SAO PAULO (AFP) - US online news aggregator The Huffington Post made its debut in Brazil on Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014, with the launch of a Portuguese-language edition, its first in Latin America.

The site - www.brasilpost.com.br - is being produced in partnership with the Abril Group, one of the region's leading media companies.

"With more than 100 million Internet users and more than 50 million smartphones, Brazil is as hyper-connected as any country in the world," said Ms Arianna Huffington, who founded the original site in 2005.

"In a country as large and diverse as Brazil, the Brasil Post will welcome all voices - politicians, business leaders and academics alongside students, activists and artists - and will be a hub where all Brazilians can come to share their passions or simply cross-post from their own blogs and add a new distribution channel to what they're already writing."

The "Huff Post" also has editions in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Britain. There is also a French-language version for readers in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

Spain's El Pais launched a Portuguese-language web portal last year but a planned Brazil edition of The New York Times did not get off the ground.