|
Bilateral investment was among the main themes discussed by the Brazilian foreign minister, Celso Amorim, with representatives of the top echelon of the government of Tunisia, last week, in Tunis.
Brazilian mining company Vale is participating in a tender to explore phosphates in the Arab countries and, if it is victorious, the multinational should make important investment.
At the same time, the Tunisian Elloumi group is getting ready to open a factory to produce electric cables for use in the automotive industry, in the Brazilian state of Paraná.
According to information supplied by the Brazilian Foreign Ministry (Itamaraty), Amorim discussed the matter of phosphates with prime minister Mohammed Ghannouchi. The input is used in production of fertilizers, broadly used in Brazilian agriculture, and Brazil has great dependence on imports. Tunisia is one of the main suppliers for Brazil.
In January, during a trade mission to North Africa, the minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade of Brazil, Miguel Jorge, announced the Vale intention of participating in the tender for exploration of phosphates in Tunisia. Jorge said that this is one of the main phosphate mines in the world and the project is estimated at between US$ 2 billion and US$ 2.5 billion.
Regarding Elloumi Group investment in Brazil, Amorim spoke to the minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdelwahab Abdallah. In 2004 the company sought partners to open a factory in the country. Early this year, company executives announced the choice of Curitiba, Paraná, for installation of the plant.
According to the Itamaraty, Amorim and Abdallah also spoke about the current situation of the Middle East and about the South America-Africa Summit, to take place in Venezuela, late this month. The Tunisian minister should visit Brazil again this year. He visited the country in 2006.
The Foreign Minister of Brazil also met Defense minister Kamel Morjane and, according to the Itamaraty, discussed cooperation between both countries in the area and the Brazilian intention of selling aircraft to Tunisia.
Amorim also met with the president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Donald Kaberuka, with whom he discussed closer ties between Brazil and Africa, the difficulty there is to obtaining credit for projects on the continent and the promotion of joint programs, according to the Itamaraty. Brazil is a minority partner in the AfDB.
After the meeting, the Foreign Minister granted a press conference at the embassy of Brazil and, then headed on to India to participate in a ministerial meeting to discuss the return to negotiation of the Doha Rounds of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Anba
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
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.