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The president of Bolivia's state petroleum company said Monday, February 20, that suggestions Brazil could buy cheaper gas elsewhere were meant to pressure his company as it negotiates new deals with neighboring countries.
Ildo Sauer, director of gas and energy for Petróleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, said recently his country could save US$ 30 million per day by buying gas from Venezuela rather than Bolivia. Jorge Alvarado, president of Yacimientos Petroleros Fiscales de Bolivia, said the possibility of Venezuela selling gas to Brazil at one-third of the Bolivian price is "unreal." "I don't find this information very credible and it seeks to pressure Bolivia while it's trying to negotiate new prices with Brazil and Argentina," Alvarado said. Alvarado blamed the Argentine and Brazilian press, saying they were looking to "damage the negotiations between the governments of Brazil and Bolivia." President Evo Morales, who took power last month, has vowed to increase state control of the country's vast natural gas reserves as well as get better prices for the gas it sells to Brazil and Argentina. Brazil relies on Bolivia for most of its gas supply and Petrobras has begun talks with the Bolivian government on renegotiating production and sales contracts. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez recently proposed sending Venezuelan gas to Brazil and Argentina through a 10,000-kilometer (6,200-mile) pipeline. Venezuela has Latin America's largest natural gas reserves, followed by Bolivia. Oil experts say the pipeline project would be a huge technical challenge that could cost as much as US$ 40 billion and environmentalists say it could prompt massive deforestation in Brazil's Amazon region.
Pravda - www.pravda.ru
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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.
Mercorsur members fight against each others.
Uruguay and Paraguay are dissatisfied of how they are being treated by the 2 big brothers, Brazil and Argentina.
Every one is against neo liberalism but nonetheless they want to buy at the cheapest price possible to their little brothers and sell at the highest price possible outside.
They are against neo liberalism on their purchases but 1000 % neo liberalists opn their exports. quite a contradiction.
Argentine is blocking bridges and roads at the Uruguay border because of the new pulp mills being built in Uruguay.
There is some fight on trades between Argentina and Brazil. They "resolved" their problems by an agreement to limit exports of certain products both ways. That is totally contradictory not only to Mercosur ideology but also totally contradictory to what Argentina and Brazil are requesting at the WTO.
Furthermore Argentina and Brazil want to "help" Bolivia, but by buying their gas at a lower price than International market prices ! Great "help" !
Venezuela is helping Argentina, Brazil, Cuba with special favorable deals, but at the expense of the Venezuelian society, far poorer than Argentina and Brazil.
Chavez is just buying and paying to gain more power in the region.
Morales, the guy who said he is against neoliberalism and if elected will be the "nightmare" of the USA, is now himself asking to open negotations with the FTAA because he has goods to sell, as he said. Quite a contradiction there too.
Before his election he said he is pro coca growers (even their leader for years) and just last week he signed a deal with the USA restricting the coca culture!
Brazil is highly critical on the USA but is quite happy to have them not only as their biggest trading partner but also with whom they did by far their largest trading surplus of around US$ 10 billions.
Simply stated Mercosur members have irreconciliable problems, they do the exact opposite of what they say, they lie between themselves, but sign deals between themselves that they are opposed to sign on an International level.
All these countries have governments that no one should trust because they have absolutely no credibility !
Mercosur countries will fail miserably in the not too distant future.
The bill will be very expensive, but at the expenses of their own societies !
BOOM AND BUST, BOOM AND BUST, BOOM AND BUST economies you have been for the the last centuries and so you will remain for the decades to come.