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 The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, sent a message to his American colleague, Barack Obama: South America "does not need US bases" in Colombia to combat narcotics trade. Lula then suggested that Obama look after US drug addicts.
"Dear friend Obama, we don't need US bases in Colombia to combat narcotics trade in South America. We can look after combating narcotics trade inside our borders and you must look after your drugs' consumers. That way we'll have a better world," said the Brazilian leader in direct reference to the Colombia/US accord for the use of Colombian military bases by US forces.
President Lula was addressing the national congress of the PCdoB (Brazilian Communist Party), an ally of his administration.
The Brazilian president has been critical of the Colombia/US treaty from the beginning and said the task of fighting narcotics trade in South America belonged to UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), which includes a South American Defense Council and in a near future in "this framework we are going to organize a council to combat the narcotics trade."
However he was also quick to point out that Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, must not act with a hegemonic spirit in South American affairs.
"Brazil must not behave as if it had hegemony over the region. It must be the main symbol and guarantee of unity inside UNASUR, the eldest member, the member that has the capacity to work for unity, to build bridges, to establish dialogue."
With this purpose in mind he said that one of the main integrating instruments for the region is the Bank of the South, set to finance infrastructure projects in the region, "that is our World Bank."
Lula mentioned as an example of a positive alliance for the region the cooperation policies with Venezuela and underlined the need for Brazil to reduce its trade surplus with several countries of the region to help "with a better balance."
"Venezuela has a trade deficit of five billion dollars with us because it has nothing to sell us and that is why we are helping them to create production lines in food and other light industries. We're opening a joint refinery so they can sell us oil," pointed out Lula.
"The role of Brazil, given its size, is to favor integration and fairness" in the region promoting joint development policies.
Mercopress
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) bin Laden ! 
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.
Why so many other world leaders -including Mr Obama- pay atention to what Lula says ?
It is because this is only way to save the planet from the nails of political currents like "the Falcons" of the USA that wants to burn the whole planet in order to keep with their profits...
In the past recent years, when Bolívia's Evo Morales started demanding more than what was previiously agreed in contracts, Mr Lula da Silva caused a tremendous impact in the whole world, specially to their oppositors inside Brazil, stating that Bolivia had the rights for demmanding new rules in their previous contracts with Brazil on LPG. Some political currents inside Brazil (read PSDB) wanted him to immediatly send troops to Bolivia, the real non-sense...
One day, if these "Falcons" and theis followers don't explode this planet first, the whole civilization will understand what is behind the words of Mr Lula da SIlva, the so called "illiterate" President of Brazil...