|
Brazil's National Urban Reform and Cities Rights March, which got underway Monday, August 15, in the Brazilian capital Brasília, is meant to call attention to the social inequalities caused by urbanization in the country.
Brazil has more than 7 million homeless families and more than 10 million living in precarious conditions, in areas that lack urban infrastructure and basic sanitation.
Organized by 4 groups, the march has a brief of 22 grievances that were submitted to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The movements want the government to spend more money on access to housing and the quality of urban life, which includes basic sanitation, cheap and efficient transportation, and the right to a job and leisure.
For this reason they support recognition of the World Cities' Rights Charter. Another demand is the regulation of the law that established the Fund and the National Council of Housing in the Social Interest.
The social movements demand a constant interplay between civil society and the National Council of Cities and want a guarantee that the Fund will receive money from the Federal Budget and the Workers' Service Guarantee Fund (FGTS).
Their agenda of demands includes government policies that will settle court suits expelling people from where they live, as well as promoting social inclusion and the end of segregation.
Other items include approval of the national sewage policy, promotion of policies that make water available to all families, as well as sewers and garbage collection, policies that assure cheap and quality public transportation.
They also urge protection of the residential rights of people who live the outskirts and poor neighborhoods, and safety policies that assure social inclusion as a means of combating urban violence.
Agência Brasil
 |
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.