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Brazil's incumbent socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva seems comfortably on track to re-election elections next October reveals a new public opinion poll released this week by Rede Globo the country's main network.
The survey, carried out by the Ibope Institute showed that if voting was held this week, Lula would win the first round with 48%. Runner up with 19% figures Geraldo Alckmin, the Social Democratic former governor of São Paulo state. If undecided votes were set aside, Lula would take 63% of the ballots in the first round, avoiding a runoff and Alckmin 25% percent. In a hypothetical runoff between Lula and Alckmin, the score would be 53 and 31%. The survey interviewed 2.002 eligible voters in 140 towns and cities May 28/31 with a margin error of 2%. Alckmin received the endorsement from the conservative PFL party with Senator José Jorge de Vasconcelos Lima running as vice president in the ticket, as part of the deal. "Lula has abandoned ethical principles," claimed Alckmin at a gathering of leaders from the Social Democratic Party and PFL. Lula, a former Marxist union leader who took office January 1st, 2003, and has overseen the implementation of conservative orthodox macro-economic policies has not yet formally thrown his hat in the ring but is expected to do so soon. Speculation about an official candidacy announcement followed President Lula da Silva's meeting Wednesday with an influential figure, former governor of Sao Paulo Orestes Quércia, from the conservative PMDB party, which still has to decide on fielding a presidential candidate next October. Quércia acting as a PMDB spokesperson said Lula told him he would be prepared to consider a running mate from the PMDB if the party agreed to back him for re-election, and told reporters the proposal would be considered in the party. However Quércia did not venture any outcome since some PMDB factions strongly oppose Lula and would like the party to nominate its own candidate, while others are toying with the idea of supporting Alckmin. For years Lula's Workers Party (PT) prided itself on a reputation for probity and transparency amid rampant corruption in Brazil's political system, but the organization has been battered by revelations of slush funds skimmed from government contracts to finance political activities and ensure a majority in Congress with handsome financial contributions to legislators. The scandal involving several tens of millions of US dollars forced the resignation of President Lula da Silva's closest advisors, several ministers and the whole cupola of the Workers Party. "The administration of President Lula da Silva is a fraud and has implemented neo-liberal conservative policies that only support the rich," blasted Roberto Freire from the small Popular Socialist Party and a one time ally of the ruling coalition. 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.
Poor Brazil.