Talk:Brazil

Social issues - many problems to fix

Main article: Social issues in Brazil

Located between some of the richest areas of Rio de Janeiro, the Rocinha favela is testimony to high economic inequality within Brazil.

Brazil has been unable to reflect its recent economic achievements into social development. Poverty, urban violence, growing social security debts, inefficient public services, and the low value of the minimum wage are some of the main social issues that currently challenge the Brazilian government. The rate of poverty is in part attributed to the country's economic inequality. Brazil ranks among the world's highest nations in the Gini coefficient index of inequality assessment. According to Fundação Getúlio Vargas, in June 2006 the rate of misery based on labour income was of 18.57% of the population — a 19.8% reduction during the previous four years.

Poverty in Brazil is most visually represented by the various favelas, slums in the country's metropolitan areas and remote upcountry regions that suffer with economic underdevelopment and below-par standards of living. There are also great differences in wealth and welfare between regions. While the Northeast region has the worst economic indicators nationwide, many cities in the South and Southeast enjoy First World socioeconomic standards, with roughly 23.8 homicides per 100,000 residents. Muggings, robberies, kidnappings and gang violence are common in the largest cities. Police brutality and corruption are widespread. Innefficient public services, especially those related to security, education and health, severely affect quality of life. Minimum wages fail in fulfilling the constitutional requirements set in article 7, IV, regarding living standards. Brazil currently ranks 70th in the Human Development Index list, with a high HDI (0,800). The social security system is considered unreliable and has been historically submerged in large debts and graft, which have been steadily increasing along the 1990s.

Timezone changes

The timezones mentioned in the info sidebar should be fixed to fit the new official timezones, defined by federal law since June 2008. UTC-5 doesn't exist anymore within Brazil, so both official timezones and daylight saving timezones spread only from UTC-4 to UTC-2.

Time Zones

The state of Acre does not belong to UTC-5 anymore (since last year); it is now UTC-4. Thus, Brazil spans now only three time zones.

environmental NGO's in Brazil

According to Marc van Roosmalen, certain environmental ngo's are actively engaged in deforestation. Also, he mentiones that some do little more than make nice photographs of the rainforest, hereby creating the impression that the environmental degredation is not yet so serious here.

o brasil

o brasil e um pais de todos

o brasil

o brasil e um pais de todos

ethnic groups

The article contains incorrect numbers about ethnic groups in front page. Please correct it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.112.146.200 (talk) 15:26, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Non-Spoken Languages

ATTENTION When we enter the article on Brazil, we read in the gray box at our right, right above the national flag and seal, the name of the country in English ("Federative Republic of Brazil"), in Portuguese (the ONLY official national language in Brazil: "República Federativa do Brasil"), and then in some other 5 or 4 languages that ARE NOT BRAZILIAN LANGUAGES, nor are they de facto spoken languages in that country. Some, that I recognise, are spoken by minorities in neighboring countries, but NOT IN BRAZIL. Thus it does not make any sense having such a bunch of international names for Brazil in the English article. Please, editors, remove all those names and solve that mess. The same thing happens regarding the "Motto", the "Anthem" and the "National Seal". After the official Portuguese name, or phrase, the following phrases are in indigenous languages of neighboring countries, I repeat: those languages are not spoken and do not have an official status in Brazil. There is no need to have their names under the Motto, the Anthem or the Seal. Only Portuguese is recognised in Brazil as national language, and besides being the de jure language spoken and writen in all the country's territory, it is the de facto language of 99% percent of the population. The remaining 1% are circa 200 native brazilian languages with no official status. And they are not the ones shown in the article. I am Brazilian and I can assure you that my statement above is right. I hope someone do something about it. Good luck, and thank you

The above. is correct that at one point the editors did list indigenous languages not spoken in significant numbers in Brazilian territories. However, Portuguese is not the de jureItalic text' language of 99 percent of Brazil. Italian and German play significant roles in the south of the country and are much more spoken then most of the Amerindian languages. It should be brought to the attention of the editors that German and Italian (and possibly Japanese) are large minority languages and therefore should be mentioned in the box on the right. This would seem controversial to many Brazilians in the north because many of whom have not encountered these foreign minorities. Therefore, a Brazilian from a Northern city like Recife would be surprised to see this. Nonetheless, the Italian and German minorities deserve to be recognized. Even if the mentioning of these languages would bother a standard Lucophone Brazilian, this is the English Wikipedia, not the Portuguese. Most people who would read the English article about Brazil would not be Brazilian and therefore not have adverse feelings about the mention of the Italian and German languages in Brazil. Brazilian hostility to this would likely be left over, needless animosity from the World War II era. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.200.159 (talk) 18:14, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

New GINI of 2009

The new gini is 0,493 (June 2009)... The article says its like 57,0 :S! You should update it to 49,3 please.

Source: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/dinheiro/ult91u604787.shtml —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.36.213.132 (talk) 19:42, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Derivation of the name Brazil?

Can anyone add some information as to how the name Brazil was derived? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.89.171.231 (talk) 19:28, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

The name "Brazil" was taken from "brazilwood", a red-wooded tree (Caesalpinia echinata) then unknown in Europe that was largely abundant almost everywhere in the brazilian forests when the Portuguese arrived in 1500. So the word "brazil" was related to the red color of the wood, that resembles the ember - "brasa", in portuguese, leading to "Brasil" (with "s"), after what the wood - and the country - was named. Thanks to the red color of its wood, useful to get fabrics colored with a superior quality, the tree was intensively explored, causing it almost to extinction (nowaday it's yet considered a endangered specie). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.55.62.145 (talk) 19:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Brazilian biggest cities - 2009 data

IBGE - Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - has disclosed new information about Brazilian population. So this article can be updated with brand-new data regarding the numbers of the greatest Brazilian cities.

The address where you can find the information is the IBGE's official site: http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/estimativa2009/estimativa.shtm.

There are downloads both in xls and pdf formats. The page is written in portuguese, but I believe this won't be a problem.

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fabiocese (talk • contribs) 20:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Why can't one edit this article?

Hi. I don't seen eny edit tabs in this article. Why is that so?