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Brazil's Minister of Finance, Antonio Palocci, told reporters on Friday, December 23, that Brazil is ending the year with significant progress in the economic sphere.
In his view, the effort made in 2005 to keep inflation within the government's target and the savings achieved through the primary surplus will produce results next year in the form of what he termed "vigorous growth." Palocci affirmed that the situation at the end of this year is similar to the one that prevailed during the transition between 2003 and 2004. In 2003, he recalled, the government, faced with the threat of inflation, was compelled to adopt a more restrictive economic policy. The following year turned out to be one in which the economy grew 4.9%. He went on to point out that 1.5 million jobs were created in 2004 and that this is precisely what should occur in 2006. According to the minister, maintaining the fiscal adjustment policy over the long term is important for ensuring sustained growth in the coming years. Jobs 13,831 formal jobs (with signed working papers) were created in Brazil in November. This represents a substantial drop in relation to November, 2004, when 79,022 new jobs were generated. These data come from the General Register of Employment and Unemployment (Caged), released by the Ministry of Labor and Employment last Thursday, December 22. ABr
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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.
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.
The present government in Brazil is a responsible and development oriented Government, that's why all the Brazilian people will re-elected LULA president in 2006!!!!