Brazil Celebrations

At least 277 people were killed in two major Brazilian states during this year's Carnival holiday, officials and news reports said. The number was higher than the toll during last year's Carnival, a festival best known for revelry and samba dancing. At least 163 people were slain in metropolitan Sao Paulo and 56 were killed throughout Sao Paulo state during the five-day festival that began Feb. 16, a spokeswoman for the Public Safety Secretariat said.

The people who turned this city's Carnaval parade into a multimillion-dollar enterprise of feather headpieces, fanciful floats and gyrating dancers in expensive costumes have even bigger plans afoot. Hiram Araujo, the event's cultural advisor, envisions a "spectacle" with the glitz and commercial appeal of a major Broadway hit or an NBA basketball game. "Carnaval isn't yet what it could be," Araujo said. "We are still learning how to administer the product."

In an all-day, three-city tour, Brazil's World Cup soccer champions were swept up on the shoulders of this beleaguered nation in a massive outpouring of affection and admiration that stretched from the slums of Rio de Janeiro to the presidential palace in Brasilia. The team, which won an unprecedented fourth World Cup, started in the northeastern beach city of Recife and reached Rio where it was greeted by 500,000 screaming, dancing, shouting, crying fans, more than one-third of the city.

At least 277 people were killed in two major Brazilian states during this year's Carnival holiday, officials and news reports said. The number was higher than the toll during last year's Carnival, a festival best known for revelry and samba dancing. At least 163 people were slain in metropolitan Sao Paulo and 56 were killed throughout Sao Paulo state during the five-day festival that began Feb. 16, a spokeswoman for the Public Safety Secretariat said.

In what was probably the world's biggest one-day party, millions of Brazilians, starved for 24 years since last winning the World Cup, poured into the nation's streets Sunday night, singing, dancing and most of all drinking in celebration of their country's victory over Italy. In a nation where football is more religion than sport and heroes take on mythic proportions, the win takes on a significance much larger than a mere sports victory.

Worried about the rapid spread of AIDS in Brazil, the government is starting a preventive campaign to coincide with the annual carnival season, a time of increased sexual promiscuity here. Carnival starts next Saturday and continues until the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. In Rio and many other Brazilian cities, it is a four-day frenzy of costume parades, gala balls, spontaneous street parties and rampant frivolity.

After four days of all-night dancing, drinking, parades and carnival frivolity, Brazilians straggled back to work Wednesday as stores, banks and supermarkets reopened. The city was not plagued by exceptional levels of violence during the annual festival compared to other years, officials said. Fifty-one people were killed in Rio during the carnival, police said, compared to 57 during the weekend preceding the holiday.

Brazilian police said that 79 people were killed during Rio de Janeiro's raucous Carnival--eight more than during last year's five-day event--and complaints poured into television stations for airing scenes of nudity and raunchy behavior. Police blamed high unemployment and inflation for the upsurge in violence.

Brazil's government tax chief resigned Thursday in a dispute over the failure of the victorious Brazilian World Cup soccer squad to pay nearly $1 million of customs duties on excess luggage brought from the United States. The dispute threatened to spoil the euphoria produced by Brazil's fourth World Cup title. Federal Revenue Secretary Osiris Lopes Filho told reporters he was quitting over differences with President Itamar Franco.

Chico Xavier is a best-selling author of more than 380 books, but he says they all were ghost-written--by real ghosts. Xavier, 74, is Brazil's most celebrated spirit medium. In a field famous for charlatans, many people believe he is the real thing. In three celebrated cases, Xavier was called as a defense witness in murder trials. The "messages" he claimed to receive from the victims were accepted as evidence to acquit two defendants and reduce the sentence of a third.

Chico Xavier is a best-selling author of more than 380 books, but he says they all were ghost-written--by real ghosts. Xavier, 74, is Brazil's most celebrated spirit medium. In a field famous for charlatans, many people believe he is the real thing. In three celebrated cases, Xavier was called as a defense witness in murder trials. The "messages" he claimed to receive from the victims were accepted as evidence to acquit two defendants and reduce the sentence of a third.

Brazil's government tax chief resigned Thursday in a dispute over the failure of the victorious Brazilian World Cup soccer squad to pay nearly $1 million of customs duties on excess luggage brought from the United States. The dispute threatened to spoil the euphoria produced by Brazil's fourth World Cup title. Federal Revenue Secretary Osiris Lopes Filho told reporters he was quitting over differences with President Itamar Franco.

In an all-day, three-city tour, Brazil's World Cup soccer champions were swept up on the shoulders of this beleaguered nation in a massive outpouring of affection and admiration that stretched from the slums of Rio de Janeiro to the presidential palace in Brasilia. The team, which won an unprecedented fourth World Cup, started in the northeastern beach city of Recife and reached Rio where it was greeted by 500,000 screaming, dancing, shouting, crying fans, more than one-third of the city.

In what was probably the world's biggest one-day party, millions of Brazilians, starved for 24 years since last winning the World Cup, poured into the nation's streets Sunday night, singing, dancing and most of all drinking in celebration of their country's victory over Italy. In a nation where football is more religion than sport and heroes take on mythic proportions, the win takes on a significance much larger than a mere sports victory.

After four days of all-night dancing, drinking, parades and carnival frivolity, Brazilians straggled back to work Wednesday as stores, banks and supermarkets reopened. The city was not plagued by exceptional levels of violence during the annual festival compared to other years, officials said. Fifty-one people were killed in Rio during the carnival, police said, compared to 57 during the weekend preceding the holiday.

Brazilian police said that 79 people were killed during Rio de Janeiro's raucous Carnival--eight more than during last year's five-day event--and complaints poured into television stations for airing scenes of nudity and raunchy behavior. Police blamed high unemployment and inflation for the upsurge in violence.

The people who turned this city's Carnaval parade into a multimillion-dollar enterprise of feather headpieces, fanciful floats and gyrating dancers in expensive costumes have even bigger plans afoot. Hiram Araujo, the event's cultural advisor, envisions a "spectacle" with the glitz and commercial appeal of a major Broadway hit or an NBA basketball game. "Carnaval isn't yet what it could be," Araujo said. "We are still learning how to administer the product."

Worried about the rapid spread of AIDS in Brazil, the government is starting a preventive campaign to coincide with the annual carnival season, a time of increased sexual promiscuity here. Carnival starts next Saturday and continues until the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. In Rio and many other Brazilian cities, it is a four-day frenzy of costume parades, gala balls, spontaneous street parties and rampant frivolity.