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International Monetary Fund's chief economist, Raghuram Rajan called on the 148 country members of the World Trade Organization, WTO, to show more "flexibility" so an agreement can be reached this week in the Hong Kong ministerial meeting.
"What we need is for all sides to show flexibility; what we need is more negotiations and less initial positions, otherwise we'd be facing a lost opportunity", said the IMF economist addressing a panel of journalists in Paris. Brazil's Minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, sent a message to worried Brazilian members of the industrial sector that all Brazil will do at the Hong Kong meeting is present a proposal to lower the average import tariff for the sector from 10.8% to 9.9%. Amorim called the offer significant but well within reason. He explained that Brazil intended to use the flexibility clauses that WTO norms permit as a tool and maintain higher tariffs in sensitive sectors. Amorim went on to say that the Brazilian offer would remain on the table only if the European Union and the United States make positive offers regarding market access and farm subsidy reductions. He insisted there had to be some kind of parity. "Developing countries will reduce industrial sector import tariffs if there is an equivalent counterproposal for farm produce in developed nations," said the Minister. Amorim had earlier called on the different groups of developing nations to unite, in order to make possible the advancement of negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO). "The G20 message is for unity. I'm convinced that only by preserving our unity and strengthening our natural coalition, we will be able to ensure the accomplishment of the Doha Agenda," said Amorim during the African Union’s Ministerial Conference on the WTO Negotiations, at the end of November. The G20 is a group of developing nations, led by Brazil, which negotiates fairer rules for agricultural international trade. Liberalization Trade ministers will meet this week, December 13/18, in Hong Kong for talks on a global trade liberalization deal, but deadlock over the key issue of farm subsidies has left little hope of significant progress. Expectations for the biennial World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting have been progressively downgraded following months of finger-pointing and arguments between the main protagonists. The talks were supposed to sign off on an overall agreement whereby developed countries would open up their agriculture markets in return for free access for their industrial goods and services in the developing world. The European Union, the United States, India, Brazil and Japan have all come up with proposals in the run-up to the six-day meeting that opens Tuesday, but they have been unable to break the deadlock. "Benefits of an agreement are under estimated", said Mr. Rajan because industrialized countries would have greater access to the "services and products" of developing countries, and these would have greater facilities to rich countries' markets with "an overall increase among nations in the southern hemisphere." However he admitted that for poor countries the elimination of reduction of rich countries' tariffs could effectively become an elimination of the preferential rights they currently enjoy, and therefore of their exports. It is hoped a deal in Hong Kong would prevent a repeat of the debacle at the previous WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003, which ended in acrimony. A political compromise in Hong Kong would also keep alive the so-called Doha Round of free trade negotiations launched in Qatar in 2001, and maintain hopes the round could be concluded next year as planned with a global free trade agreement. Subsidies The build-up to the Hong Kong talks has been marked by bitter exchanges and growing calls for the European Union to offer bigger cuts in the huge subsidies it gives to its farmers. The EU commission has offered agricultural tariff cuts of between 35 and 60%, with the overall average to be reduced from 22.8 to 12.2%. Washington meanwhile has offered cuts of 55% to 90%, contrasting its willingness to bite the bullet with the EU's reluctance to make the hard choices for a global trade accord. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has also demanded that in exchange for concessions on farm trade, emerging market countries in particular must allow greater access for EU industrial products and services. The EU, which is being heavily leaned on by France not to go any further, argues that other nations are not moving far enough on access for industrial goods. Brussels also says it has an obligation to protect farmers in former European colonies, who receive preferential trading with Europe. Developing nations have been pressing both the EU and the United States to reduce tariffs and subsidies, arguing that until they do farmers in poor countries will be unable to compete fairly in world markets. The United States has also called for all nations to make compromises, but it has warned the EU that without progress on agriculture the developing world would never embrace change on other fronts. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has already admitted that achieving a new trade deal at Hong Kong is unlikely, despite his concern at how this could be perceived. "I have a real fear that if they [the talks] fail ... we will be giving many people less confidence in the international system, less to hope for and that could be very alienating for many people in the world and therefore very dangerous not only for them but for the rest of us as well," said Mr Mandelson. WTO boss Pascal Lamy has also already suggested that no final agreement will be possible at Hong Kong, and that talks will instead continue into 2006. This article appeared originally in Mercopress - www.mercopress.com.
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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.
For all these reasons the risk for investment in Brazil is sharply falling down and now it ranks about 300 - close to the long ago wanted investment grade premium
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Lula's Government means development and responsability. That's the reason Lula will be re-elected president in 2006!!!!