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The new Mirage F-2000s that the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) just added to its arsenal are the same old Mirages that the French military flew in 2001 during the Afghanistan and Gulf wars.
The Brazilian brass, however, are happy all the same since the F-2000s will be replacing the obsolete Mirage IIIs, which have been retired at the end of last year after serving Brazil since the 1970s. The Air Force had been promised 12 of the new fighter planes. They ended up getting only two, for now, but they are not complaining. They seem to understand that the country has other priorities and they trust President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva when he says that this is just the beginning of a new Air Force. Another 12 Mirages manufactured in the 1980s should arrive at the end of 2008. During his visit to the Anápolis military air base, in the midwestern state of Goiás, on Monday, September 4, Lula let it be known that the government might go back to the "FX Project," created by Fernando Henrique Cardoso but abandoned at the beginning of this administration. The current government argued that the 700 million reais (US$ 330 million) budgeted for the planes would be better used in the Zero Hunger program. The Mirage project is also more modest than the FX one. It's costing about US$ 103 million. For now the FX Project has been suspended indefinitely. The US$ 103 million being paid for the older Mirages include not only the fighter planes but also spare parts and pilot training. The armed forces of seven countries are using Mirages in their aerial defense. The FAB hierarchy are hoping the FX project will be resumed as early as next year. For them the second-hand Mirages are just a stopgap solution to solve an immediate problem. The FXs in turn would give Brazil a new generation of war planes. Lieutenant Colonel Marcos Pontes, the first Brazilian astronaut, was also present at the Mirage presentation ceremony, but he stayed far from Lula on the stand, and the president didn't mention his name during his speech even though a laundry list of smaller characters were brought up by Lula. Pontes, 43, seems to have fallen in disgrace for having gone into the reserve soon after returning from his space trip in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, for which the Brazilian government paid about US$ 20 million. In his speech, the president stated that Brazil's historical vocation has always been to extend a helping hand instead of threatening and added: "That's what happened in East Timor and in Lebanon, as well as in Haiti. We stand up for peace as a sacred value, but we will always keep vigilant to defend our sovereignty and our immense territory that harbors so many riches."
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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.
And as to your immense territory that harbors so many riches. Are you talking about Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay or Paraguay ????? If not please be more specific. From where do the threats come.
Finally if there would be a confrontation do you really really believe that 12 old Mirages and 2 less old Mirages are enough to defend a country the size of Brazil.......you are not very smart and not very clever !
Mr President, your insinuations are without any basis as usual but the meaning of them are quite provocative.
You are better when dealing backstage with your daily corruptions negotiations than managing effectively and positively your country. You are proud of your economic performances while standing at the queue of ALL developing nations. Therefore you are proud of your failures and as said by FHC you even find normal all the corruptions while this benefited to vote the laws you wished. In reality they were not wishes but an order from you.....to do whatever must be done to have the laws voted.
Here too your glory is quite shameful.