Brazil's Lula (Barely) Makes His Own Party's New President
Written by Newsroom
Thursday, 13 October 2005
Brazil's scandal-plagued ruling Workers Party, PT, finally elected a former Cabinet minister and close ally of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as its new chairman.
Ricardo Berzoini the candidate of Lula's "Majority Camp", and former minister of Labor and Social Security just managed to prevail in last weekend's tight runoff for the party's leadership, the results of which were announced late Tuesday following a vote per vote count.
Out of 825,000 party membership eligible to vote only 230,000 actually cast ballots. Most political observers attribute the low participation to the extended disenchantment among rank and file after months of corruption allegations that show no sign of abating.
The party's former leadership - forced to resign by the scandal - admitted to maintaining an illegal slush-fund of millions of US dollars to finance election campaigns, and stands accused of using some of that money to ensure Congressional support for President Lula da Silva's legislative agenda.
The Workers Party founded by then metal industry union leader Lula and others 25 years ago started as an overtly Trotskyite party opposing the Brazilian military regime, which lasted from 1964 to 1985. However in the last decade it has steadily moved to the center right at the urging of Lula and his chief strategist, José Dirceu.
Having boasted for years of being a beacon of probity in Brazil's notoriously corrupt political system, the PT now faces the daunting task of salvaging a public image battered by reiterated claims of graft, hush funds and illegal activities.
The extent of disillusionment inside the party was shown by Berzoini's main rival for the party leadership, historian Raul Pont, representing the Socialist Democracy faction within the PT which forced a runoff and managed 48% of the vote.
Mr. Pont campaigned arguing the Workers Party had to return to its roots and needed drastic changes to eliminate all corruption practices.
...but you cannot..... written by Guest,
October 14, 2005
...avoid corruptions to the roots.....as long as you dont punish with jail time and heavy penalties and fines.
With no risk.....why should they stop....corruption ??????
Another article today in this site says.....5 % of your GDP goes to red tape and that on top you have the....corruptions ! What this article also failed to mention is the heavy Brazilian tax evasion...... and money laundering !!!!!!
Simple demonstration : on december 18, 2004, your lawmakers decided not to open an investigation on Reais 75 billions that were money laundered between 1996 and 2002 !!!!!! Normal because : 92 politicians were named in the report !!!!!!!
Only a few money changers got heavy jail terms but none of the beneficial owners of this huge amount....were even fined...and even less put in jail !!!!!!!
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.
...avoid corruptions to the roots.....as long as you dont punish with jail time and heavy penalties and fines.
With no risk.....why should they stop....corruption ??????
Another article today in this site says.....5 % of your GDP goes to red tape and that on top you have the....corruptions !
What this article also failed to mention is the heavy Brazilian tax evasion...... and money laundering !!!!!!
Simple demonstration :
on december 18, 2004, your lawmakers decided not to open an investigation on Reais 75 billions that were money laundered between 1996 and 2002 !!!!!!
Normal because : 92 politicians were named in the report !!!!!!!
Only a few money changers got heavy jail terms but none of the beneficial owners of this huge amount....were even fined...and even less put in jail !!!!!!!