Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has sent a message to American President George W. Bush, expressing solidarity following the devastation caused by hurricane Katrina in the south of the United States.
In the message, released, Thursday, September 1st, by Brazil's Foreign Relations Ministry, Lula cited the "pungent images of desolation" in the city of New Orleans and added that "we Brazilians are ready and willing to participate in any international effort to assist those affected by this tragedy."
This is the President's message in its entirety:
"At this time of great sorrow, I wish to express the utmost solidarity of the Brazilian people and government to the North-American nation, in the face of the natural catastrophe that hit the states of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.
"They are pungent images of desolation the ones coming to us from the historical city of New Orleans. We direct our thought above all to the fatal victims and their families, as well as to the great number of those afflicted.
"We want President Bush to know that we Brazilians are ready and willing to participate in any international effort to assist those affected by this tragedy."
God Bless You Brazil! written by La Dominadora,
September 02, 2005
God bless the Brazilians for caring because President Bush sure doesn't. The city of New Orleans is about 70% black and most of the blacks lived below sea level and below the poverty line. President Bush doesn't give a d-mn about black Americans. God bless Brazil and Lula for caring because America and President Bush sure dont.
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Bush Cares! written by Guest,
September 02, 2005
Most Black Americans don't give a damn about themselves!!! Bush has helped approve $10Billion dollar in Aide from Congress. What do you call that? It's not Bush's fault that they lived below sea level. What has that got to do with anything? Considering that 90% of those blacks are living off welfare (read the U.S. government) what do you expect? Get with reality. New Orleans was one shit hole that got flooded and now the white people are there rescuing your ungrateful butts!! I don't see a lot of Black Americans helping their own...Let's get real here!
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Where is Brazil\'s aid? Not even a plane written by Guest,
September 05, 2005
Where is Brazil's aid to the storm victims of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama? When did Brazil ever even offer aid to American storm, hurricane, tornado, or earthquake victims or to any one else on this planet?
Most black Americans are not poor, do not live on welfare, and have hgirer educational levels than Brazilians, of all colors, and higher income levels since slavery was ended in the U.S..
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... written by Guest,
September 05, 2005
First of all black Americans DO help themselves and everybody else too thank you very much. I am a black person, a former resident of New Orleans and I will tell you why most of the black persons are poor. They won't hire them for the decent jobs, only the slave wage ones. I walked my ass off in the hot sun all day looking for work (I have a college degree) only to be told by white employers "we don't hire black people for these type of positions." Finally one sympathetic white employer told me about a job that would be perfect for me and it was located in Japan. I applied for the job and was hired on the spot and lived in Japan for over 20 years.
Secondly black people did NOT discover New Orleans. It was discovered by the French in 1718 and the first shipment of black slaves arrived in 1719.
And as for welfare benefits? American corporations receive 95% of American welfare benefits (of course they don't call it that).
Typical white American attitude - all blacks are big fat lazy welfare recipients living off the largesse of the government. Well I have told my story as a former resident of New Orleans. If a slim, well groomed college educated black cannot get a decent job there what makes you think an uneducated black can?
Yes thanks to bloody civil rights battles blacks have achieved a few gains in 40 years but it is largely due to their own struggles not due to the generosity of the US government.
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... written by Guest,
September 05, 2005
As a black American I thank Brazil, El Salvador, Cuba, Argentina and the rest of the world for even OFFERING condolences and assistance. It is greatly appreciated. America is the richest country in the world but that wealth does not include humanitarian aid.
Many white Americans (via websites and message boards have let it be known that they are not helping "fat assed criminal minded n-ggers". The American press delighted in broadcasting front page photoes of a few blacks looting stores as if to say "see this is how THEY are - criminal minded).
However the world's leaders showed compassion for suffering human beings and offered assistance with what they had to give. Cuba even offered to send over medical doctors. Many nations expressed outrage over the heartless racist nature of America who is hardened to the suffering of the black masses.
So what if a few blacks have education. Most blacks due to continued segregation and discrimination still live in third world conditions in the wealthiest nation on earth.
This is not to say every white American is a heartless bastard but there are quite a few blowing up the message boards with heartless statements all starting with "n-gger'. That cruel heartless Ku Klux Klan element is still very much alive in American society.
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... written by Guest,
September 05, 2005
Helping our "ungrateful butts"? Well who worked for 350 years (1619-1965) free and low cost labor to make YOUR nation the greatest in the world? Good black labor that's who! And our leadership had to endure violent deaths before you even offered black folks voting rights even though we were TAX PAYING citizens.
Welfare assistance to black Americans? That's a laugh. An illegal immigrant can receive more (and does) than the average black citizen. Don't make it seem like America is supporting a lot of lazy blacks who refuse to work.
As the previous poster stated he or she had to go to a foreign company to receive a fair crack at a job. Blacks toiled for 350 years and received only crumbs in return so if anybody helped anybody's ungrateful butts it wasn't you.
I am glad that the rest of the world sees the hypocrisy of American democracy and all of its liberty and justice and equality for all. It's a crock of shit! Black people who have sacrificed the most for the"richest nation on earth" receive the less benefits. It has been proven time and time again that any other ethnic group receives FAR more in loans, housing and education than blacks whose ancestors built up the nation. And America has all the nerve to go all over the world condemning "human " rights abuses in other nations. Go figure!
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Where\'s Brazil? written by Guest,
September 06, 2005
Ok, Lula is willing to participate! How about star participating then. Germany just donated 3.3 million dollars out of oil, which is one of the biggest concerns here in US. We know that brazil produces 90% or more of his consumption of oil. Why can't we get some of the money from that corruption scandal involving the Worker's Party (PT) and donate some oil, refined oil (US got plenty of crude oil on reserves), that would be a start. Ops, I forgot Petrobras needs to make a profit doen't it? Thats why gas is so expensive in brazil.
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HOW CAN I PERSONALLY RECEIVE THE ASSISTANCE THAT BRAZILIANS ARE OFFERING written by Uganda Lee,
June 24, 2007
My family and I are victims of Hurricane Katrina & Rita. Anyone that is willing an able to assist us we thank you.
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.
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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.