Brazil's Lula Urges World Market to Be More Just with the Weaker
Written by Ana Paula Marra
Wednesday, 23 November 2005
Tuesday, November 22, in Luziânia, state of Goiás, forty kilometers from Brasília, capital of Brazil, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attended the opening of the First National Congress on Family Farming.
In a speech he underlined the importance of the farm sector as a source of jobs. He went on to say that one of his government's priorities was to give families that are settled as part of land reform programs a life with dignity.
The idea was to give them a chance to make a living in the countryside, without being forced to move to an urban center and face "conditions that were not humane."
Lula pointed out that ever since the presidential campaign he has been focused on the problems of farming families and sought to keep all the promises he made.
Looking back at his 35 months in office, Lula said that among other things, family farms now have access to more credit with the government making US$ 4 billion (9 billion reais) available this year, an increase of 300% over last year.
Lula also pointed out that his administration has made the distribution of harvest funding more equitable (it was highly concentrated in the south in the past).
The number of loans in the Northeast region has almost doubled (from 285,000 to 568,000 contracts) and in the North region the number has almost tripled (from 35,000 to 98,000).
With foreign guests present at the event, Lula also spoke of the farm subsidy problem.
"If rich countries do not reduce these subsidies, places like Africa will have increasing difficulties to develop. The playing field must be more level.
"The market has to be more just for those who are weaker and behind. Agriculture is the only chance many countries have to gain access to world markets," said the President. Agência Brasil
Lula is dead right ! written by Guest,
November 23, 2005
Brazil has the highest wealth inequality in the world after Sierra Leone.
Therefore Lula should first implement his good ideas to his own country.
There would already be much less poverty....by definition !
As to the land reform and dignity with the land reform, what Lula says is a true shame. He promised 400'000 settlements during his first mandate. After 3 years of economic boom he settled only around 130'000 families or so. And despite the economic boom he cut the budget for the MST settlements from 1.7 billions Reais to 700 millions.
With these facts how can he says that he is in favor of land reform and dignity. Lula has no dignity. He does not care of being in total contradiction with what he said in the not distant past. Reality is sad and not what Lula is trying to demonstrate by hiding the truth.
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Wrong numbers anyway. written by Guest,
November 23, 2005
The South still gets most of the farms loans.Lula voluntarily mix up amounts and numbers.
As a demonstration : if in the North 10 farmers each get 5000 Reais loans and that in the South 1 farmer gets 150'000 Reais of loans, the result is 10 to 1 in numbers but still three quarters of the total loans are in favor of the South !!!!!.
So again Lula wants to make appear what is not the true reality. He arranges numbers and amounts how it pleases him. The meat stays in the South and the North gets the bones.
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The preceding article..... written by Guest,
November 23, 2005
...says and explains it all ! The headline is : Impunity in Brazil: 1,349 Rural Workers Killed and Only 15 Convictions.
So when Lula will have put some order in his own messy country, then only he may says to the developed nations what is fair and unfair.
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And the World is urging..... written by Guest,
November 23, 2005
.... Lula to be more just, first, with the weaker of his own citizens.
No need to wish to clean the outside when the inside is even much dirtier.
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.
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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.
Brazil has the highest wealth inequality in the world after Sierra Leone.
Therefore Lula should first implement his good ideas to his own country.
There would already be much less poverty....by definition !
As to the land reform and dignity with the land reform, what Lula says is a true shame. He promised 400'000 settlements during his first mandate. After 3 years of economic boom he settled only around 130'000 families or so. And despite the economic boom he cut the budget for the MST settlements from 1.7 billions Reais to 700 millions.
With these facts how can he says that he is in favor of land reform and dignity.
Lula has no dignity. He does not care of being in total contradiction with what he said in the not distant past.
Reality is sad and not what Lula is trying to demonstrate by hiding the truth.