A few post ago I publish an article about the luxurious brands preferred by Brazilian customers if money was not a problem. Some people don’t think is worth to pay a lot of more money just because of the brand.

The research indicates that, despite the taste for luxury brands, only 18% of the interviewed Brazilian consumers had affirmed they buy products of famous brands.

However, 60% of the interviewed ones in Brazil had affirmed they know people who buy merchandises of luxurious brands.

The survey also discloses that 75% of the Brazilians believe that the brands charge an exaggerated price for the products and 63% affirm that the consumers of these products want only projection in the social sphere.

Moreover, only 36% of the interviewed ones in Brazil believe that the luxurious brands are related with products of better quality - close to 32% of the interviewed ones don’t believe in this relation.

Another relevant fact raised in the research on the quality of the luxurious merchandises is the counterfeit market. In Brazil, 13% had affirmed that the counterfeited products and the imitations are as good as the originals.

Since 2004 Forbes makes a list of the best companies in the world based on their rankings for sales, profits, assets and market value. Their justification for using a composite ranking is simple: One metric alone can give a false impression about corporate size.

In total, the global 2000 companies now account for $30 trillion in revenues, $2.4 trillion in profits, $119 trillion in assets and $39 trillion in market value. Around the world, 72 million people work for these companies.

The U.S. still dominates the global list, but countries like Brazil are rapidly adding companies to the list. In comparison to 2007, Brazil added 12 more companies in 2008 and the best company from Brazil, Petrobras, went from rank #50 in 2007 to rank #29 in 2008.

The requirements for the global high performers list are: shares traded in the U.S. or American depositary receipts, a share price of at least $5, positive equity and sales of at least $1 billion.

Maps of Brazil’s performance on Forbes List:

Below there a list of the top 10 Brazilian companies in Forbes 2000 list:

Rank   Company

29       Petrobras-Petróleo Brasil

76       Vale

85       Banco Bradesco

132     Banco do Brasil

175     Itaúsa

233    Unibanco Group

492    Eletrobrás

736    Usiminas

760    Tele Norte Leste

766    Metalurgica Gerdau

The film “Troop of the Elite”, from Director Jose Padilha, was awarded in the Berlin International Film Festival with the Golden Bear for Best screenplay, during the ceremony of closing of 58ª edition of the Berlinale.

The last time that a Brazilian film has won the Golden Bear was in 1998, with “Central do Brasil”, of Walter Salles Jr. The actress Fernanda Montenegro, protagonist of the film, at the time conquered the Silver Bear for best actress on the paper of Dora, that writes letters for illiterates.

The movie “Tropa de Elite”, set in 1997, depicts the story of Captain Nascimento, a BOPE¹ captain, who with the imminent birth of his first child, is determined to leave the battalion and find a safer position for the sake of his family, but first he must find a suitable replacement for him. At the same time, the movie focuses on two childhood friends, Matias and Neto, who become cadets in the military police, but become discouraged at the corruption surrounding them. Eventually, both Nascimento and the cadets’ paths intersect, when the captain hopes that one of the two may become the substitute he is eager to find, as both decide to join the BOPE.

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¹ BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais, or Special Police Operations Battalion), is the elite group of the Military Police of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

I created this video from some pictures my friend sent me in my email the other day. This video is hilarious.

CPI approves confidentiality breach of 3.261 profiles of website Orkut

The Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (PCI) of Pedophilia, installed in the Senate, approved today unanimously the confidentiality breach of 3,261 profiles of Orkut’s users, one of Google services, including data and albums of photos that have child pornography. Google has until the day on April 23rd to provide this data.

According to the Prosecutor’s office of the Republic in the State of Sao Paulo, Orkut is responsible for about 90% of disseminating child pornography on the network, and the other 10% are disseminated through instantaneous communication tools(instant messenger), and chats rooms.

The prosecutor of the Republic in the State of Sao Paulo, Sergio Suiama said today in testimony to the CPI, that Google is creating difficulty for the verification of crimes on Orkut. One of them would be the practice of “delete” pages with content of child pornography when taking knowledge of the problem, disabling, thus, the knowledge of the facts by the authorities and maintenance of evidence against users who practice this type of crime.

The President of Google in Brazil, Alexandre Hohagen, undertook today with the Brazilian authorities to cooperate for the identification, punishment and prevention of sexual crimes against children on the site of relationships Orkut. Hohagen attended a public hearing in the CPI.

The Group of Combat of Crimes in the Cyberspace of the Federal Prosecutor in Sao Paulo (MPF-SP) gave 48 hours to the company Google Brazil informs which of the 3,261 photo albums of Orkut with content blocked by users reported by the NGO Safernet contains pictures of child pornography. The notification was sent to Hohagen and the deadline was closed on April 9th.