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Brazil's Snowden Petition Hits 1m Signatures

An internet campaign calling for U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden to be granted asylum in Brazil has gathered more than one million signatures, online activist group Avaaz said Monday.

Avaaz launched the campaign a month ago, hoping to gain more than one million signatories but now the group has revised its target to 1.25 million.

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Brazil Braces for World Cup Protests

Brazil was bracing Saturday for a first wave of nationwide demonstrations against staging the World Cup after activists from the radical protest group Anonymous went on social media calling for action.

With less than five months to go before the June 12 kick-off -- when the five-time champions and hosts take on Croatia -- Brazil is again facing the social rumblings which marred last year's Confederations Cup dress rehearsal.

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Brazil's Manaus Airport Shut for 4 Hours over Bomb Scare

The international airport in the northern Brazilian city of Manaus was closed for four hours Saturday following reports of a bomb aboard an incoming flight, a spokeswoman said.

"It has now reopened and is operating normally," a spokeswoman for Infraero, the federal agency that operates the country's main commercial airports, told Agence France Presse.

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Brazil Flooding Deaths Reach 22

The death toll from a flood in southern Brazil a week ago rose to 22 Saturday with the discovery of two more bodies.

Five people are still missing in the town of Itaoca and one remained hospitalized, the Sao Paulo state's Civil Defense department said.

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Turkish Airlines Plane Makes Emergency Landing in Morocco

A Turkish Airlines plane en route to Sao Paulo made an emergency landing in Morocco Sunday after a bomb warning, an airline official told Agence France Presse.

The plane landed at Casablanca Airport after taking off from Istanbul, the official told AFP.

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UNHCR Urges Action on Brazil Jail Deaths

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed deep unease Wednesday at the poor state of Brazilian jails and demanded government action, after 60 inmates died in 2013.

"We regret having to once again express concern at the dire state of prisons in Brazil and urge the authorities to take immediate action to restore order," the UNHCR office said on its website.

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Kennedy Weighed Possible Military Intervention in Brazil

Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy mulled possible military intervention in Brazil one year before the 1964 coup that ousted then president Joao Goulart, according to archive documents released Tuesday.

An audio was released on journalist Elio Gaspari's dictatorship archives website (http://arquivosdaditadura.com.br) containing a collection of documents relating to the 1964 establishment of a military dictatorship that lasted 21 years.

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Pope to Give $5 Million to Cover Rio Youth Day Costs

Pope Francis has pledged to donate $5 million to help pay off part of the debt accrued organizing the 2013 World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro last July, the Brazilian city's archdiocese said.

"Aware" of the issue, the pope "indicated his intention to contribute financial aid to pay part of the expenses" of the major event, which he presided over soon after he was elected head of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, the archdiocese said on its website Friday.

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Brazil's Rousseff Breaks Holidays to Tour Flood-Hit Areas

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff interrupted her year-end holidays Friday to tour flood-hit areas of the country's southeast where 40 people have died following torrential rains.

After two weeks of heavy downpours which have triggered deadly landslides, the weather is beginning to improve across much of southeastern Brazil.

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Death Toll in Brazilian Flooding Rises to 32 

Civil defense officials have said the death toll in the floods and mudslides caused by heavy downpours in two states in southeastern Brazil has risen to 32. More than 50,000 have been forced to leave their homes.

The civil defense department of Minas Gerais state said Wednesday on its website that 17 people died there in floodwaters or mudslides.

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