Some 40 black models, most of them women, have staged a topless protest in Rio de Janeiro against the low presence of Afro-Brazilians on fashion catwalks.

"What strikes you, your racism or me?" one of the female demonstrators wrote on her chest during the protest late Wednesday timed to coincide with Rio Fashion Week.

Brazil kept French spies under surveillance in connection with suspected sabotage at its Alcantara satellite launch base where a blast killed 21 people in 2003, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

The daily Folha de Sao Paulo, citing Brazilian intelligence documents, said at least three counter-espionage operations targeted French agents and their contacts in Alcantara located in the northeastern state of Maranhao, not too far from the Kourou space base in French Guiana.

Brazil, which hotly denounced U.S. surveillance of its leaders, itself spied on U.S. officials as well as on Russia, Iran and Iraq a decade ago, the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper reported on Monday.

The paper indicated it had access to a document from the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, ABIN, describing surveillance operations from 2003 and 2004, during the first mandate of former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Brazil fired an intelligence officer last year believed to have disclosed government secrets to a CIA agent, O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper said Sunday.

The newspaper said that the Brazilian agent provided the Central Intelligence Agency around mid-2012 with information pertaining to a border standoff between Brazil and its neighbors Paraguay and Argentina.

Police fired tear gas and arrested protesters in Sao Paulo late Friday when a march demanding free public transportation for students turned violent.

A group of vandals, some wearing black hoods, smashed bank ATM machines, set a public bus on fire, and destroyed subway and bus ticket machines.

Germany and Brazil are working on a U.N. General Assembly resolution to highlight international anger at U.S. data snooping in other countries, diplomats said Friday.

The resolution would not mention the United States but would call for extending the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to Internet activities.

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday criticized alleged U.S. spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone calls, insisting on clear rules governing the Internet as a way to prevent it.

"Nobody, no democratic nation, will permit this violation of sovereignty and human and civil rights," said Rousseff, adding "there will be a growing reaction" from countries affected by the eavesdropping scandal.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Wednesday praised Brazil for producing prolonged macroeconomic stability.

But the IMF says Latin America's biggest economy must act more decisively on bolstering investment and increase competitiveness if it is to revive growth.

Twelve people were killed Saturday when their boat sank in northern Brazil during a traditional procession on a river in honor of the Virgin Mary, relief workers said.

Six other people were still missing from the ship that was carrying 100 participants even though it had a capacity limit of 40, firefighters said.

It's no secret humans have been having sex for millennia -- but recently discovered cave art suggests they were doing it in the Americas much earlier than many archeologists believed.

A new exhibit in Brazil showcases artifacts dating as far back as 30,000 years ago -- throwing a wrench in the commonly held theory humans first crossed to the Americas from Asia a mere 12,000 years ago.