Word: brazilians
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Brazilian devotion to the Catholic Church has declined over the past several years. Whereas Brazil was once an almost entirely Catholic nation, only 74% of Brazilians today admit allegiance to Rome, with large numbers, especially the urban poor, having defected to Protestant Evangelical sects. Many more water down their Catholicism with dashes of African religions such as Candomble or spiritist beliefs such as Kardecism. Only recently has the decrease in Catholic affiliation seemingly leveled...
...interview last fall at the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Lula, 63, told TIME that he wants to "change the world's political and economic geography" before he leaves office in December 2010. It may be futile to stump for a permanent Brazilian seat on the United Nations Security Council, but the developed world's financial shambles has made Lula's campaign to challenge U.S. and European hegemony in global trade talks less quixotic - and enhanced Brazil's leadership role among developing nations. "Capitalism will be a different animal once the turbulence is over," Lula told TIME. "Developing countries will...
That too would mark a change. Brazilian officials have long wanted to make a mark outside their neighborhood, but until recently, the world rarely noticed what went on there - unless it involved beaches, soccer or Carnaval. "Brazil always suffered externally because of its internal poverty," says Lula's foreign-policy adviser, Marco Aurelio Garcia. The nation's founding monarchy, which lasted until 1889, insulated the country from the region's 19th century upheavals but also spawned a quasi-feudal class system that led to the inequalities that persist today. In 2000, fewer than 3% of Brazilians still owned more than...
Lula's predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, was the first President to recognize that change was needed. He restored fiscal sanity by slaying hyperinflation, but his attempts at social reform were timid. Lula's victory in 2002 panicked Wall Street and the Brazilian élite. But instead of defaulting on Brazil's foreign debt or busting the budget, as they feared he would, Lula embraced one of the few positive legacies of Brazil's royalist roots: deliberate, negotiated consensus-building. It's a hallmark of Brazil's widely respected diplomatic corps - and it tempered Lula even when he was a metal...
...corruption, too. But Lula, who keeps a jar of oil from the recent find by his desk, along with others filled with exotic beans and plants developed for biofuels, sees the oil as another resource to help end poverty. "God," the President crowed after the discovery, "is Brazilian...