Rio De Janeiro

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Chicago, I'll admit, has no shortage of wildlife. .....Raccoons rattle the garbage cans in back alleys. Beady-eyed opossums take up furtive residence in garages. Occasionally, the odd coyote makes a wrong turn off the banks of the Chicago River and ends up skulking through Lincoln Park.Nowhere, however, does the urban wildlife match that in Brazil. And if you think living in the country with the world's greatest biodiversity is a treat, wait until it all sneaks into the living room with you.One evening as I was sprawled on the couch, chatting on the telephone, an enormous black creature the size of a raven swept in through the sliding glass doors and began flying panicked laps of the living room, looking for a way out. Eventually, I spotted a furry face -- a bat!

Tim Maia, 55, an unconventional musician who was acclaimed the king of Brazilian soul music, died Sunday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from a generalized infection. He was known for an energetic style of vocal soul samba, using his raspy trademark voice.Marvin A. Davis, 87, who helped plan Disney theme parks and won an Emmy for art direction, died Sunday in Santa Monica, Calif.Pub Date: 3/17/98

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Several dozens died -- among them eight children -- with smashed skulls or smothered under falling LTC mud and trash. Shacks slipped from cliffs. Whole neighborhoods were blocked off, leaving thousands stranded, and scores of schools and businesses closed.The culprit: rain -- nearly 12 inches in some parts of the city on Tuesday alone.The worst storm in 25 years left the "Marvelous City" in chaos yesterday, with residents stalled in traffic, stumbling in the dark and cursing officials who have acknowledged their helplessness to stem the devastation.

Sometimes, it seems as if there are two Rios.One is the mecca of sand, sex and samba that for decades has lured tourists from all over the globe and sent them home sunburned and satiated. Its Carnival, which this year is Feb. 18-21, is justifiably world famous. As any resident, or Carioca, would tell you, it is truly the "Cidade Maravilosa," or marvelous city.The other Rio is more sinister. On average, 20 people a day are killed, while nearly a dozen people are kidnapped each month.Stories and statistics like those have in recent years scared hundreds of thousands of tourists away from Rio de Janeiro.

Renato Boscoli, 65, a composer who was one of the creators of Brazil's bossa nova music, has died after a battle with cancer, a spokesman for a Rio de Janeiro hospital said yesterday. He worked closely with Rio Brazilian composers Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes and Carlos Lyra in the 1950s to develop the bossa nova sound.Don A. Schanche, 68, a foreign correspondent, author and editor who covered the birth of the American space program and most of the world's conflicts in the last 40 years, died of cancer Thursday in Key Biscayne, Fla.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Crime-weary parishioners in Masses throughout this staunchly Catholic city will utter a special prayer today from their archbishop asking for divine help to "stop the climate of insecurity in the city" where daily more than 20 people are murdered, four kidnapped and hundreds robbed or otherwise assaulted.While Archbishop Eugenio Sales has plenty of faith in heavenly intervention, he also thinks it might help if the federal government also brought out M-16s, machine guns and heavy artillery.

UNITED NATIONS -- The Bush administration has decided to embrace a compromise proposal calling for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and President Bush has telephoned several European leaders this weekend to tell them "we're on board," according to White House officials.The flurry of telephone calls yesterday by Mr. Bush to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and other European leaders was described by some administration officials as part of a pressure campaign to urge the U.S. allies to support the plan, which is more modest than the Europeans had endorsed.

Federal, state and municipal authorities in Rio de Janeiro are trying to reverse a fall in the number of foreign tourists who visit the city and to preserve its position as Brazil's leading visitor center.The fact that Rio will be the host of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, known as the Earth Summit, from June 3 to 15, has also encouraged various projects to improve the city's tourism infrastructure.Security improvements are being made in all main tourist areas, with new police cars, small police stations and a greater police presence on the beaches and streets of Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon.

If it ain't broke,why not clone it?What do you do when one of your more successful mutual funds attracts the attention of wealthy individual investors? You "clone" it, with a money management product that uses the investment strategy of the mutual fund, but provides the individualized attention that wealthy investors demand.That, at any rate, is what Kyle P. Legg has done.As senior vice president of Legg Mason Capital Management, Ms. Legg has been doing equities research, especially for Legg Mason's Special Investment Trust.

Q: Where can I get information on summer employment on a cruise ship?A: Cruise lines are busiest when children are out of school -- Christmas, Easter and in the summer -- so summer is a good time for employment on a ship, according to Mary Fallon Miller, author of "How to Get a Job on a Cruise Line." The book is available for $12.95, plus $2.50 for postage, from Ticket to Adventure, P.O. Box 41005, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33743, (800) 800-8466. It describes the jobs available and provides profiles of the major cruise lines, their ships, their facilities and programs offered passengers, whom to contact for jobs and tips for job seekers.

PAUL L. MONTGOMERY, 72 Civil right-era reporter Paul L. Montgomery, a former reporter for The New York Times who covered riots in Harlem, the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965 and the search for Che Guevara in Bolivia, died of cancer Thursday in Lausanne, Switzerland. Mr. Montgomery, who lived in Lausanne, started at The Times as a copy boy in 1959 and went on to an array of reporting assignments, from religion news to the New York Nets in the late 1970s. From 1966 to 1969, he was The Times' bureau chief in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Is Sen. Barack Obama the future "soft power" president of the United States? My current trip to Brazil and one a few months ago to Saudi Arabia - two countries that could hardly be more different - have convinced me that he would have a chance for a transformative global impact. "Soft" may sound weak or pejorative, but it's not. Unlike American "hard" power, which is exercised through our military and economic clout, soft power relies on our moral, notional and cultural exports.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Heavily armed drug gangs unleashed a wave of attacks on police stations and public roadways early yesterday, and at least 18 people were killed in the confrontations. Seven victims died in a single incident, a pre-dawn assault on an interstate bus bound for Sao Paulo. Survivors said that about eight armed men stopped and boarded the bus, robbed those aboard and then set fire to the vehicle before the 28 passengers could get off. At least eight police stations and street posts were also reported to have been attacked by gangs armed with grenades and machine guns.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Rebuked at the polls four weeks ago because of voter irritation with a corruption scandal and his unwillingness to answer questions about it, Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, heads into a runoff vote today with a lead that every poll suggests is insurmountable. A win would guarantee him another four years in office. A final round of public opinion surveys published Friday shows da Silva, a former factory worker and labor leader, defeating his opponent, Geraldo Alckmin of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, at least 60 percent to 40 percent.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- A Brazilian air force search and rescue team located yesterday the wreckage of a Boeing 737 that was reported to have collided with a smaller executive jet over the Amazon on Friday afternoon. Authorities said the plane, with 155 people on board, appeared to have hit the ground vertically and that the likelihood of anyone having survived the crash was therefore remote. Gol Airlines Flight 1907 was on its way to Rio de Janeiro from Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon, with a scheduled stop in Brasilia, when it vanished from radar screens.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL / / Packed with tourists, our white minivan zooms past pristine beaches, past Corcovado Mountain, and deposits us in the sprawling ghetto of Rocinha, which is controlled by gun-toting drug gangs. What? Did we take a wrong turn at the Carmen Miranda Museum? Actually, it's all part of the plan. Along with eight other foreigners, I have plunked down $34 for some guided slumming in the favelas, Rio's infamous shantytowns. "Don't worry about your cameras or money," says our chaperone from Favela Tour, Christina Mendonca, who notes that we have tacit permission from the bad guys to be here.

A Memorable Place Sensuous spells blend in Rio de Janeiro BY: Sally Shivnan SPECIAL TO THE SUN I have wondered about Rio de Janeiro - what accounts for the spell it casts over people. It's a city of mountains rising out of the ocean. (Rio has more than 30 tunnels, said to be the greatest number of any city in the world, and 19 beaches, covering 23 miles). But this is not the whole explanation. Imagine this. You're driving toward the city from the south, on winding back roads over wooded hills dense with jacarandas and palms.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Hit by one of the worst confrontations in months between police and drug traffickers in this seaside city, local authorities appealed to the federal government and Brazilian army yesterday for help containing violence that has left at least 12 people dead and thousands cowering inside their homes. Scores of state police continued to occupy Rocinha, Rio's largest shantytown, in a crackdown on rival drug-runners that began Friday. In an operation that resembled a military invasion, heavily armed officers swarmed in and helicopters swooped down upon the hillside slum to strike at two competing factions of the same gang battling for supremacy in the lucrative cocaine trade.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Brazil intensified its campaign yesterday to be exempted from new American security measures that require most foreign visitors to be fingerprinted and photographed on arrival in the United States. The effort followed a personal appeal by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to President Bush at a meeting late Monday night. "If there are already 27 countries, then why not 28?" da Silva was reported by Brazilian officials to have said to Bush, referring to a group of mostly European nations whose citizens are largely exempt from the policy.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - The city of Rio de Janeiro was to file a lawsuit today demanding an end to Brazil's new practice of fingerprinting and photographing U.S. tourists, Mayor Cesar Maia announced yesterday, and the U.S. State Department seconded his complaint. Maia said the procedures, ordered by a Brazilian federal judge who was angered by new U.S. screening of Brazilian visitors, discriminate against Americans by treating them differently from other foreign visitors. In addition, Maia contended that Brazil's federal government, not a judge, should be setting the country's immigration policies.