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 US President, Barack Obama, after his first meeting with Brazil's President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, called the encounter with the Brazilian leader, who came to Washington on Saturday, March 14, "a wonderful meeting of the minds."
President Lula said while Brazil was the last to be touched by the global financial crisis, he is worried about the frozen credit markets. "The truth of the matter is that money has vanished. And if we do not make credit supply flow again, then, yes, the crisis could deepen in our country. So that is why I believe it is urgent to re-establish credit supply in the world," he said.
The two presidents discussed their plans for next month's G-20 summit of wealthy and developing nations in London.
Mr. Obama strongly discounted reports of a disagreement with Europe, mainly France and Germany, over his calls for other countries to adopt bigger economic stimulus plans. "I cannot be clearer in saying that there are no sides. This is a phony debate that, I think, has evolved over the last few days in the news cycle," he said.
The president said his campaign for tighter regulation of the financial industry will be "front and center" at the summit.
Mr. Obama and Mr. Lula also talked about their plans to attend next month's Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. Some reports say Mr. Lula will help to ease strained relations between the U.S. and several Latin American countries.
Saturday's meeting at the White House was Mr. Obama's first with a Latin American leader since his inauguration in January, and just his third encounter with a foreign chief of state.
LatAm Outreach
The Obama administration has begun moving on several fronts to repair strained U.S. relations with Latin America. President Obama met Saturday at the White House with President Lula and he is sending Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Latin American missions to prepare for the mid-April Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.
U.S. ties with Latin America came under stress during the Bush administration, which was largely preoccupied with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and had contentious relations with several left-leaning governments in the region, notably Venezuela and Bolivia.
But the Obama administration said it is intent on trying to repair frayed regional ties based on what it says should be reciprocal dialogue and respect.
As an overture to President Obama's White House meeting Saturday with Brazil's President Lula, the administration announced a mission to Chile and Costa Rica by Vice President Biden, and a Mexico trip by Secretary Clinton, both later this month.
At a State Department briefing, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon cast the upcoming hemispheric summit in Trinidad and Tobago, which Mr. Obama will attend, as an opportunity for a fresh start in relations, based on what he termed "a spirit of engagement and constructive dialogue."
He said that efforts at outreach will apply to, among others, the Bolivian government of President Evo Morales, which has expelled two U.S. diplomats in recent months amid accusations they interfered in Bolivian politics.
"We need a full diplomatic dialogue and a high-quality dialogue. And regrettably up to this point, as we have sought to engage the Bolivians around the issues that have provoked their own actions, we have yet to receive what we consider to be a coherent or consistent response. However we will continue to approach the Bolivians in the hope that we can address the underlying issues that have affected the relationship," he said.
Shannon cast Saturday's White House visit by President Lula as a recognition of Brazil's "global ascendancy" and an opportunity to build on a U.S. partnership with Brazil on such issues as social justice, climate change, and development of alternate fuels.
Under questioning, Shannon expressed hope for an early resolution of an emotionally charged custody dispute over an eight-year-old boy, Sean Goldman, whose Brazilian mother moved him from New Jersey to Brazil four years ago without his American father's consent.
Both governments have said they consider the decision of the Brazilian woman to move the child to Brazil to have been a violation of the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention, and Shannon said he hopes this view is quickly upheld by the Brazilian court system.
"Obviously we've made it very clear that from our point of view, this is a case that falls within the purview of the Hague Convention, and that Sean Goldman should be returned to his father," he said.
"The government of Brazil believes the same thing, and has said so publicly. Currently this case rests with the federal courts of Brazil. We're hopeful that the appropriate decision will be rendered, and this is an issue of great importance to us," Shannon said.
The child's mother died in Brazil last year but family members caring for him now Rio De Janeiro said he has completely adapted to society there, and should be legally considered a naturalized Brazilian citizen.
The State Department said Friday that Secretary Clinton will visit Mexico City and Monterrey in two weeks (March 25-26) for talks focusing on key issues in the U.S.-Mexican agenda including the Merida Initiative, under which the United States is helping Mexico combat violent drug traffickers.
For his part, Vice President Biden will travel to Chile for a regional conference on progressive governance hosted by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet that will also include the presidents of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.
Later in Costa Rica, Mr. Biden will be hosted by President Oscar Arias, who has invited leaders of other Central American states for a joint meeting with the Vice President in San Jose.
Lula's Point of View
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says rising protectionism by rich nations threatens the world's emerging economies.
In an interview published Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, Lula cited as an example, the "Buy American" clause in the U.S. stimulus package recently approved by Congress. The clause states that only U.S.-made products should be used on stimulus-funded public works projects in cases where they would not violate U.S. trade agreements.
The Brazilian leader said that while protectionism may seem beneficial at first, in the long term, it wounds countries, especially poor ones that need to sell their goods to richer nations.
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) and not Petrobras profits or Sadia/Aracruz/etc...losses ? laughs 
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.
Lula needs to keep his hand on his wallet.
Export economies are anachronistic. All the world needs food and fuel, there is never enough.
If you do not have a domestic economy that is tied to the fundamental that you pay for what you buy, thus owning it, as opposed
to charging what you buy thus owing it.
The money for Brazil's infrastructure reconstruction has gone missing, it needs to be found. This is not merely theft of money
but theft of Brazil itself.
Lowering the interest rates to 9% is a calculus for ruin. President Lula said while Brazil was the last to be touched by the global financial crisis, he is worried about the frozen credit markets. Brazil's Real is one of the few countries whose currency still has value, it is backed by interest, not gold. Every time you lower the interest you diminish the value.