For Brazil UN Human Rights Council Should Guarantee Life Free from Fear
Written by Roberta Lopes
Tuesday, 20 June 2006
The United Nations Human Rights Council is composed of 47 countries, elected among the 191 nations that form the UN's highest authority, the General Assembly.
The election was held on May 9, and the seats were distributed according to a criterion of equitable geographic representation.
There are 13 African countries, 13 Asian countries, 7 Eastern European countries, 8 Latin American and Caribbean countries, and 7 Western European and other countries.
The members of the Council are elected for three-years terms and cannot be reelected after serving for two consecutive terms. Brazil is a member of the Council and its mandate runs through 2008.
For the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, the main purpose of the Human Rights Council should be not to condemn but to make sure that everyone can "enjoy a life free from fear, hunger, and disrespect."
....what will you do ? Knowing that : - 94 % of Brazilians have fears of violence, as per an article on this same site......today ! - You still have hunger and under nourrished citizens by the tens of millions, but you prefer exporting your agriculture to the tune of US$ 40 billions annually, instead of feeding your citizens FIRST ! - Is your corruption at all and every levels not a disrespect to: your laws and to the electors of the nation ?
Yessss.....one more time.....WHAT WILL YOU DO......FOR ONCE ?????????
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.
Knowing that :
- 94 % of Brazilians have fears of violence, as per an article on this same site......today !
- You still have hunger and under nourrished citizens by the tens of millions, but you prefer exporting your agriculture to the tune of US$ 40 billions annually, instead of feeding your citizens FIRST !
- Is your corruption at all and every levels not a disrespect to: your laws and to the electors of the nation ?
Yessss.....one more time.....WHAT WILL YOU DO......FOR ONCE ?????????