Washington  - The US government is urging Brazil to return an 8-year-old boy to his father in the United States in a case that could come up when US President Barack Obama holds his first meeting with his Brazilian counterpart on Saturday.

The boy lives with his stepfather in Brazil. A New Jersey court has ruled in favour of his father, David Goldman, and decided the boy, Sean, should be returned to the United States. But a Brazilian court has granted custody to his stepfather.

Rio de Janeiro  - A man suspected of having raped a teenage girl caused a tragedy in Brazil, when he attacked his wife, abducted his 5-year-old daughter in a stolen airplane and crashed on the parking lot of a shopping mall.

The crash Thursday at the shopping mall in the city of Goiania, near Brasilia, initially put the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) on alert, thinking it was a terrorist attack similar to that perpetrated on September 11, 2001 in the United States.

The man and his child died in the crash of the single-engine plane.

Sao Paulo - Ronaldo's recovery from knee surgery is well on track, and he is now a starter at Corinthians and again scored in his team's 2-1 victory over Sao Caetano in the Sao Paulo state championship.

"Everything is going very well, I am happy," the veteran striker said after the game Wednesday night.

Brasilia  - The Brazilian presidency got stuck in a diplomatic fumble Wednesday when it got wrong the name of Britain's Prince Charles in an official agenda.

As the Prince of Wales started a five-day visit to the South American country, the first version of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's agenda mentioned a meeting with "Charles Philip Arthur Chaves," according to Brazilian news website G1. The complete name of the heir to the British crown is Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor.

Geneva - Brazil should further reduce barriers to trade in order to boost its economy, particularly given the global economic downturn, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said in a report released Monday.

The report was prepared in February ahead of Brazil's trade policy review, which goes on for three days and will conclude on Wednesday.

Rio de Janeiro - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Friday said it was "regrettable" that a Roman Catholic archbishop excommunicated the mother of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion after being raped by her stepfather.

Brazilian Archbishop Jose Gomes Sobrinho also excommunicated the doctors who performed the procedure.

"As a Christian and a Catholic, I deeply regret that a bishop has had such conservative behaviour," Lula told reporters in the city of Vitoria.