Briefly (Americas)

BRAZIL

Tunnelers steal $6 million from safe

SAO PAULO | Thieves who spent months tunneling from a rented house to an armored-car company made off with nearly $6 million over the weekend as season-ending soccer matches virtually paralyzed the nation, Brazilian authorities said Monday.

The heist was discovered Sunday evening - after the games ended. Officers followed the tunnel from the company’s safe about 110 yards under the surface to a house, Sao Paulo police said in a statement.

Police said the home, abandoned when they arrived, had been occupied for about four months. Its former occupants are considered suspects, but no immediate arrests were made.

Officials with the armored-car company - Transnacional Transporte de Valores e Seguranca Patrimonial Ltda - told officers that $5.9 million was missing, according to the statement.

CANADA

Climate activists drape Parliament

OTTAWA | Twenty Greenpeace activists were arrested on Monday after the group scaled Canada’s Parliament building and unfurled two four-story banners calling for action on climate change.

The activists were found inside the building, on the rooftop and hanging from outside walls. They were charged with mischief and trespassing in lawmakers’ offices, police told reporters.

“We’re spotlighting Canada’s efforts to block all negotiations to stem global warming,” Greenpeace spokeswoman Catherine Vezina told Agence France-Presse as police swarmed the site earlier.

The Greenpeace members climbed onto the roof of the West Block building with mountaineering equipment at 7:45 a.m. and draped streamers on a wall above the entrance.

VENEZUELA

Chavez purges banking sector

CARACAS | President Hugo Chavez was heading to a summit in Uruguay on Monday in the hope that he had quashed public panic and gained political ground with a purge of the South American nation’s financial sector.

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