Sao Paulo  - The veteran Brazilian striker Ronaldo confirmed his recovery 13 months after knee surgery with a brace in Corinthians' 2-2 draw against Ponte Preta, in which he played the full game for the first time since the operation.

Ronaldo, 32, who has undergone three major knee injuries in his career, now has scored an average of 0.8 goals per game at his Brazilian club, very close to the best numbers of his footballing life.

Brasilia  - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched an ambitious two-year, 15-billion-dollar plan Wednesday to build affordable housing.

The programme has the two-fold goal of stimulating the construction sector amid the global economic slowdown and alleviating Brazil's severe housing shortage.

Experts estimate that 8 million new homes are needed to satisfy demand in South America's most populous country.

Buenos Aires - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has long made it clear that he does not like going to international summits as anything other than a protagonist - and he is travelling to London for the G20 summit in April with very clear views.

Protectionism is not a way out of the ongoing global economic and financial crisis, he is bound to say, and it is industrialized nations which caused the crisis in the first place and therefore should bear the brunt of the cost by helping poorer countries recover from the effects.

Berlin - Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach first comes to mind when people envision Brazil or perhaps the sprawling favelas around the big cities.

The world's fifth largest country, regularly criticized for doing too little to stop deforestation, has hardly stood out as a leader in ecotourism.

But that's about to change, said Marcelo Pedroso, director of the Brazilian tourism board Embratur. Speaking at this month's ITB international travel trade show in Berlin, Pedroso said, "We want to promote ecotourism more."

London, Mar. 23 : A furious Manchester City and Brazilian football star Robinho has demanded an apology and an explanation from erstwhile soccer great Pele for accusing him of taking drugs.

A spokesman for Brazilian Robinho said: "We strenuously refute any such suggestions. The notion of him taking drugs is absurd and we completely deny it. We are trying at this moment to get Pele to clarify the situation. We think these comments have been genuinely misunderstood or got lost in translation."

The Sun quoted the spokesman as saying further that they will press for a retraction if one does not come voluntarily.

Rio de Janeiro  - Brazil's national development bank mulls a 700-million-dollar loan to Argentina's national carrier Aerolineas Argentinas to finance the acquisition of Brazilian-made planes.

Luciano Coutinho, the president of Brazil's national development bank BNDES said Friday that the country would provide a loan to the Argentinian government.

Aerolineas Argentinas is said to plan buying 26 of Brazil's Embraer 190 passenger planes to replace older Boeing and McDonnell Douglas jets.