As the mid-day sun shines red through the smoke rising from dozens of forest fires, the Yanomami Indians say it is a sign of the apocalypse, and environmentalists fear that they may be right. The

The fires in the Amazon forest show no signs of abating. Lax environmental laws have added fuel to them

An aids epidemic is just waiting to explode behind the locked doors of Brazil's prisons. And the situation is worsening every minute. Medical facilities are on the brink of a total breakdown, the

The World Wide Fund for Nature ( wwf) has said that Brazil has the highest rate of destruction of forests in the world. In its recent report, it estimates that around 3.6 million hectares of

brazil's floundering space programme suffered another blow when the ground control was forced to destroy the first space rocket launched in Brazil after one of its four engines failed to start.

At least 20,000 people were rendered homeless when heavy flooding devastated towns and cities in southern Brazil. Civil defence officials said that the situation was worst in the state of Rio

Cultivation and production of tobacco is consuming forests in southern Brazil

The smoke coming out of the south-eastern corner of the Amazon has badly affected the region, causing nosebleeds and forcing airports to close for days. The countless fires in the Amazon rain forest

The Brazilian government is opening its timber reserves in the Amazon rain forest to commercial loggers. Unable to stop the rampant illegal logging, Brazil hopes to combine economic potential with