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 On Saturday at the Progressive Governance summit in Chile, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told representatives of the United States, Britain and Spain they had a major responsibility for causing the global economic crisis.
"My dear Gordon Brown, my dear Biden, my dear Zapatero, unfortunately you are more responsible (for the downturn)," he said, addressing them directly.
His statement was in line with previous quotes when he received Prime Minister Brown in Brasília and claimed the financial crisis was caused by "white, blue-eyed people," and not by "blacks, poor or indigenous peoples."
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, US Vice President Joe Biden and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero were attending the Progressive Governance Summit in the Chilean seaside resort of Viña del Mar along with other world leaders.
Brown is engaged on a world tour to seek consensus on financial strategies ahead of next week's Group of 20 (G20) Summit in London. In a conciliatory tone, Biden later admitted that his country knows it has a shared responsibility for the crisis.
"We understand we share a responsibility. Some of you suggest we are primarily responsible, but regardless of your perspective, we understand we share a real responsibility," Biden said.
Center-left leaders gathered in Chile agreed that they would demand from next week's G20 summit the imposition of urgent cross-border regulations regarding the financial sector, climate change and social protection.
"We cannot run the risk of postponing profound structural solutions" said Lula.
Biden agreed. "Forbearance is not an option. Some of our colleagues around the world seem to think that forbearance may be the answer. Well, we will not stand down in our country until we reverse the negative trends in jobs and incomes that exist within our country - and in many of yours, all of yours, quite frankly," he said.
The US and the European Union do not agree on how to handle the global recession.
Washington advocates pumping much more stimulus money into the economy, and is urging a reluctant Europe to do the same. But Europe, with its extensive social safety net, says such high investments are neither desirable nor possible.
In Chile, Brown, Biden, Zapatero and Lula joined Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and presidents Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina and Tabare Vazquez of Uruguay, as well as the host, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
On Saturday, Lula demanded immediate measures to prevent a crisis in the markets for energy and food as a result of the severe global economic downturn.
At the same round-table discussion, Brown stressed that markets cannot be expected to regulate themselves and noted that cross-border regulations are required on all global issues.
Biden added: "The most important thing we can do during this whole process - and it's going to begin at the G20 - is to reset the rules of the road; to have common sense oversight that keeps us from getting back into the same spot we're in 10 years from now."
Mrs. Kirchner complained that the current financial system is in a state of chaos. "It is a world without rules," she said.
The group of progressive leaders further said that huge resources are required to help the world's poorest countries deal with the crisis, through institutions like the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank, for example.
Biden's Latin-American Tour
United States Vice President Joe Biden is on a four-day trip to Central and South America for meetings he said represent a "new day" for partnerships in the Americas.
Biden made the remark in an opinion piece that was published by many newspapers in Latin America Friday, coinciding with Biden's arrival in Chile for meetings with Latin American leaders.
The leaders gathered in Chile and Costa Rica to discuss common interests and challenges ahead of a Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago next month.
Biden said nations are interconnected and have a duty to work together. He called for partnerships to help solve the global economic crisis, fight illegal drug and weapons smuggling, battle climate change and promote democracy.
The Chilean conference, hosted by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, includes leaders of progressive, or center-left, countries. Leaders from Britain, Norway, Spain, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay are also attending.
Organizers of the progressive governance meeting hope to craft ideas that can be presented at the G-20 summit in London next month. Biden then travels to Costa Rica for a meeting with Central American leaders.
Below is the full text of the vice president's opinion piece:
A New Day for Partnership in the Americas
Next month, President Obama will travel to Trinidad and Tobago to meet his colleagues from across the Western Hemisphere at the Summit of the Americas. In advance of that historic meeting, I am traveling to Central and South America to consult with Latin American leaders gathered in Chile and Costa Rica about the Summit and the challenges faced by the people of the Americas. These meetings are an important first step toward a new day in relations and building partnerships with and among the countries and people of the Hemisphere.
The President and I understand that only by working together can our countries overcome the challenges we face. Today, we are more than just independent nations who happen to be on the same side of the globe. In today's interconnected world, we are all neighbors who face many common concerns.
The current global economic crisis has touched virtually all of us - every country, every community, every family. Citizens everywhere are searching for answers, looking for hope - and turning to their leaders to provide them. It is our duty as global partners to heed their calls, to together forge a shared solution to a common problem.
Our Administration is taking several steps to make this happen. Our Congress has approved the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is designed to promote job creation and to set a course for growth for the next generation. The President has proposed a budget designed to set a foundation for the economy of the future, with important investments in health care, education, and energy. And we are working with our partners in the G-20, who meet next week in London, on a coordinated plan to ensure recovery and restart growth, and to reform the international regulatory and supervisory system to ensure that no such crisis occurs again.
Rekindling the U.S. economy and ensuring that international financial institutions serve the interests of the people are particularly important for the Americas. Our economic interconnection means that a robust U.S. economy is good for the hemisphere and can become an engine for bottom up economic growth and equality throughout the region.
The economy isn't the only challenge requiring our cooperation. We also face dual challenges of security – both for our countries and for the individuals who inhabit them. Our countries are plagued by gang violence and the illegal trafficking of weapons and narcotics.
In the United States, we need to do more to reduce demand for illicit drugs and stem the flow of weapons and bulk cash south across our borders. We applaud Mexico's courageous stand against violent drug cartels, as well as Colombia's anti-drug efforts, but we know that they will have the side effect of pushing traffickers into Central America. We will build on the Merida Initiative – started last year under President Bush – to assist Mexico and the Central American nations in a joint effort to confront that threat head-on. The drug trade is a problem we all share and one whose ultimate solution we must devise together.
Consistent with the Inter-American Democratic Charter, we must also focus on building and encouraging strong democracies, where basic fairness, social equality, and a deep respect for human rights and the rule of law are the guiding principles of everything we do. Democracy is about more than elections; it's about strong, transparent governance and a thriving civil society. It is also about addressing as effectively as possible the challenges of poverty, inequality and social exclusion
We recognize that the United States is still striving to meet its constitutional goal of forming a "more perfect union" and that we have in the past, fallen short of our own ideals. But we pledge every day to honor the values that animate our democracy, and to lead by example. This is why, on his third day in office, the President ordered the closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
Finally, we all face the threat to our planet posed by the changing climate, and, so, we share the need to develop clean energy sources to combat - and reverse - this critical threat. The President and I are deeply committed to leading in the development of an urgent and coordinated response to climate change. Working as partners, we must harness the potential of green energy in a way that protects our planet for future generations, while also catalyzing economic growth for the generations of today.
As we face these threats and as we confront the most serious economic crisis in generations, the countries of the Hemisphere must look forward. And we must work together, as partners, to give our citizens hope that brighter days lie ahead.
Mercopress
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Tomorrow is the 45th anniversary of our glorious revolution and hope you commemorate it by taking a deep dive into the warm waters of the South Atlantic and after that have a shot or two of Mr.Daniels´s namesake. 
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
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.
B. Biden added: "The most important thing we can do during this whole process - and it's going to begin at the G20 - is to reset the rules of the road; to have common sense oversight that keeps us from getting back into the same spot we're in 10 years from now." [Here in Philadelphia, a very well liked politician was jailed after the FBI and the Justice Department convicted him of corruption on a 1000 counts. Yes, the guy did a lot of things that worked for him and could be calculated as corruption but every damn politician that I know has engaged in similar behavior. Well, the point is that the US Federal Government spent thousands of hours of video surveillance on the State Senator, Fumo, thousands of hours of audio surveillance on him and thousands of man hours of FBI time to bring the case against him. They left no stone unturned. They even knew the color of his girlfriends panties and had all the DNA evidence on her sheets and on his. And then, after he was convicted, there was a picture of some brazillian guy who had been robbing local banks. The Photo of him was captured at the bank teller’s desk. Beneath his picture was the caption “If you see him, call the FBI at this phone number.” My point here is that in all these cases, and in all of this time, the US government failed to put anyone on notice that if we saw Madoff or Hank Greenburg or the Israeli government robbing trillions, we should notify them. It seems they never breathed a word about the wholesale theft of trillions while they were spending several hundred million trying to save the taxpayer $1 million. These are the a*****es that want to reset the rules of the road.]