Brasil Welcomes Obama

...President Barack Obama praised Brazil's transition from dictatorship to democracy as a model for the Arab world where decades of stability enforced by strongmen is giving way to an uncertain but potentially brighter future.

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The president spoke from a theater in a historic Rio de Janeiro square where a 1984 protest set the stage for the eventual end of a 20-year military dictatorship. 

He said those protesters showed how a popular revolt could produce a thriving democracy.

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"From the beginning, we have made clear that the change they seek must be driven by their own people. But as two nations who have struggled over many generations to perfect our own democracies, the United States and Brazil know that the future of the Arab World will be determined by its people."
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