Brazil's Minister of Tourism, Walfrido Mares Guia, urged, yesterday, passage of a bill ending the visa requirement for American tourists. According to the Minister, this measure could earn Brazil more than US$ 2 billion a year.
"If there weren't so much bureaucracy in issuing visas, we would be all set to receive over a million American tourists. And this would generate profits for the country, since Americans are the tourists whose daily expenditures are the highest. And they spend a lot," remarked the Minister, who participated in a public hearing before the Chamber of Deputies' Foreign Relations and National Defense Commission.
For the representative of the Minister of Foreign Relations, Ambassador Rui Mesquita, the visa requirement does not constitute a problem for the arrival of American tourists.
"The Ministry of Foreign Relations believes that the visa is not a problem in attracting American tourists to Brazil. Infrastructure and the lack of flights are stronger motives. Various European countries that don't have visa requirements had fewer American tourists than we did in the last four years."
Last year the Brazilian courts alleged the principle of reciprocity to oblige all American tourists to be photographed and fingerprinted, since all Brazilian citizens who travel to the United States are submitted to a similar system of identification.
Over four million tourists visited Brazil in 2004. Around 700 thousand of them were Americans.
The VISA requirement for US citizens CERTAINLY prevents thousands from visiting. The Ministry of Foriegn relations is playing petty politics while thwarting the creation of tens of thousands of new jobs in Brasil.
There is no law of reciprocity, only a political principal that hurts Brasil and brings no advantages whatsoever.
I work to bring tourists from the US to Brazil....my number one problem in attracting stronger tourist numbers?? The Visa requirement!!
Get your head out of your ass please Amb. Mesquita!
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Business Man\'s Perspective written by Guest,
October 26, 2005
I am an Americain living and working temporarily in France. My Company is a multi-billion dollar international Company. My contractor has recommended the use of two Brazillian subContractors. We traveled to Brazil in order to meet and inegotiate with the companies. My plan was thwarted as although my European Companions went through immigration, I was not allowed in and forced to return to Europe because I was American and needed to make an in person presentation at the Brazillian consulate prior to my trip. Further, I have discovered this new and sloppy procedure of gathering photographic and fingerprinting information. This experience most definitely influenced my decesion to continue to issue/approve subcontracts to Brazillian industry. I do not blame the Brazillian government for desiring to have a policy of "reciprocity" with US and claiming that US policy is unblanaced, but business is not about being fair, it's about being smart. The reaction of the Brazillian government has and will continue to do more damge to their economy than that of the U.S.
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.
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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.
There is no law of reciprocity, only a political principal that hurts Brasil and brings no advantages whatsoever.
I work to bring tourists from the US to Brazil....my number one problem in attracting stronger tourist numbers?? The Visa requirement!!
Get your head out of your ass please Amb. Mesquita!