ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Brazil. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Brazil. In 2001, Brazil suffered from an unprecedented wave of kidnappings, which authorities say is largely the work of organized crime groups. Cardoso's "Plan Real" stabilized Brazil's currency and gave Brazilian wage earners greater purchasing power. In 2000, the Brazilian senate removed, for the first time ever, one of its members accused of corruption. Public safety issues appeared increasingly to determine how people spent both their money and their time. Brazil's police are among the world's most violent and corrupt; in 2001 Amnesty International found that they systematically resort to torture to extract confessions from prisoners.
