Brazil said Monday its AIDS epidemic was under control, with a 0.61 percent cut in new cases between 2009 and 2010, although a rise among young homosexuals was a cause for concern.

"The AIDS epidemic remains stable," the health ministry said in its latest epidemiological report.

Speaker Nabih Berri said on Saturday that Lebanon will overcome the crises and maintain its stability.

“Lebanon will overcome crises and preserve its security and stability,” Berri said during a dinner banquet in honor of Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer.

President Michel Suleiman discussed on Saturday with Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer the importance of developing the bilateral relations between the two countries, asking assistance to pressure Israel to implement U.N. Security Council resolution 1701.

Suleiman stressed during a meeting with Temer at Baabda Palace on the importance of reforming the United Nations and the World Trade Organizations.

Police forces here launched a major operation early on Sunday to wrest from criminals’ control of the Rocinha favela, the largest in Brazil.

The shantytown has been controlled by narcotraffickers for the past 30 years.

The ringleader of the gang that kidnapped the seven Estonian tourists, Wael Abbas, stayed in the custody of the Syrian authorities for 20 days before being handed over to Lebanon’s General Security Department last week, official sources said.

The sources told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat published Monday that Syrian authorities questioned Abbas over his fake Venezuelan passport and other documents after Qatar arrested him at Doha airport and deported him to Syria.

Venezuelan president and cancer survivor Hugo Chavez on Sunday announced a summit in early 2012 of Latin American leaders who have beaten the disease including Brazil's current and former presidents.

The 57 year-old Chavez had surgery in June to remove a malignant tumor. After several rounds of chemotherapy, mostly in Cuba, he claimed last month that he was cancer-free.

A powerful explosion likely triggered by a gas leak ripped through a restaurant in downtown Rio de Janeiro early Thursday, leaving three people dead and 17 injured, the Brazilian city's mayor said.

Three of those hurt were in serious condition, Mayor Eduardo Paes told reporters at the scene of the explosion, which occurred around 7:30 am (1030 GMT).

A man with a pistol tried to enter Brazil's presidential palace on Thursday and threatened to kill himself if he was not allowed to meet with President Dilma Rousseff, officials said.

The man did not get past security and was arrested.

A woman who at 61 is expecting not a pension check but her first baby has stirred some controversy in Brazil over just when it might be too late to give birth.

The woman in question, whose case has appeared in local media, asked that her name be withheld. She is post-menopausal, married to a man who is 38, and became pregnant with a donor egg. She is due in November.

Authorities in a state in Brazil's northeast are scrambling to take the fright and the bite off the beach after piranhas sunk their teeth into about 100 beachgoers, UOL Noticias reported.

The problem -- rather fearsome given piranhas' horror-movie teeth and ability to sink them into human flesh -- has been the biggest at the main beach area in Piaui state; authorities said they need to act fast to reduce a piranha overpopulation situation.