Brazil
Brazil the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers and with over 208 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the fifth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, its most populated city is São Paulo; the federation is composed of the union of the 26 states, the Federal District, the 5,570 municipalities. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers, it borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent's land area. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats; this unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.
Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system; the ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. The country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Brazil is considered an advanced emerging economy. It has the ninth largest GDP in the world by nominal, eight and PPP measures, it is one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years. It is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country, with the largest share of global wealth in Latin America. Brazil is a regional power and sometimes considered a great or a middle power in international affairs. On account of its international recognition and influence, the country is subsequently classified as an emerging power and a potential superpower by several analysts. Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Union of South American Nations, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, it is that the word "Brazil" comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast.
In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders in return for assorted European consumer goods; the official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross", but European sailors and merchants called it the "Land of Brazil" because of the brazilwood trade. The popular appellation eclipsed and supplanted the official Portuguese name; some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots". In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama"; this was the name the indigenous population gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".
Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years. The earliest pottery found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago; the pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the tropical forest region supported a complex prehistoric culture. The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from 800 CE to 1400 CE, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, complex social formations such as chiefdoms. Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people semi-nomadic who subsisted on hunting, fishing and migrant agriculture; the indigenous population of Brazil comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups. The Tupí people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás, there were many subdivisions of the other gro
Wellington Fagundes
Wellington Fagundes is a Brazilian politician. He has represented Mato Grosso in the Federal Senate since 2015, he was a deputy from Mato Grosso from 1991 to 2015. He is a member of the Party of the Republic. Media related to Wellington Fagundes at Wikimedia Commons
Tocantins
Tocantins is one of the states of Brazil.. It is the newest of the 26 Brazilian states, formed in 1988 and encompassing what had been the northern two-fifths of the state of Goiás. Tocantins covers 277,620.91 square kilometres and has a population of 1,496,880. Construction of its capital, began in 1989. With the exception of Araguaína there are few other cities with a significant population in the state; the government has invested in a new capital, a major hydropower dam and related infrastructure to develop this agricultural area. Tocantins has attracted hundreds of thousands of new residents to Palmas, it is building on its hydropower resources. The Araguaia and Tocantins rivers drain the largest watershed that lies inside Brazilian territory; the Rio Tocantins has been dammed for hydropower, creating a large reservoir that has become a center of recreation. Because it is in the central zone of the country, Tocantins has characteristics of the Amazon Basin, semi-open pastures, known as cerrado.
The Bananal Island, in the southwest of the State, is the largest fluvial island in the world. Tocantins is home to the Araguaia National Park, the Carajás Indian reservations, Jalapão State Park, about 250 kilometres from Palmas. There, the rivers create oases in the dry landscape. Tocantins geography is varied, it straddles both the coastal savanna. Many rivers traverse the state. Researchers have identified more than 20 archaeologically significant sites related to indigenous cultures. Tocantins is bordered to the northeast by the states of Maranhão and Piauí, Bahia to the east, Goiás to the south, Mato Grosso to the west, Pará to the northwest. Tocantins was created from the northern two-fifths of Goiás state in 1989 and is divided into 139 municipalities. Following its detachment from Goiás, the new state was transferred from Brazil's Central-West Region to the North Region. Most of Tocantins is situated within a vast Brazilian area known as the cerrado; the cerrado region's typical climate is hot and semi-humid, with pronounced seasonal variation marked by a dry winter from May through October.
The annual rainfall is around 800 to 1600 mm. The "cerrado" landscape cover 87% of Tocantins and is characterized by extensive savanna formations crossed by gallery forests and stream valleys. Cerrado includes various types of vegetation. Humid fields and "buriti" palm paths are found. Alpine pastures occur at mesophytic forests on more fertile soils. In the north of Tocantins the cerrado gives place to a zone of transition for the Amazon biome, near Tocantins River; the savanna formations are not homogenous. There is great variation between the amount of woody and herbaceous vegetation, forming a gradient from open "cerrado" — open fields dominated by grasses — to the closed, forest-like "cerrado" and the "cerradão", a closed canopy forest. Intermediate forms include the dirty field, the "cerrado" field, the "cerrado" sensu stricto, according to a growing density of trees; the "cerrado" trees have characteristic twisted trunks covered by a thick bark, leaves that are broad and rigid. Many herbaceous plants have extensive roots to store water and nutrients.
The plant's thick bark and roots serve as adaptations for the periodic fires which sweep the cerrado landscape. The adaptations protect the plants from destruction and make them capable of sprouting again after the fire; as in many savannas in the world, the "cerrado" ecosystems have been coexisting with fire since ancient times. They developed adaptations to natural fires caused by lightning or volcanic activity, to those caused by man. Along the western boundary of the state is the floodplain of the Araguaia River, which includes extensive wetlands and Amazon tropical forest ecosystems. Bananal Island, formed by two branches of the Araguaia, is said to be the largest river island in the world, it consists of marshlands and seasonally flooded savannas, with gallery forest. Where the two branches meet again they form an inland delta called Cantão, a typical Amazonian igapó flooded forest; the Araguaia is one of the main links between the Amazonian lowlands and the Pantanal wetlands to the south, but the river is not navigable.
Portuguese Jesuit missionaries explored what is today Tocantins state about 1625, seeking to convert the Amerindian peoples of the area to Christianity. The area is named after the Tocantins River. Before 1988 the area made up the northern one-third of Goiás state. Since the 17th century, this area was isolated by rivers navigable only in short portions and mountains, difficult to access; as a result, the southern area of the state became more developed after this area was selected in 1956 as the site for the development of the new capital of Brasília and the Federal District. A strong separatist movement developed in the north for independence of its people. After the government levied heavy taxes on mining in 1809, local residents began to organize a separatists movement, they made a minor revolt, crushed by the army. In the 19th century, a string of failed uprisings occurred in the north; the area was
Sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed of sand-sized mineral particles or rock fragments. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar because they are the most resistant minerals to weathering processes at the Earth's surface, as seen in Bowen's reaction series. Like uncemented sand, sandstone may be any color due to impurities within the minerals, but the most common colors are tan, yellow, grey, pink and black. Since sandstone beds form visible cliffs and other topographic features, certain colors of sandstone have been identified with certain regions. Rock formations that are composed of sandstone allow the percolation of water and other fluids and are porous enough to store large quantities, making them valuable aquifers and petroleum reservoirs. Fine-grained aquifers, such as sandstones, are better able to filter out pollutants from the surface than are rocks with cracks and crevices, such as limestone or other rocks fractured by seismic activity. Quartz-bearing sandstone can be changed into quartzite through metamorphism related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts.
Sandstones are clastic in origin. They are formed from cemented grains that may either be fragments of a pre-existing rock or be mono-minerallic crystals; the cements binding these grains together are calcite and silica. Grain sizes in sands are defined within the range of 0.0625 mm to 2 mm. Clays and sediments with smaller grain sizes not visible with the naked eye, including siltstones and shales, are called argillaceous sediments; the formation of sandstone involves two principal stages. First, a layer or layers of sand accumulates as the result of sedimentation, either from water or from air. Sedimentation occurs by the sand settling out from suspension. Once it has accumulated, the sand becomes sandstone when it is compacted by the pressure of overlying deposits and cemented by the precipitation of minerals within the pore spaces between sand grains; the most common cementing materials are silica and calcium carbonate, which are derived either from dissolution or from alteration of the sand after it was buried.
Colors will be tan or yellow. A predominant additional colourant in the southwestern United States is iron oxide, which imparts reddish tints ranging from pink to dark red, with additional manganese imparting a purplish hue. Red sandstones are seen in the Southwest and West of Britain, as well as central Europe and Mongolia; the regularity of the latter favours use as a source for masonry, either as a primary building material or as a facing stone, over other forms of construction. The environment where it is deposited is crucial in determining the characteristics of the resulting sandstone, which, in finer detail, include its grain size and composition and, in more general detail, include the rock geometry and sedimentary structures. Principal environments of deposition may be split between terrestrial and marine, as illustrated by the following broad groupings: Terrestrial environmentsRivers Alluvial fans Glacial outwash Lakes Deserts Marine environmentsDeltas Beach and shoreface sands Tidal flats Offshore bars and sand waves Storm deposits Turbidites Framework grains are sand-sized detrital fragments that make up the bulk of a sandstone.
These grains can be classified into several different categories based on their mineral composition: Quartz framework grains are the dominant minerals in most clastic sedimentary rocks. These physical properties allow the quartz grains to survive multiple recycling events, while allowing the grains to display some degree of rounding. Quartz grains evolve from plutonic rock, which are felsic in origin and from older sandstones that have been recycled. Feldspathic framework grains are the second most abundant mineral in sandstones. Feldspar can be divided into two smaller subdivisions: plagioclase feldspars; the different types of feldspar can be distinguished under a petrographic microscope. Below is a description of the different types of feldspar. Alkali feldspar is a group of minerals in which the chemical composition of the mineral can range from KAlSi3O8 to NaAlSi3O8, this represents a complete solid solution. Plagioclase feldspar is a complex group of solid solution minerals that range in composition from NaAlSi3O8 to CaAl2Si2O8.
Lithic framework grains are pieces of ancient source rock that have yet to weather away to individual mineral grains, called lithic fragments or clasts. Lithic fragments can be any fine-grained or coarse-grained igneous, metamorphic, or sedimentary rock, although the most common lithic fragments found in sedimentary rocks are clasts of volcanic rocks. Accessory minerals are all other mineral grains in a sandstone. Common accessory minerals include micas, olivine and corundum. Many of these accessory grains are more dense than the silicates that
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index is a statistic composite index of life expectancy and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores a higher HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, the GNI per capita is higher, it was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, with help from Gustav Ranis of Yale University and Meghnad Desai of the London School of Economics, was further used to measure a country's development by the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Report Office. The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index. While the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that "the IHDI is the actual level of human development", "the HDI can be viewed as an index of'potential' human development"; the index does not take into account several factors, such as the net wealth per capita or the relative quality of goods in a country. This situation tends to lower the ranking for some of the most advanced countries, such as the G7 members and others.
The index is based on the human development approach, developed by ul Haq framed in terms of whether people are able to "be" and "do" desirable things in life. Examples include—Being: well fed, healthy; the freedom of choice is central—someone choosing to be hungry is quite different from someone, hungry because they cannot afford to buy food, or because the country is in a famine. The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme; these were devised and launched by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, had the explicit purpose "to shift the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people-centered policies". To produce the Human Development Reports, Mahbub ul Haq formed a group of development economists including Paul Streeten, Frances Stewart, Gustav Ranis, Keith Griffin, Sudhir Anand, Meghnad Desai. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen utilized Haq's work in his own work on human capabilities.
Haq believed that a simple composite measure of human development was needed to convince the public and politicians that they can and should evaluate development not only by economic advances but improvements in human well-being. Published on 4 November 2010, the 2010 Human Development Report calculated the HDI combining three dimensions: A long and healthy life: Life expectancy at birth Education index: Mean years of schooling and Expected years of schooling A decent standard of living: GNI per capita In its 2010 Human Development Report, the UNDP began using a new method of calculating the HDI; the following three indices are used: 1. Life Expectancy Index = LE − 20 85 − 20 LEI is 1 when Life expectancy at birth is 85 and 0 when Life expectancy at birth is 20.2. Education Index = MYSI + EYSI 2 2.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index = MYS 15 Fifteen is the projected maximum of this indicator for 2025. 2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index = EYS 18 Eighteen is equivalent to achieving a master's degree in most countries.3.
Income Index = ln − ln ln − ln II is 1 when GNI per capita is $75,000 and 0 when GNI per capita is $100. The HDI is the geometric mean of the previous three normalized indices: HDI = LEI ⋅ EI ⋅ II 3. LE: Life expectancy at birth MYS: Mean years of schooling EYS: Expected years of schooling GNIpc: Gross national income at purchasing power parity per capita The HDI combined three dimensions last used in its 2009 Report: Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity to HDI Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate and the combined primary and tertiary gross enrollment ratio. Standard of living, as indicated by the natural logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity; this methodology was used by the UNDP until their 2011 report. The formula defining the HDI is promulgated by the United Nations Development Programme. In general, to transform a raw variable, say x, into a unit-free index between 0 and 1 (which allo
Cuiabá
Cuiabá is the capital city of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. It serves as the Geographical Centre of South America and forms the metropolitan area of the state, along with the neighbouring town of Várzea Grande; the city was founded in 1719, during the gold rush, it has been the state capital since 1818. The city is a trading centre for agricultural area; the capital is among the fastest-growing cities in Brazil, followed by the growth of agribusiness in Mato Grosso, despite the recession, affecting Brazilian industries. Cuiaba is the heart of an urban area that includes the state's second largest city, Várzea Grande. Thermal electric and hydroelectric plants located in the area have been expanded since the completion of a natural gas pipeline from Bolivia in 2000; the city is the seat of the Federal University of Mato Grosso and the largest soccer stadium of the state, Arena Pantanal. The city is a rich mix of European and Native American influences and numerous museums reflect this. Cuiabá is notable for its cuisine, dance and craftwork.
Known as the "Southern gate to the Amazon", Cuiabá experiences a hot humid tropical climate. Cuiabá was one of the host cities of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Cuiabá was founded on January 1, 1727 by Rodrigo César de Menezes the "captain" of the captaincy of São Paulo in the aftermath of the discovery of gold mines; the Rosário Church built at the time in the centre of the little town marked the location of a rich seam of gold. However, in 1746 much of the town was destroyed by an earthquake, it was given township status in 1818 and became the state capital in 1835. From the late eighteenth century, until the time of the Paraguayan War, the town remained small and was in decline; the war, brought some infrastructure and a brief period of economic boom, with Cuiabá supplying sugar and timber to the Brazilian troops. After the war, the town was once again forgotten by the rest of the country, to such an extent that the Imperial and the Republican governments of Brazil used to use it as a site of exile for troublesome politicians.
Isolation allowed it to preserve many of the oldest Brazilian ways of life until well into the twentieth century. Starting in 1930, the isolation was diminished, with the construction of roads and with the advent of aviation; the town became a city and would grow quite from 1960 onwards, after the establishment of the newly built Brazilian capital in Brasília. In the 1970s and 1980s, the pace of growth would continue to increase as agriculture became commercialized, using the roads to transport soybeans and rice produced in the state in order to be sold abroad; the growth was such that from 1960 to 1980 the small town of 50,000 inhabitants grew into a giant, with more than a quarter of a million inhabitants. Since 1990, the rate of population growth has decreased, as other towns in the state have begun to attract more immigration than the capital. Tourism has emerged as a source of income and environmental issues have become a concern for the first time. Cuiabá borders the towns of Chapada dos Guimarães, Campo Verde, Santo Antônio do Leverger, Várzea Grande and Acorizal.
The city is an intersection of waterways. However, on account of sand banks along the river, these waterways no longer support medium or large ships; the third most important airport of the Brazilian Mid-West region is located in Cuiabá, the city is the centre of an important and productive agricultural region. It is famous throughout Brazil as one of the country's hottest cities, where temperatures are above 40 °C. In central Cuiabá, an obelisk marks the exact center of the South American continent, as calculated in 1909. However, more accurate measurements in the 1990s located the exact center about 45 kilometres northeast of Cuiabá, near the town of Chapada dos Guimarães; the town sits in a transition zone between three of the most characteristic Brazilian ecosystems: Amazon and Pantanal. It is close to the mountain range known as Chapada dos Guimarães. Cuiabá is known as the Southern gate to the Amazon; the municipality contains 11% of the 3,534 hectares Rio da Casca Ecological Station, a protected conservation unit created in 1994.
Under the Köppen climate classification, Cuiabá has a tropical dry climate. Cuiabá is famous for its searing heat, although temperatures in winter can sometimes reach 10 °C or 50 °F; this is atypical, caused by cold fronts coming in from the south, may only last one or two consecutive days returning to the usual heat. The climate is humid. Rainfall is concentrated from September to May, the mass of dry air over the center of Brazil inhibiting the rain formation from June to August; the cold fronts dissipates the heat associated with the smoke produced by fires lit on during the dry season. The relative humidity drops to low levels, sometimes below 15%, increasing cases of respiratory diseases; the average annual rainfall is 1,351.1 millimetres or 53.19 inches, with maximum intensity from December to March. The mean maximum temperature reaches 34 °C or 93.2 °F, but the absolute maximum can reach 40 °C or 104 °F in hotter months but is muffled on rainy days, when the maximum temperature is only 28 °C or 82.4 °F.
The average low in July, the coldest month is 16.6 °C with wind chill of 10 °C. The Massairo Okamura State Park provides a green space with typical cerrado vegetation in the centre of a urbanized area, it helps preserve the headwaters of the Moinho streams. The 66 hectares (
Federal Senate
The Federal Senate is the upper house of the National Congress of Brazil. Created by the first Constitution of the Brazilian Empire in 1824, it was similar to the United Kingdom's House of Lords. Since the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889 the Federal Senate has resembled the United States Senate; the Senate comprises 81 seats. Three Senators from each of the 26 states and three Senators from the Federal District are elected on a majority basis to serve eight-year terms. Elections are staggered so that two-thirds of the upper house is up for election at one time and the remaining one-third four years later; when one seat is up for election in each State, each voter casts one vote for the Senate. The candidate in each State and the Federal District who achieve the greatest plurality of votes are elected; the current president of the Brazilian Senate is Davi Alcolumbre, from the Democrats of Amapá. He was elected in early 2019 for a two-year term; the Federal Senate of Brazil was established as the Senate of the Empire by the Constitution of 1824, first enacted after the Declaration of Independence.
Following independence, in 1822, Emperor Pedro I ordered the convocation of a National Assembly to draft the country's first Constitution. Following several disagreements with the elected deputies, the Emperor dissolved the Assembly. In 1824, Pedro I implemented the first Constitution which established a Legislative branch with the Chamber of Deputies as the lower house, the Senate as an upper house; the first configuration of the Senate was a consulting body to the Emperor. Membership was for life and it was a place of great prestige, to which only a small part of the population could aspire. Members of the Senate were elected, but they had to be at least 40 years old and have an annual income of 800,000 contos-de-réis, which limited candidates to wealthy citizens. Voters faced an income qualification. Voting in an election for the Senate was limited to male citizens with an annual income of at least 200,000 contos-de-réis; those who qualified for this did not vote directly for Senators. To be a Senate elector required an annual income of 400,000 contos-de-réis.
Once elected, these electors would vote for senator. The election itself would not result in a winner automatically; the three candidates receiving the most votes would make up what was called a "triple list", from which the Emperor would select one individual that would be considered "elected". The Emperor chose the candidate with the most votes, but it was within his discretion to select whichever of the three individuals listed; the unelected Princes of the Brazilian Imperial House were senators by right and would assume their seats in the Senate upon reaching age 25. The original Senate had 50 members, representing all of the Empire's Provinces, each with a number of senators proportional to its population. Following the adoption of the 1824 Constitution the first session of the Senate took place in May 1826; the Emperor had delayed calling the first election, which had led to accusations that he would attempt to establish an absolutist government. The Senate comprises 81 seats. Three Senators from each of the 26 states and three Senators from the Federal District are elected on a majority basis to serve eight-year terms.
Elections are staggered so that two-thirds of the upper house is up for election at one time and the remaining one-third four years later. When one seat is up for election in each State, each voter casts one vote for the Senate; the candidate in each State and the Federal District who achieve the greatest plurality of votes are elected. The current composition of the Board of the Federal Senate is as follows: The current composition of the House is as follows: Federal institutions of Brazil Official website of the Brazilian Senate Photos 360° of the Brazilian Senate List of all Brazilian senators
Brazil
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