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After three days of debates last week in Brasília, the capital of Brazil, governmental and civil society representatives from 18 Latin American and Caribbean countries decided to unite to negotiate prices for AIDS treatment medications and to purchase the medications together.
The idea of the meeting was for the countries to reach a common position that will enable treatment, prevention, and care to be extended to the entire population, not just the groups most vulnerable to the disease, by 2010. According to the director of the Ministry of Health's National STD (sexually transmitted diseases)/AIDS Program, Pedro Chequer, higher drug prices have raised the average annual treatment cost per patient from US$ 1.35 thousand, in 2003, to US$ 2.5 thousand, in 2005. He pointed out, however, that for countries to continue to be able to deal with the disease, it is not enough just to reduce prices. "It is essential for countries to unite, with the backing of international agencies, to establish effective mechanisms for the national production of medicines. The reduction and negotiation of prices are short-lived and do not guarantee us sustainability in the medium and long run," he emphasized. Chequer affirmed that the world faces problems not only with medications but with the supply of contraceptives as well. "If the whole world decided today to use condoms, as dictated by the scientific norm for sexual prevention, the supply would be insufficient. "We have urged the World Bank, the United Nations, and bilateral agencies from First World countries to join with us in setting an effective timetable for expanding the installed capacity of condom factories," he said. The results of the encounter will be presented at a meeting of the UN General Assembly in May. Among other things, the final document recommends the creation of indicators to evaluate access to prevention, care, and treatment in different countries and the need to seek international allies to correct clauses that impede better prices in economic and political accords. 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. 
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.
But is Brazil not a rubber producer ?
But is Brazil not a condom producer ?
Then why do you need the help of WB, UN, and bilateral agencies ?
You have the rubber, the know how, and the money !
Ohhhhhh you want to get it all free ??????