|
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed South American and Arab leaders to Brasília, the Brazilian capital, today, for a summit on trade and other issues.
Mr. da Silva said the regions have common goals for commercial and social development. U.S. and Israeli officials are concerned that the summit participants might use the meetings as an opportunity to criticize U.S. and Israeli policy in the Middle East.
In an address Tuesday to South American and Arab representatives, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed participants to an unprecedented summit to foster cooperation between South America and the Arab world.
Mr. da Silva said the nations on hand had common goals for commercial and social development.
"We want to enjoy and realize our potential to reach the common objectives of South America and the Arab world," Mr. da Silva said.
In his opening remarks for the two-day summit, the Brazilian president called on the participants to band together to combat poverty and hunger in both regions.
The leaders also pledged support for sweeping political and economic changes to bring the regions together.
On Monday, representatives arriving for the summit in Brasília expressed a desire to increase trade between South America and the Arab world.
Brazil's Foreign Ministry estimates the two regions exchanged about $10 billion in bilateral trade last year.
On the diplomatic front, Mr. da Silva spoke with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on Monday and urged him to be patient in peace talks with Israel.
U.S. and Israeli officials have expressed concern that the meetings could serve as a platform to launch attacks on both nations' policies in the Middle East.
Last week the Israeli embassy in Brazil released a statement saying it was concerned about the upcoming summit.
And, a U.S. government official told VOA he hopes the meeting does not undermine the peace process in the Middle East.
A summit declaration is expected to be released at the conclusion of the summit Wednesday.
A draft statement reportedly includes language that demands Israel disband settlements in Palestinian areas and retreat to its borders before the 1967 Mideast war.
The draft also condemns U.S. economic sanctions against Syria and denounces terrorism. But, the draft statement asserts the right of people to resist foreign occupation, saying acts of national defense are not considered terrorism.
VoA
 |
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.
the issue of occupation is propaganda