Sao Paulo - Brazilian football legend Pele made clear his scepticism as to the likelihood that Diego Maradona might be successful as coach of Argentina's senior team.

"Great stars, great players do not usually make good coaches. And sometimes a footballer that was not so brilliant in his career becomes a great coach," Pele noted, in comments that Brazilian media published Thursday.

Pele and Maradona are regarded as the two great candidates for the title of the best football players in history.

Sao Paolo - The 2008 Formula One season reaches its thrilling conclusion with the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos this weekend when Lewis Hamilton of McLaren-Mercedes and Ferrari's Felipe Massa battle it out for the drivers' world championship crown.

Hamilton needs just a fifth place finish to ensure he goes into the record books as the youngest ever F1 champion while Massa requires a win or second spot, and must also rely on his rival finishing outside the top five, to become the first Brazilian since

Ayrton Senna in 1991 to take the title.

Meanwhile, in the constructors championship, Ferrari hold a healthy 11-point lead over McLaren with BMW-Sauber a further 10 pints adrift.

Sao Paulo - Unemployment in Brazil dropped to 14.1 per cent in September, its lowest level for that month since 1998, the trade- union research institute Dieese said Wednesday in Sao Paulo.

According to Dieese, unemployment in September in the six metropolitan regions that were studied - Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Recife, Salvador de Bahia and Brasilia - fell by 0.4 percentage points in relation to August.

Sao Paulo  - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva believes the ongoing financial crisis will lead to the election of Democrat Barack Obama as US president.

"This crisis, among other benefits it will cause, will get Obama elected as president of the United States. It will get a black man elected, which is no small matter," Lula said late Monday, during an awards ceremony for outstanding personalities held in Sao Paulo and sponsored by the magazine Carta Capital.

Sao Paulo - Clashes between thousands of striking Civil Police officers and elite anti-riot police forces have left more than 30 people injured in Brazil's financial capital of Sao Paulo.

Rubber bullets and tear gas were used Thursday night to break up the clashes, which continued for several hours in a posh Sao Paulo neighbourhood and caused traffic disruptions, media reports said.

Civil Police in Sao Paulo state have been on strike for a month, demanding a 15-per-cent pay raise.

Sao Paulo  - Trading was suspended Friday on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange, after the leading index Bovespa plunged more than 10 per cent about an hour after opening.

The 10.1 per cent drop in share prices recorded at 10:35 am (1335 GMT) activated an automatic circuit breaker, triggered when stocks drop below a certain level and automatically suspending trading for half an hour.

On Friday morning, the Bovespa index - which had neared 74,000 in May - was on 33,308.08.