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They were two and a half decades in which Brazil had no capacity to invest in infrastructure. Just to give you an idea, in 1989, we had in Brazil about 50,000 project-engineering businesses. When I took office, there were just 8,000. Universities were no longer turning out engineers.
Latin America is convinced that, starting with South America, our way forward is to consolidate the process of integration: not theoretical integration - the integration of speeches - but physical integration, with infrastructure, with roads, with railways, with communications, with energy.
Even strong as they are today, rich countries should have no illusion: nobody is safe in aworld of injustices.War will never bring security.War can only generate monsters: bitterness, intolerance, fundamentalism, and the damaging denial of current hegemonies.The poor must be given reasons to live, not to kill or die.
I believe together, with the OAS, everybody condemned the coup d'etat, and everybody is demanding that President Zelaya should go back to the presidency, and they should call for general elections and realize an election. That's what we want. And I believe that President Obama made the right decisions condemning the coup d'etat.
It is a coup because while the Brazilian Constitution allows for impeachment, it's necessary for the person to have committed what we call high crimes and misdemeanors. And President Dilma did not commit a high crime nor misdemeanor. Therefore, what is happening is an attempt by some to take power by disrespecting the popular vote.
I took office as president in January 2003, and in April 2003, I sent to Congress my first proposal for tax reform. Some parts were voted on, with respect to federal taxes, and then it came to a standstill. Why? Because each state is interested in its own tax reform, has its own tax policy, and each state has its federal deputies and senators.
Every time he plays, Leo Messi reminds me more of Maradona, both left-footed and short, Messi is the best player in the world, along with Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo. For us it is not a surprise. Since he began to come and train with us and we knew we would go down this path. Someday I will explain that I was at the birth of one of the footballing greats: Leo Messi.
I believe that it is very difficult in the world of today to continue with G-8 only without taking in account the importance of Brazil, China, India, many in the world economy, because these countries are great consumers, large consumers, and we're also becoming great producers, and also because we were better prepared than the rich countries for the nowadays global crisis.
Only in my case, when my presidency ends, I will go back to my home industrial city town, 800 meters from my local trade union that projected me my political life. And if I fail, when I go back to my hometown, it's going to take another century for another worker, another member of the working class to reach the presidency, because people are going to say that the workers do not have the competency to run a country.
This is the first global crisis that doesn't start in poor countries and it was caused by the rich countries. So it's necessary to take advantage of this crisis - the financial system has to be regulated. It's necessary that the central banks in the world should control a little bit the banks' financing, because they cannot bypass a certain range of leverage. And I believe that there's no other - more any reason for a G-8 group or any other "G." I believe that we should guarantee that the G-20 should be now an important forum to discuss the major economic issues of the world.