Formosa is a place name which comes from Portuguese and old Spanish word formosa (*from latin formosus, meaning "beautiful").

The following places bear the name:

• The geographically named island of Formosa, upon which the Taiwanese live, also sometimes called the Republic of China
  • Formosa Strait (Taiwan Strait)
• Formosan languages, the languages belonging to the Austronesian family of languages spoken by the indigenous people or aborigenes of the island of Formosa or Taiwan
• Formosa Province, Argentina
  • Formosa, Argentina, the capital of its namesake province
• Formosa, Brazil, near Brasília in Goiás State
• Formosa, Virginia, USA
• Formosa, Arkansas, USA
• Formosa, Santarém, Portugal
• Formosa, Portalegre, Portugal
• Formosa, Ontario, Canada
• The name given to Bioko island by Fernando Poo
• name given to a fort built by the Portuguese in Malacca in the 16th century.

More on [ Formosa ]

L.A. Times - Latin America

Hurricane Norbert nears Mexico's Baja California
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:39:00 -0700
Fishermen pulled in their boats and hotels warned tourists away from beaches today as Hurricane Norbert strengthened to a Category 2 storm and bore down on Mexico's southern Baja California Peninsula.
'Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance' by Lloyd Jones
Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
A cross-cultural tango pulses with life between the shores of New Zealand and Argentina. ACENTURY ago, Katherine Mansfield was beginning a distinguished literary career that would lead to her becoming New Zealand's best-known literary figure. By the time she died in her mid-30s in 1923, her stories had captured her nation's life in luminous, evocative prose. But Mansfield wrote these stories in Europe, for she had left her native land as a young woman, eager to escape what she saw as a parochial backwater. It took distance and homesickness for a place she was never to see again to so artfully bring alive the particular texture of that antipodean world.
Peru's Cabinet resigns amid bribery scandal
Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo and 14 others quit over allegations that bribes were solicited from a European firm in exchange for energy contracts. Peruvian President Alan Garcia accepted the resignation of his entire Cabinet on Friday amid a sweeping bribery scandal that has rocked the government of a major U.S. ally.
U.S., Mexico can reach final round of World Cup qualifying
Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Americans play Cuba on Saturday, Mexico faces Jamaica and both appear to be solid favorites to reach the final six. Coaches Bob Bradley and Sven-Goran Eriksson are treading two very different paths, but both are headed in the same direction -- to soccer's 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
More than two dozen die amid Mexico violence
Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
A newspaper publisher, two federal agents and 11 people gunned down in a bar are among those killed as Mexico endures drug warfare. In another violent spasm, more than two dozen people were killed in Mexico within hours late Thursday and early Friday, including a newspaper publisher, two federal agents and a group gunned down as they drank at a bar.
World Briefing
Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Georgia: Russia pullout incomplete, France says / Mexico: Norbert builds as it nears Baja / Israel: Iranian boy seeks cancer treatment / India: Dalai Lama undergoes surgery Russia needs to do more, says France

UN News Centre - Americas

Haiti in desperate need of socio-economic development, stresses UN envoy
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500
The recovery and humanitarian relief efforts in Haiti - an impoverished country devastated recently by four successive storms in as many weeks - will not succeed unless the international community addresses the nation's social and economic crisis, a senior United Nations official stressed today.
World Bank donates $25 million to help rebuild beleaguered Haiti
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500
The World Bank today announced $25 million in additional emergency grants for Haiti to support recovery and rebuilding efforts, and strengthen its capacity to cope with natural disasters, in the wake of a devastating series of storms that hit the Caribbean country.
Drug-related crime biggest threat to public safety in the Americas, warns UN
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Drug trafficking and the violence committed by its associated organized crime is the biggest threat to public safety in the Americas, according to the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

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