I've been told (fairly consistently) that tickets for travel originating in Brazil must be issued locally (you can't buy a cheap ticket in the US and send it there).

However, I've been told mixed things as to whether or not this also applies to free/award tickets. I'm planning on giving a ticket to a friend of mine in Brazil to come to the US; I can have it mailed to me for free and then I'll just mail it to him or UA will issue it there for $100 -- is the latter necessary? (FYI: the award would involve travel on Varig).

I've also posted this on the United forum as the ticket would come from my United account:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/021473.html