Americas

Forty-one days after her dramatic abduction, Marina Lima de Souza, the mother of Brazil’s brightest footballing star, has been freed.

Preparations for Rio de Janeiro's dazzling carnival have been tainted by the murder of one of its organisers over his choice of parade queen.

Protesters have descended on Rio's legislative assembly opposing state proposals offering to bankroll the psychological "conversion" of homosexuals.

The kidnapping of a national football star's mother shows the dark underbelly of Brazil's beautiful game and its ransom-fuelled snatch squads.

The assassination of a renowned Rio drugs lord throws Brazil's tourism capital into further violence with some areas on a war footing.

Steven Macpherson Watt, the lawyer battling the Bush administration over the detainment of ‘enemy combatants’ at Guantanamo Bay, speaks about his uphill fight for justice.

Paradise isn't what it used to be. There's a dark side to America's 50th state that tourists seldom see, but the growing pains are all too obvious to its inhabitants.

Prisoners are beheaded and burned as violence from warring drug factions spreads across Rio de Janeiro's prisons.

A special report from the centre of Rio's ongoing drugs feud as police forces battle to stop all-out war.

Parents at an upmarket school in Rio's embattled Rochinha district want its owners to relocate so their children are not killed in the raging drugs war that surrounds it.