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.

Rio de Janeiro  - Brazilian Formula One driver Felipe Massa is out to show in 2009 that he has the stuff of champions and to prove wrong those who say he is not good enough to get beyond the position of perennial second driver at Ferrari.

When he joined the Italian scuderia in 2006, Ferrari boss Jean Todt said a low profile could be his new driver's main problem.

"Felipe is a great guy. He has a good spirit, he's a team player, he's humble, he's shy - probably too humble and too shy in this business, because he's not rated as he should be," Todt said.