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More than 6.7 million associates, 7,500 organizations and a production that corresponds to 6% of the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Brazilian cooperatives found a lot to celebrate last Saturday, July 8, on the International Day of Cooperatives.
Practices and values like mutual help and responsibility, equality and democratic came to Brazil with the European immigrants who settled, especially, in the South and Southeast. With this, the movement was also concentrated in these regions. "We now see growth in the Midwest of Brazil too," says the president of the Organization of Cooperatives of the State of Minas Gerais (Ocemg), Ronaldo Scucato. The World Trade Organization (WTO) considers cooperatives a tool to give leverage for economic development in the emerging countries. "It is a way of stimulating entrepreneurship," states the president of Ocemg. However, in comparison to developed countries, Brazil has a small number of people related to the movement, according to Scucato. The average in countries like France, Canada, Japan and Italy is of a participation of 40% of the population in cooperatives, amongst associates and their dependants. In Brazil, this rate is of only 10%. "This will only change with education and with the example of good cooperatives," he believes. Sebrae
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The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
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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. 
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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. 
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