Weekly Report - 17 February 2004

Friday the 13th would not be an unlucky day in most of Latin America, but Brazilians are as paraskevidekatriaphobics as the Nordic peoples, and superstitious members of the ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), whose 24th anniversary fell last Friday, will have been confirmed in their phobia. That day their party, and its government, were hit by the second scandal involving shady financing to have emerged since end-2003.