Laughing in the Face Of Terrorist Reports

Brazilian City Lures Tourists With Humor. The Brazilian summer was just beginning last year when Mayor Felipe Gonzalez summoned the top business executives, tourism officials and civic leaders in this border town for a meeting. Just a few months earlier, CNN had broadcast a report saying that Foz do Iguacu — a city of about 230,000 people in the southwestern corner of Brazil — was home to a terrorist cell of al Qaeda and Hezbollah operatives. That was followed by a Vanity Fair magazine article saying that senior al Qaeda leaders had recently held a high-level summit here and that there were dozens of terrorist training camps in the surrounding jungle. And then a Brazilian magazine reported that even Osama bin Laden himself may have paid the city a covert visit. Convinced that the reports were ridiculous, In more than 160 foreign magazines and travel brochures, the city paid for advertisements with captions such as, “If he can find the time to come see the waterfall, why can’t you?” under a photograph of bin Laden. Another ad juxtaposed photographs of Saddam Hussein, bin Laden, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair with the caption: “Foz Do Iguacu; All the world wants to see it, including them.” Full Story