|
 Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the United Nations General Assembly in New York this September 23 with an address centered around the world financial crisis, on the need to reform institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to build a new international order, and to deal with climate change.
Lula stated that it is essential to reform the world economy and financial institutions. "Poor and developing countries must increase their share of control in the IMF and the World Bank. Otherwise, there can be no real change and the peril of new and greater crises will be inevitable."
He also said that even 12 months after the onset of the international financial crisis, most of the underlying issues have not been addressed.
"There is enormous resistance against the adoption of mechanisms to regulate financial markets."
He added that there are signs of return to protectionist practices, and that little has been done to fight tax havens. He underscored the fact that Brazil was the first country to exit the crisis.
The need of reforming the UN Security Council, with the inclusion of new members, was also mentioned by president Lula. "The United Nations and its Security Council can no longer be run under the same structures imposed after the Second World War." Brazil favors the reform of the Council and claims a permanent seat.
Lula spoke for the strengthening of the UN, so that it may address conflicts such as those underway in the Middle East, between Palestinians and Israelis, provide effective aid to Haiti, and commit to the African renaissance.
Without mentioning the United States, president Lula asserted that without political will, throwbacks like the embargo against Cuba will persist. He also spoke against the toppling of the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, and called for him to be returned to power. Zelaya is sheltered since Monday at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa.
Regarding the environment, Lula criticized the reluctance of developed countries to shoulder their share of the burden when it comes to fighting climate change. "They cannot burden developing countries with tasks which are theirs alone." He demanded that stricter goals for reducing pollutant gas emissions be imposed on developed countries.
According to Lula, Brazil is doing its part in the environmental area, and mentioned that in 2009, the country boasts the lowest deforestation rate in 20 years, and that Brazilian energy matrix is among the cleanest in the world. He also talked about ethanol production, stating that sugarcane farming covers no more than 2% of the country's farmable land, and does not pose a threat to the Brazilian food security and environmental balance.
The subsalt oil was also cited by Lula. He claimed that Brazil will be put in the "forefront of fossil fuel production," but that the country will not relinquish the environmental agenda, and that it will seek to consolidate its role as "a world power in green energy."
Traditionally, it is the Brazilian president who makes the opening address of the UN General Assembly, which brings together the heads of 192 countries. The United States president, Barack Obama, who attended the UN meeting for the first time, spoke right after Lula.
<img src="/images/stories/2009/sep09/lula_at_un.jpg" border="2" alt="Lula at UN" hspace="3" vspace="3" width="90" height="90" align="left" />
Lula speaks again for reform of multilateral organizations
Lula, UN, general assembly, IMF, World Bank
Yara Aquino
Brazilian President Calls for More Power for the Poor at UN's Opening Session
The Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the United Nations General Assembly in New York this September 23 with an address centered around the world financial crisis, on the need to reform institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to build a new international order, and to deal with climate change.
Lula stated that it is essential to reform the world economy and financial institutions. "Poor and developing countries must increase their share of control in the IMF and the World Bank. Otherwise, there can be no real change and the peril of new and greater crises will be inevitable."
He also said that even 12 months after the onset of the international financial crisis, most of the underlying issues have not been addressed.
"There is enormous resistance against the adoption of mechanisms to regulate financial markets."
He added that there are signs of return to protectionist practices, and that little has been done to fight tax havens. He underscored the fact that Brazil was the first country to exit the crisis.
The need of reforming the UN Security Council, with the inclusion of new members, was also mentioned by president Lula. "The United Nations and its Security Council can no longer be run under the same structures imposed after the Second World War." Brazil favors the reform of the Council and claims a permanent seat.
Lula spoke for the strengthening of the UN, so that it may address conflicts such as those underway in the Middle East, between Palestinians and Israelis, provide effective aid to Haiti, and commit to the African renaissance.
Without mentioning the United States, president Lula asserted that without political will, throwbacks like the embargo against Cuba will persist. He also spoke against the toppling of the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, and called for him to be returned to power. Zelaya is sheltered since Monday at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa.
Regarding the environment, Lula criticized the reluctance of developed countries to shoulder their share of the burden when it comes to fighting climate change. "They cannot burden developing countries with tasks which are theirs alone." He demanded that stricter goals for reducing pollutant gas emissions be imposed on developed countries.
According to Lula, Brazil is doing its part in the environmental area, and mentioned that in 2009, the country boasts the lowest deforestation rate in 20 years, and that Brazilian energy matrix is among the cleanest in the world. He also talked about ethanol production, stating that sugarcane farming covers no more than 2% of the country's farmable land, and does not pose a threat to the Brazilian food security and environmental balance.
The subsalt oil was also cited by Lula. He claimed that Brazil will be put in the "forefront of fossil fuel production," but that the country will not relinquish the environmental agenda, and that it will seek to consolidate its role as "a world power in green energy."
Traditionally, it is the Brazilian president who makes the opening address of the UN General Assembly, which brings together the heads of 192 countries. The United States president, Barack Obama, who attended the UN meeting for the first time, spoke right after Lula.
ABr
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
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.