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The Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was of US$ 214.8 billion in the first quarter of 2006. The value, which corresponds to the sum of the country's riches, was released Thursday, June 29, by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
According to the institute, the rate of investments represented 20.4% of the GDP. The number is the largest since 2001 for this time of year. The sectors of the economy which contributed the most for the GDP were agriculture and livestock, which reached US$ 13.8 billion, industry, with US$ 75.6 billion, and services, with US$ 111.4 billion. US$ 15.6 Billion a Year Brazilian franchises went from yearly revenues of US$ 10.5 billion in 2001 to US$ 15.6 billion last year. The information was presented by the Relationship manager at the Brazilian Franchising Association (ABF), Rogério Feijó, in the seminar "The Ways to Internationalization of Franchises in the Arab World." The seminar is organized by the ABF, the Arab Chamber and the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex), within a program to motivate the expansion of Brazilian franchises to the Arab market. The ABF started two years ago, together with Apex, a internationalization project for Brazilian franchises. Currently there are in Brazil 971 franchise chains with 61,800 units. Eighty percent of them are of national origin. According to Feijó, the Brazilian franchises started expanding to the international market about 20 years ago, but from isolated initiatives from the companies themselves. Now there is a group effort in the sector to take them outside Brazil. ABr, Anba
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Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.
The IBGE must start reading The Economist.
Cheers
Cesar Medina