Outsourcing. UK e o rio sao francisco - Brasil. Outside his house by the Sao Francisco river, Emanoel de Souza toys with the skin of a caiman he hunted a month earlier. "There are plenty out there. You leave a cow's heart on a hook by the river, and by morning a caiman will have bitten," he smiles. The meat makes for a good meal and the skin provides an amusing decoration. But Mr de Souza gets much more than caimans from the Sao Francisco. The river also provides water for him to farm fish and rice. This makes him one of the lucky ones. "This is the second consecutive year. The water she uses for drinking, cooking and washing arrives every few weeks by lorry. The national government's solution is to divert part of the Sao Francisco - the only major river that starts and finishes in Brazil - through the sertao, the semi-arid backlands.
Two large canals, one of 400km and another of 220km, will deliver water to cities and to agriculture. Brazil's government says the canal water will benefit 12 million people And the north-east feels thirsty. Vipper Talentos. Brazil Brasil IR Expat. Vale in Mozambique coal project. Brazilian mining company Vale has launched a $1.3bn (£908.5m) coal mining project in Mozambique. The new plant is expected to produce 11 million tonnes of coal a year, to be exported to Brazil, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It is thought Mozambique will now become the continent's second-largest coal producer behind South Africa, which holds most of Africa's reserves.
Mozambique has attracted increasing numbers of foreign investors recently. In total, the project is expected to generate 8.5 million tonnes of metallurgical coal, which is used for the production of steel. It will also produce 2.5 million tonnes of thermal coal, which is used for electricity generation, every year. Speaking at the inauguration of the project, Mozambique's president Armando Guebuza said he hoped it would better the situation of the country's people. Mozambique, which traditionally relies on agriculture, is one of the Africa's poorest countries. Losing confidence Scaling back. 2009's BRIC - Brazil's consuming desire for status. Back in the late 1990s, Brazil's Pao de Acucar supermarket chain relaunched itself with a slogan that still speaks volumes about the country's aspirations to be a global power.
Henceforth, the company said, its biggest outlets, mainly in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, would be "supermarkets worthy of the First World". This turned out to mean that they were open 24 hours a day, six days a week (the exception being Sunday, the day when you are most likely to run short of groceries). In fact, the one thing that was really reminiscent of the developed world was Pao de Acucar's pricing policy. Local corner shops were often considerably cheaper. But the glamour of the "First World" pledge appealed to middle-class consumers with money to burn. It caught the mood of a country that was busy burying its legacy of military rule and hyperinflation, while looking for a new role on the world stage.
Image issues Rate cuts Housing drive If the plan works, it will kill two birds with one stone. Timeline: Brazil.