A Brazilian judge has suspended work on a massive hydroelectric dam in the Amazon jungle state of Para.

THE rate of Amazon deforestation rose sharply during the last five months of 2007 as land was cleared for soy and cattle, prompting a top-level emergency meeting yesterday by government officials to deal with the problem.

A teenage girl was locked in a Brazilian prison cell with 21 men who would only let her eat in return for sex, authorities said.

A MAN accused of being Brazil’s most prolific serial killer was yesterday sentenced to more than 20 years in prison in the first of 42 possible trials for the killing and mutilation of boys.

Search crews were lowered by ropes from helicopters through dense jungle searched the wreckage of a Brazilian jetliner that apparently clipped an executive jet and slammed into the ground in the Amazon rain forest, probably killing all 155 people aboard.

The Brazilian air force continued searching this morning in the densely forested Amazon region for a Gol airlines jet with 155 people aboard that went missing yesterday, Brazilian aviation authorities said.

RABIES-CARRYING vampire bats fleeing deforestation of the Amazon region in Brazil have bitten more than 1,000 people, leaving 23 dead.

Tens of thousands of landless rural workers marched in various states across Brazil to commemorate the seventh anniversary of one of the country’s bloodiest land-rights massacres.

Brazilian students have discovered a new parrot species in the southern Amazon - a green plumed bird with a vulture’s hooked neck and a bald orange head.

Seven men have been arrested in connection with the murder of champion yachtsman Peter Blake and Brazilian police said they were looking for at least one more suspect.