whose pyrotechnics they say triggered the blaze.

Sepp Blatter's unopposed re-election as FIFA president last year should be the subject of an internal investigation into whether he unfairly exploited his position, according to a Council of Europe assembly committee.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has asked for talks with Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff next week as concerns grow about the collapse in the relationship between the organisation and the 2014 World Cup hosts.

THE massive Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the heart of the Amazon rain forest won approval from Brazil’s environmental protection agency, Ibama, yesterday, clearing the way for construction of a project fiercely opposed by environmentalists, indigenous activists and celebrities.

Grieving families gathered today to bury 12 children gunned down in the halls of their Rio de Janeiro school, an unheard-of act of school violence which left stunned Brazilians struggling for answers.

A Brazilian journalist missing in Libya for a week has been jailed but is about to be released, a report says.

BRAZILIAN officials yesterday started moving thousands of people out of at-risk areas near Rio in a flooding disaster that has left at least 727 people dead.

THE death toll from massive flooding and landslides in Brazil reached 514 yesterday as renewed rainfall threatened to complicate efforts by rescue teams to reach survivors trapped in isolated areas.

WALLS of earth and water swept away homes in the mountains north of Rio de Janeiro, wiping out families and leaving survivors scrambling yesterday to reach trapped neighbours.