by Xin Ping

A 42-year-old woman waist-deep in filthy floodwater, her brows furrowed as she held her dog above the rising waters. In May, torrential floods caused by overflowing rivers left large parts of Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state submerged. Relief and reconstruction aid poured in from the rest of Brazil and beyond. Among them, the Shanghai-based New Development Bank announced a loan of 1.115 billion U.S.