Montevideo/Rio de Janeiro  - A cruise ship carrying 1,429 passengers and 590 crew members was evacuated off the coast of Uruguay on Thursday after a fire broke out on board.

Costa Romantica, operated by Italy's Costa Cruises out of Brazil, suffered a mechanical problem that caused a fire to break out in a power generator overnight, but it was quickly brought under control. Efforts to repair the generator were unsuccessful.

Rio de Janeiro  - Hot samba rhythms mixed with confetti and fireworks as the best samba schools in Rio de Janeiro danced well into Tuesday morning, in their fight for the Carnival crown.

Like the previous night, the second and final round of the official Carnival competition featured six samba schools with their gigantic floats and thousands of dancers at Rio's sambadrome.

The winner of this edition of the world-famous Carnival is to be announced Wednesday.

Rio de Janeiro  - Millions of Brazilians and tens of thousands of foreigners were poised to put aside their worries about the global financial crisis in favour of the fantasy of Carnival, which starts Saturday and lasts through Tuesday.

At the center of festivities will be Rio de Janeiro, which is gearing up for the festival feast marked by glitter, glamour and sensuality and attracts rich and poor, famous and anonymous, locals and foreigners alike.

Rio de Janeiro - Three days before its "official" beginning, the world-famous Brazilian Carnival started Thursday in the historic city of Salvador, in the northeatern state of Bahia.

According to municipal tourism body Salvatur, over 650,000 tourists were expected in the city for the event, where hotels showed an occupancy rate of over 90 per cent.

Rio de Janeiro  - Young foreign tourists who travelled to Brazil for the world-famous Rio de Janeiro Carnival were facing an unexpected threat Thursday: the raids of criminal gangs on youth hostels in the city.

In just 24 hours, police investigated two such raids, affecting at least 50 tourists, most of them foreigners.