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 Ambassadors and other heads of the 15 Arab diplomatic representations based in Brasília, Brazil's capital, went to the Itamaraty, the Brazilian foreign office, on January 8, to thank the Brazilian government for the humanitarian aid offered by Brazil to the population of the Gaza Strip, in Palestine.
They also mentioned Brazil's diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire in the war being fought between Palestinian and Israeli forces. The information was given by the Palestinian ambassador to Brasília, Ibrahim Alzeben.
Friday morning, a Hercules C-130 airplane of the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) left the Rio de Janeiro Air Base for the Middle East loaded with 14 tons of medication and food donated by the Brazilian government to the population of Gaza. The airplane was supposed to arrive on Sunday in Amman, Jordan, from where the items would be transported by trucks to the conflict area.
"The plane was loaded with love and care, more than foodstuffs," said Alzeben, who was the person that called for help from the Brazilian government. The diplomat attended the departure of the airplane in Rio alongside the ambassador of the League of Arab States to Brasília, Bachar Yaghi, the representative of the Itamaraty office in Rio, Isis Martins Ribeiro de Andrade, and the representative of the Palestinian community in the city, Hassan Gamal.
The Brazilian foreign minister, Celso Amorim, arrived Sunday in Syria as the first step of a tour of the Middle East to address the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian with local authorities.
He is going to meet with the Syrian president, Bashar Al-Assad, and with the minister of Foreign Affairs in the country, Wallid Muallem; in Jerusalem, Amorim will have a meeting with the Israeli minister of Foreign Affairs, Tzip Livni; in Ramallah, the chancellor should meet with the president at the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, the prime-minister, Salam Fayaad, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Riad Malki.
In the last leg of the trip, in Amman, Amorim will meet with the king of Jordan, Abdullah II, and with Foreign Minister Salah Bashir.
"This is a great initiative, because whenever we talk about Brazil, we are talking about South America. Brazil is a country of great international importance, capable of spearheading the creation of a regional bloc for peace, such as the European Union, which is part of the Quartet," said Alzeben.
The Quartet of mediators of the conflict in the Middle East is comprised of the EU, the United States, the UN and Russia. "The Brazilian initiative is very important. There was a very clear demand by president Lula for the country to actively participate in the process and seek to promote peace by any means," he added.
At the Itamaraty, the Arab diplomats were welcomed by the secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Relations, Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães, and the head at the Department for the Middle East and Central Asia, Sarkis Karmirian. They delivered a letter of thanks to the Brazilian government and people, signed by the Council of Arab Ambassadors to Brasília.
In the letter, the council "affirms its confidence in the Brazilian stance for the Arab causes, particularly the Palestinian one" and says that he is "eagerly awaiting for the Federal Republic of Brazil, as usual, to play an active and crucial role" for a ceasefire to take place in Gaza, allowing for immediate access of humanitarian aid, "including the granting of access by the Israeli occupation authorities."
The document also states that the ambassadors are "hopeful for an active and dynamic Brazilian participation in the resumption of negotiation in the peace process in the region," are favorable to the Israeli presence in the occupied territories and to the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
The diplomats told the secretary general at the Itamaraty that it is important for Brazil to exert pressure, along with the European Union, so as to find a solution for the conflict, given that the country is one of the main articulators of the Summit of South American and Arab Countries (Aspa), whose second meeting of heads of state and government will take place in Doha, Qatar, in April.
According to Alzeben, Guimarães ratified the Brazilian position of solidarity to the Palestinian people, calling for a fair peace in the region, and stated that the strong relations that Brazil sustains with the Arab nations lead Brazilian diplomacy to seek a strong collaborative role in the resolution of the ongoing crisis.
The Libyan ambassador, Salem Ezubedi, spoke as the dean of the council, temporarily replacing the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, Youssuf Al-Usaimi. Ibrahim Alzeben spoke on behalf of the Palestinians.
Anba
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
Wouldn't doubt that. The Jews found military uniforms in one shipment headed to the palestinians and as of yet haven't found out exactly who from, possibly the U.N., maybe Brazil. Afterall, hezbollah and hamas have headquarters just down south of brasilia.
And although 14 tons of food and medical supplies may sound like a lot, it isn't.