|
Brazil is willing to show the "necessary flexibility" to successfully conclude the World Trade Organization Doha Round talks, announced Monday, July 17, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in St. Petersburg.
Speaking during the Group of Eight (G8) meeting in Russia, Lula said he would instruct the Brazilian negotiating delegation to show the necessary flexibility "with the purpose of achieving an ambitious and balanced Doha Round" to expand and liberalize global trade. But, "I don't expect less from my colleagues meeting here", added Lula addressing the leaders of United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Russia. G8 members invited Brazil, Mexico, India, China and South Africa, to participate Monday in a closed session to address among other issues, global trade in the framework of the WTO. Doha Round negotiations have been stalled because of the conflicting positions between the leading members of WTO. Before the meeting the Brazilian president said that "lack of leadership" from the most powerful economies was behind the current situation in global trade negotiations. "The Doha Round negotiations are in crisis. But it is political rather than technical, and mainly because lack of leadership" underlined Lula da Silva. Import duties, which protect rich countries markets, and billions of dollars handed out to farmers are "excessive, illegal and inhumane" and only help to "export poverty" to developing countries struggling to have access to developed countries markets. "Poor countries don't need favors, rather fair trade conditions", he insisted. Last week before flying to Russia the Brazilian president said WTO negotiations couldn't advance further from a technical point of view, but to keep advancing a "political decision" from the leaders of the most industrialized countries was needed. Over the past few months Lula has spoken by telephone several times with the U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and French Premier Jacques Chirac in an attempt to convince them that the developing world needs "a break". Some 100 developing countries, among them Brazil and India, agreed July 1st in Geneva to negotiate as a bloc to save the Doha Round after talks in the Swiss city on global trade stalled. Talks in Geneva stalled amid disagreement over how much rich countries should lower farm subsidies and tariffs and how much developing nations should open their markets for manufactured and industrial goods. Mercopress - www.mercopress.com
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
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.
"Import duties, which protect rich countries markets, and billions of dollars handed out to farmers are "excessive, illegal and inhumane" and only help to "export poverty" to developing countries struggling to have access to developed countries markets.
"Poor countries don't need favors, rather fair trade conditions", he insisted."
Well one has to subsidize farmers when they're competing with people making $150 per month!!! Excessive, illegal and inhumane? That sounds like the working conditions and the minimum salary in Brazil!! And as far as fair trade conditions, that works BOTH ways, you don't see the U.S. or E.U. taxing many imports 100% and MORE than 100% than the very cost of the products!!!!!