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Representatives of 19 Latin American countries gathered in Brazil since Thursday, January 12, began discussions on how to achieve universal access to anti-retroviral drugs for treating AIDS, and remedies for dealing with and preventing other sexually transmitted diseases (STD).
The meeting, the first of its kind in the region, will draw up a list of proposals to be presented to the United Nations in May. According to World Health Organization data, at least 300,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean are using anti-retrovirals to treat AIDS, with 170,000 of them in Brazil Pedro Chequer, the head of Brazil's AIDS/STD Program (Programa Nacional de DST - Doenças sexualmente transmissíveis - /AIDS) declared that he hopes the continent can reach a consensus. He also called on participants to reject non-scientific approaches, such as the refusal to use condoms for religious, philosophical or cultural reasons. As for the Brazilian AIDS/STD Program, Chequer reported that the average cost of treatment continues to rise sharply, going from US$ 1,350 per patient in 2003, to US$ 2,500 in 2005. Universal Access to Drugs The meeting will proceed through Saturday, January 14, at the Naoum Plaza Hotel in Brasília. Among other points, work groups are discussing suggestions to ensure universal access to anti-AIDS medicines by 2010. The countries were divided into four groups: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela (Group 1); Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay (Group 2); Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama (Group 3); and Mexico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic (Group 4). Agência Brasil
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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. 
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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.