Summary

Infrastructure – The Brazilian government has designed a project aiming at any collaboration between public sector and private sector, which can be referred to as public-private partnership (PPP). This project is being submitted to the National Congress for official approval. Infrastructure areas such as transportation, ports, housing demand heavy investments which the government is not capable of providing due to the shortage of money.

Brazil – To supply resources to the families living below the poverty line the government has implemented the Bolsa Familia programme (grants for poor families). This measure has made a valuable contribution towards helping families in need to get food.

Health – Sleep is an essential component of human life, as nearly a third of the life of a normal adult is spent sleeping. So it plays a vital role to the human health. Twenty years ago the sleep disorders did not attract great medical attention in Brazil. From the 1980s on, however, following the development of technological devices providing added understanding of the sleep and its disorders, these disturbances have become the target for an extensive research, and treatments have been made available for this condition.

Citizenship – To give low-income students the opportunity of entering an university, non-governmental organizations and groups of students run community courses (the so-called 'cursinho') in order to prepare them to take examination for that purpose. And the results are pretty surprising. Hard work and dedication are the students' resources to have access to universities, despite their background of having attended public schools of bad quality.

Public school – Samuel Pfromm Netto has made a speech at the Federacao do Comercio do Estado de Sao Paulo's Council of Sociology, Economy and Politics on the Brazilian public school system failure. He has said that the several educational reforms taken place in the country have had harmful effects on elementary and middle public school.

Interview – In Amazonia, in the northern region of the country, the presence of the Roman Catholic Church and the Armed Forces has produced important changes in the indigenous people's way of life. Born in a village located in the northern area of the state of Amazonas, Josimar Marinho is the first Brazilian Indian to have become a Catholic priest and an Army officer. He talks about his life in both institutions.

Energy – The construction of a hydroelectric dam by private sector in the region of the Zona da Mata in Minas Gerais has posed drastic changes in the lives of the families living by the riverside. They have had to move house because of the dam construction. Now they live in an urban area developed by the consortium that built the dam, away from the river on which they have once depended for making their living.

Religion – The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil's patroness saint, draws more than seven million pilgrims per year. Located in the city of Aparecida in the state of Sao Paulo, the sanctuary contains the image of St Aparecida. The church is the second largest in the world, being the St Peter's of Rome the largest one.

Education – For ten years the game of chess has been successfully used as a pedagogical tool in the schools of the Secretary of Education of the City of Sao Paulo. About 30,000 children have already learned how to play chess in 300 schools.

Language – Portuguese is the eighth language spoken in the world, and the third more important in the Occident, after English and Spanish. In Brazil it has played an important role for keeping the national unity, and today it is spoken by 180 million people.

Violence – A talk on urban violence and its epidemic proportions has been delivered by Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, a recognised authority on the subject, at the Federacao do Comercio do Estado de Sao Paulo's Council of Sociology, Economy and Politics. Pinheiro has pointed out the main problems - drug trafficking, for instance - and possible solutions.

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