Word: lula
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...from shampoo to public-transit tickets. "I didn't have a bank account before," says Da Silva, 37, standing beneath graffiti-covered walls and pirated power lines. "I never had a car. I bought a Fiat Palio." Does she fear the global recession will quash her dreams? "I trust Lula. I don't think we'll be hit that hard...
...Lula" is President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (no relation to Efigênia), and most Brazilians believe he's the reason their country is surviving the current downturn better than other places. In past crises, Brazil was usually the nation in need of the largest life preserver. If it wasn't drowning under fiscal recklessness, it was being held under by draconian austerity plans. Brazil, the old joke goes, is the country of the future - and always will be. Now, in the middle of the worst global downturn for decades, Brazil could finally be the country...
...whose jets sell to scores of airlines, and which has become a symbol of Brazil's newfound confidence, recently announced plans to lay off 4,000 employees, almost one-fifth of its workforce. Commodity exports - soybeans, steel - are weak. The main stock market is down 25% since September. But Lula, a former shoe-shine boy who heads the leftist Workers Party (PT), has so far kept the good times from becoming a hellish bust. In Brazil, that's nothing short of miraculous...
What's more, though they may not admit it, the more moderate Latin leftists who dominate the region's politics today - including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whom Obama has invited to the White House in March - know that their own electoral paths were opened in no small part by Chávez's victory in 1998. So it should have come as no surprise that many Latin American Presidents took issue with Obama's suggestion, in a Univision interview last month, that the Venezuelan leader aids terrorists. After all, last summer...
...recently remarked that Obama seemed to have the "same stench" as Bush, but over the weekend said he'd be willing to meet with the new U.S. leader before the Summit of the Americas in April in Trinidad. Obama has already invited Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to the White House next month, a sign that he'd prefer to deal with a more moderate Latin leftist. The only problem is that Lula's second and final term ends next year. Chávez now stands to be around quite a bit longer...