Rio De Janeiro

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They used words like passion and embrace and emphasized the tagline "a city leaps forward. " But Leonardo Gryner perhaps put it best when the CEO of Rio de Janeiro's organizing committee offered a hint of what to expect at the 2016 Olympics in the Carnival City. "In Brazil, as you know, we like to party," Gryner said at a news conference. Rio received the Olympic flag at Closing Ceremonies for the London Games Sunday night, unveiling 250 dancers and musicians in an eight-minute ceremony that officials said was designed to showcase the city's "multicultural embrace.

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.

The spotlight is on Rio de Janeiro now that it's been named the host city for the 2016 Summer Games. Despite this, Rio is regarded as one of the world's most dangerous cities, with drug gangs fighting for territory amid the city's slums and violence occasionally spilling over into tourist locations. Rio police have pledged a safe and secure Olympics, especially after recent shootouts between police and gangs. But keep security in mind and be very careful sightseeing after dark. 1 Hit the beaches.

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.

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

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.

The Volvo Ocean Race has picked Melbourne, Australia, as a stop, officials announced yesterday. The race will start in November 2005 from the Mediterranean, go to Cape Town, South Africa, and reach Melbourne in January-February 2006. Melbourne, picked over Auckland, New Zealand, also will stage the Commonwealth Games in March 2006. After leaving Australia, the Volvo fleet will race through the southern Pacific Ocean and around Cape Horn to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A new feature of the competition, intended to "greatly benefit host cities" will be in-port racing that counts toward the overall race result, said Glenn Bourke, the Volvo Ocean Race's chief executive officer.

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.

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.

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.

Eva Jagger, 87, the mother of Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger, died Thursday, a month after she was hospitalized with a heart condition. Mrs. Jagger and her husband would have celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in December. Michel Kazan, 92, who introduced women to new hairstyles, including the bouffant, pageboy and the French twist, and created the coiffures for the models of several fashion designers, died May 13 in New York. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Kazan devised the popular idea of attaching little curls to hairpins, allowing the simulation of widow's peaks, bangs and curl clusters at the crown of the head.

Ina Savage, a sociologist and city public schools language teacher who became an activist for Alzheimer's disease after the degenerative brain illness was diagnosed in 1995, died Friday at her North Baltimore home. She was 62. Mrs. Savage was the subject of a 1997 article in The Sun and featured in a National Geographic magazine article on genetic disease. She was interviewed on Good Morning America, and featured in a television documentary in her native Brazil. Born Ina Dutra in Rio de Janeiro, the granddaughter of a former Brazilian president, she received an American Field Service scholarship to the United States and graduated from Long Island's Mineola High School.

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.