BRAZIL // What statue in the world boasts a view as sublime as Rio de Janeiro's Cristo Redentor? Standing atop Corcovado, arms outstretched in peace, this soapstone icon looks out over the city's spectacular landscape: a jumble of mountains and beaches, favelas and skyscrapers. It's a view almost as impressive for tiny mortals who ride up on the Corcovado rack railway and stand at its holy feet. Though plans for Cristo Redentor stretched back as far as the 1850s, it was only completed in 1931. Since then it has been struck by lightning; visited by Popes, presidents and kings; mischievously illuminated in the German national colours for the World Cup - but still claims its place in the starting line-up of Brazilian national treasures.