Brazil

If you're a traveler looking for a budget-friendly destination, Brazil should be on your 2009 list. According to CheapTickets.com, Brazil offers savings of 58 percent in April, a time when the southern hemisphere's summer crowds have moved on, yet the warm weather still lingers. Most people think of Rio de Janeiro when they think of Brazil, but thanks to the arrival of low-cost air carriers, getting around Brazil is easier and more affordable than ever. Here are five things to do in Brazil: 1 Check out Carnival : This lively spectacle takes place in cities throughout Brazil, beginning in late February.

The U.S. men's national soccer team will play Brazil in a May 30 friendly at FedEx Field in Landover, the five-time World Cup champion's first visit to the Washington area since 1998 and the Americans' debut at the Redskins' stadium. The game will begin at 8 p.m. with TV coverage on ESPN2 and Univision. Tickets, ranging from $40 to $135, will go on sale next Friday via Ticketmaster and ussoccer.com. D.C. United's full-season ticket holders will receive advanced access. The United States has defeated Brazil once in 16 meetings, the victory coming in a 1998 Gold Cup match in Los Angeles.

Fernando Collor de Mello is the only president Brazil has, the best available and, upon his election two years ago, the first chosen by the people in three decades. He came in on a tidal wave of enthusiasm for youth and free market solutions to the great South American country's daunting problems. Too bad that, one week before the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro casts the world spotlight on his vibrant and ecologically crucial country, the wheels are coming off his cart.There was the sexual scandal between cabinet ministers, which made his swinging image grist for comedians.

Apparently Brazil has enough umbrellas or maybe it just doesn't like outsiders sending pointy items in the mail. The international mail company DHL has sent along a list of items that aren't allowed to be shipped to certain countries. If you send one of the forbidden items, you could find it back on your doorstep. DHL, which delivers to more than 220 countries and territories, says these items are verboten: Mexico - computers, liquids and minerals France - imitation pearls containing lead salts (Mon Dieu, if you're sending a mademoiselle jewelry, make sure it's the real thing!

SALVADOR, Brazil -- Abortion is mostly illegal in Brazil, but you would not know it from the numbers. Every year an estimated 1.4 million Brazilian girls and women take the law into their hands, and often put their health at risk, to terminate their pregnancies. This gives Brazil an abortion rate much higher than that of the United States, even though one country allows the procedure and the other all but bans it. Illegal abortion has become a fact of life, and not just in Brazil. Across much of Latin America, even as judges, legislators and activists debate whether abortion laws should be tightened or loosened, millions of women are finding clandestine ways to end their unwanted pregnancies.

On Sunday, May 6, 2007, NICHOLAS P., son of Antoinette Pace Brazil and the late Edgar Francis Brazil, Sr., husband of Kathleen Brooks Brazil, brother and brother-in-law of Anna Marie and Henry Niemczyk, Edgar Jr., and Patsy Brazil, John J., and Debra Brazil, Albert W., and Diane Brazil and Michael and Deborah Brazil, sister-in-law and brother-in-law Christine and Louis Fiorucci and Mark and Brenda Brooks. Also survived by numerous nieces and nephews. Funeral services will be held at the Pritts Funeral Home and Chapel, 412 Washington Road, Westminster on Thursday at 11 A.M. Interment will be in the Bel Air Memorial Gardens.

On November 12, 2003, A. D. "Al"; beloved husband of Carmella J. Brazil (nee Capizzi); devoted father of Sharon L. Madsen, Dennis A. and Larry S. Brazil; loving grandfather of five and great-grandfather of two. Friends may call at the JOHNSON FUNERAL HOME, P.A., 8521 Loch Raven Blvd., (beltway exit 29), on Friday, from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 P.M., where family and friends are invited to attend Prayers, on Saturday, at 10 A.M. Interment Parkwood Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, please make donations in his memory to VA Maryland Health Care System, Perry Point Division, Bldg 361, Perry Point, MD 21902.

Three-time World Cup champion Brazil and 1990 World Cup semifinalist England will play in RFK Stadium in Washington June 12.The competition is part of U.S. Cup '93, featuring a superior field in a four-team round robin to be played between June 6-19. Defending World Cup champion Germany and the steadily-improving U.S. National Team round out the foursome.Tickets for the Brazil-England game go on sale at all Washington-Baltimore area TicketMaster outlets beginning Monday. Ticket prices are $45, $36, $25, $20 and $15.Additional ticket information can be obtained by calling the World Cup Washington Operations Office at (301)

The political jolt being applied to Brazil's fragile democracy is worse than if John F. Kennedy had been hauled before our House Judiciary Committee accused of taking bribes.A popular, reformist young president in Brazil faces formal condemnation by a congressional panel tomorrow. Even if he staves off the impeachment that is likely to follow, Fernando Collor de Mello is already a political cripple, unable to push through his ambitious plans to pull Brazil out of its economic morass. If he is forced from office, there is no Lyndon Johnson in the Brazilian vice presidency to carry out a fallen president's program.

It takes courage to do what Francisco Collor de Mello has done. He is the young playboy governor who won the presidential election in Brazil last December on a promise to free the market and keep out his leftist-unionist opponent. As the second civilian and first freely elected president after a long period of military dictatorship, he was bound to find skeletons. He found nuclear ones, specifically a 15-year-old military program to develop nuclear weapons outside of domestic or international surveillance.

SUNDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS IndyCar Firestone Indy Lights VS.Noon Honda Indy Toronto VS.2 MLB Orioles@Boston 131:30 Orioles@Boston MASN1:30 Colorado@Washington MASN21:30 Atlanta@Philadelphia TBS1:30 Cubs@Pittsburgh WGN-A1:30 Mets@San Francisco ESPN8 ...

Must convert chances Bob Foltman Chicago Tribune After watching a plodding U.S. backline struggle to keep up with a faster Sweden in Wednesday's final group match, the short answer would be no, with the lone question being how much damage will Marta and Cristiane inflict. Containing one is hard enough. The Americans will have to do a better job in the final third and convert their chances. Lauren Cheney in particular missed the target with a couple of gilt-edged opportunities in the first half Wednesday.

New Town guard Jannah Tucker broke a U.S. record with seven steals as the Americans won the FIBA Americas U-16 women's gold medal late Saturday night with a 73-40 rout of Brazil in Merida, Mexico. "It is surreal," Tucker, a rising junior, said of winning gold. "It's a great accomplishment, and I'm just proud to represent the USA. " Tucker finished with 11 points, five rebounds and five assists. "I think the game was great," she said. "We did everything well, offensively and defensively.

Wow, President Obama's speech at the Tucson memorial service must have hit home. The Sun didn't blame the floods in Australia and the mudslides in Brazil on the GOP and Sarah Palin. Keep up the good work. You may yet become unbiased and unvitriolic. Lyle Rescott, Marriottsville

CURTISS C. BRAZIL, an IEP Team Associate within the Baltimore City school system, passed away suddenly on Monday, January 22, 2007 at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He previously worked in several schools in Baltimore County and Washington, DC. He is survived by two brothers in Akron, Ohio and a host of friends and relatives all over the globe. Viewing/funeral services will be Saturday, January 27, at 10am in Akron, Ohio. Stewart & Calhoun Funeral Home, 529 West Thornton Street, Akron, OH 44307, 330 535-1543, Fax: 330 535-3162.

Half the Brazilians in a public opinion poll conducted last summer could not identify Itamar Franco as their vice president. Shortly before he became acting president, on Oct. 2, only 18 percent thought he had the capacity to resolve the country's problems. By the time he was sworn in as president for the remaining two years of his predecessor's five-year term, Tuesday, that figure was up to 58 percent.What Mr. Franco did in the interim was very little. It included no major speeches. Whether this former supporter of state intervention, who opposed President Fernando Collor de Mello's rapid privatization of the economy, will reverse, slow or fulfill those reforms is sheer conjecture.