Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi criticized the delay in the formation of a new government, reported the National News Agency Wednesday.

He stressed the need to form a new cabinet because the “delay cannot persist longer than this.”

A Catholic priest in southeastern Brazil was excommunicated on Monday after publicly resigning from his duties to protest against the church's opposition to homosexuality.

"Father Roberto Francisco Daniel can no longer celebrate the divine rite because he has been excommunicated," a statement from the Bauru diocese in Sao Paulo state said.

President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt will visit Brazil on May 7 for a two-day visit focused on the economy, his spokesman Ehab Fahmy said on Wednesday.

Morsi, who won elections last June promising to address the battered economy, has already visited the four other member states of the BRICS group -- Russia, India, China and South Africa -- which he hopes Egypt can join.

Much like football, played on beaches with passion and flamboyance, the Brazilian bikini captures the essence of the country, with its colorful designs, cheeky cut and undoubtedly sexy style.

The best of Brazil's bikinis and swimwear was on display this week at the summer edition of Fashion Rio, attracting a growing number of foreign clients.

A Brazilian doctor charged with murdering seven hospital patients is now being investigated in connection with hundreds more similar cases of suspicious deaths.

A team led by health ministry investigator Mario Lobato is re-examining the 1,872 deaths that took place over the past seven years in the intensive care unit led by 56-year-old Virginia Soares de Souza.

Germany is keen to boost its already substantial investment in Brazil ahead of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Rio summer Olympics, the new president of the Brazil-Germany Chamber of Commerce said here Monday.

"There are many (German) companies, particularly small and medium-sized ones -- who see prospects for business in Brazil" despite the country's faltering economic growth (0.9 percent last year)," said Thomas Schmall, who has just been elected chamber president for a two-year term.

Leaders from the BRICS emerging nations are expected to launch a joint development bank to rival western-dominated institutions at a summit beginning Tuesday.

The grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and hosts South Africa will meet in Durban to set up an infrastructure-focused lender that would challenge seven decades of dominance by the World Bank.

Local officials aiming to transform Rio de Janeiro from a cultural backwater into an art hotspot are bolstering their campaign with this week's opening of a museum built around one of the world's premier collections of contemporary Latin American art.

Casa Daros, a 12,000-square-meter (129,000-square-foot) space in an impeccably renovated 1866 mansion, will house some of the works acquired the past 13 years by Zurich-based collector Ruth Schmidheiny. Working with German curator Hans-Michael Herzog, she combed Latin America at a time when the art world paid little attention to the region. The 1,200 pieces they bought came from 117 artists, most of them still alive and working.

At least 27 people were killed by landslides caused by heavy rains in a mountainous area of the Brazilian sate of Rio de Janeiro, authorities said Tuesday.

The heavy downpour also forced 1,466 people to leave their homes or left them homeless. The deluge began late Sunday in and around Petropolis, located 68 kilometers (42 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro, officials said.

Many Brazilians cast their country as racial democracy where people of different groups long have intermarried, resulting in a large mixed-race population. But you need only turn on the TV, open the newspaper or stroll down the street to see clear evidence of segregation.

In Brazil, whites are at the top of the social pyramid, dominating professions of wealth, prestige and power. Dark-skinned people are at the bottom of the heap, left to clean up after others and take care of their children and the elderly.