In Brazil, the clash between competing visions of the church is most visible in Recife, the most populous city in the impoverished northeast.

Mr. da Silva comes from the chronically impoverished northeast.

In the impoverished northeast, the rate is 4.0, relatively high in Brazil but well below the 5.8.

It tells how, to cite one example, infant mortality has risen again since 1982 in most Brazilian regions, most sharply in the impoverished northeast and north.

Working for years with Brazilian laborers and peasants in literacy campaigns in the country's impoverished northeast, Freire developed what he considered an enlightened approach.

A Regional Expression Last month, the President traveled to Juazeiro do Norte, an interior town in Brazil's impoverished northeast.

Eventually, the two set off by bus for Brazil's impoverished northeast in search of Josue's father.

In his travels, he refined education techniques first devised in the late 1950's in literacy campaigns in Brazil's impoverished northeast.

Within the country women are trafficked from the impoverished northeast and the north to Bangkok for sexual exploitation.

"I worked all my life as a sharecropper," explained Antonio Rodrigues dos Santos, a 38-year-old migrant from Brazil's impoverished northeast.