FIFA World Cup

FIFA World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the sport's global governing body.

The Brazil national football team represents Brazil in international Association football and is controlled by the Brazilian Football Confederation. They are the reigning South American champions, successfully defending their title in the 2007 Copa América. Brazil are also the current holders of the FIFA Confederations Cup after managing to repeat as winners of the competition in the 2009 edition of said tournament.

Brazil is the most successful national football team in the history of the World Cup, with five championships. They are also the most successful team in the FIFA Confederations Cup with three titles. Brazil, along with Argentina and Spain, are the only teams to win a World Cup outside their continental zone and the Verde-Amarela is the only team to have won the championship in four different continents; once in Europe (1958 Sweden), once in South America (1962 Chile), twice in North America (1970 Mexico and 1994 USA) and once in Asia (2002 S. Korea-Japan). Currently ranked third by FIFA, Brazil is consistently considered the strongest football nation in the world, and has also been marked as one of the most competitive teams of each decade since the 1960s.

Brazil's Human Rights

        Human rights in Brazil are legally protected by the Brazilian Constitution, statutes and laws. However, there are serious issues in regard to human rights abuses. Brazil had a remarkably poor record during the dictatorship of the 1960s, and still has many problems today. These include the use of police brutality, torture and summary executions by civil and military police and prison authorities. Slavery persists against the excluded persons. The federal government generally respected the human rights of its citizens, however, there continued to be numerous, serious abuses, and the records of several state governments were poor. 

       Slavery may seem like a quaint notion in a 21st century world, but that distinction is lost on up to 40,000 Brazilians who find themselves toiling for no real wages and can't leave the distant work camps where they live. Brazilian government officials and human rights activists call it slave labor, a condition they are aggressively trying to eradicate. Brazil has a sad record of domestic violence, both against children and women. The main causes of domestic violence are agreed to be alcohol addiction or drug use, but low literacy, social tension and poverty also play an important role in it. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a new law on Domestic and Family Violence against Women on 7 August 2006 in Brasília. The law is the result of an extensive process of consultation and discussion, in which key women's organizations played a crucial role. The process was promoted by the State Secretariat of Policies for Women and supported by UNIFEM.

Prisons are overcrowded and unhealthy, and prison rape is not uncommon. There are over 400,000 inmates in the system. Beatings, torture and killings by prison guards occur throughout the system. Children are abused in the juvenile justice system. According to the Ministry of Justice, 13,489 teenagers are in detention. Prison overcrowding results in a prominent occurrence of prison violence and murder as well as frequent revolts and escapes. To deal with these problems, prison administrations often divide prison populations according to gang affiliation. Police violence is one of the most internationally recognized human rights abuses in Brazil. The problem of urban violence focuses on the perpetual struggle between police and residents of high crime favelas such as the areas portrayed in City of God. Police response in many parts of Brazil is extremely violent, including summary execution and torture of suspects.

Brazil's Flag

        The flag has a green field with a large yellow rhombus in the center. A blue circle is placed within the rhombus, with 27 white five pointed stars of five different sizes arranged in the shapes of various contellations of the Southern Hemisphere.

        On the modern republican flag, the green background represents the forest, the yellow rhombus stands for mineral wealth, and the blue circle, which replaced the coat of arms of the original flag, depicts the sky over Rio de Janeiro on the morning of November 15, 1889, the day the Republic of Brazil was declared. It is shown as seen from outside of the celestial sphere. 

The stars, whose position in the flag reflect the sky above Rio de Janeiro on November 15, 1889, represent the union's member-states - each star representing a specific state. The number of stars changes with the creation of new states and, since the early days of the republic, has risen from an original 21 stars to the current 27, standing for the 26 states and the Brazilian Federal District.

History

The land now called Brazil was claimed by Portugal in April 1500, on the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Alvarez. Colonization was effectively begun in 1534, when Dom Joa III but this arrangement proved problematic and in 1549 the king assigned a Governor General to administer the entire colony. By the mid 16th century, sugar had become Brazil's most important export and the Portuguese imported African slaves to cope with the increasing international demand. divided the territory into twelve hereditary captaincies,

Through wars against the French, the Portuguese slowly expanded their territory to the southeast, taking Rio de Janeiro in 1567, and to the northwest, taking Sao Luis in 1615. They sent military expeditions to the Amazon Rainforest and conquered British and Dutch strongholds, founding villages and forts from 1669. In 1680 they reached the far south and founded Sacramento on the bank of the Rio de plata, in the Eastern Strip region (Uruguay)

At the end of the 17th century, sugar exports started to decline but the discovery of gold by explorers in the region that would later be called Minas Gerais (General Mines) around 1693, and in the following decades in current Mato Grosso and Goias, saved the colony from imminent collapse. From all over Brazil, as well as from Portugal, thousands of immigrants came to the mines.

In 1808, the Portuguese royal family, fleeing the troops of the French Emperor Napoleon I that were invading Portugal and most of Central Europe, establish themselves in the city of Rio de Janeiro, which thus became the seat of the entire Portuguese Empire. In 1815 Dom Joao VI, then regent on behalf of his incapacitated mother, elevated Brazil from colony to sovereign Kingdom United. In 1809 the Portuguese invaded French Giana and in 1816 the Eastern Strip, subsequently renamed Cisplatina  (but Brazil lost in 1898 when it became an independent nation known as Uruguay).