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More and more convinced that no one will take away his presidency and that he will be reelected in the first round come October 1st, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have been claiming for himself several accomplishments many people doubt it's his doing.
Just today, talking to a gathering of the National Convention of Assemblies of God, in Rio, the president stated: "It was God's will that I was elected president and brought forth a law definitively establishing religious freedom." And he added a little later: "We are all "crentes" (in Brazil, crentes means believers but also protestants), we are all Brazilians." Lula told the meeting that he had learned from his mother to have faith and in a not very subtile criticism of his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a sociologist and college professor, he lambasted those politicians who are ashamed of being backed or being seen with evangelicals: "They studied so much that they think it shows ignorance to accept this support. They don't stop to think about the social work. A president, whose name I won't mention, would only meet evangelicals at night, afraid that the press would see them together." The president called the close to 1,200 pastors present companions. He mentioned law 10.825 from 2005, that he signed and that gave churches the right to being recognized as private entities. Lula who seemed touched while delivering his speech said that he was thankful to God for giving him the chance to address that assembly: "If we have a second mandate, with the experience and learning that we had, we will be able to do infinitely more, bothering those who you know we are bothering". God and people were words he used frequently: "We are learning that God writes straight with crooked lines, attentive to everything, and that things happen when they have to happen. I always say, if there is any human being who has to look every day heavenward and thank His generosity, this someone is me. God has been quite generous." Lula also criticized those who doubt the people and want to create a new people instead of working the Brazilian people that exist today. He compared them to Adolf Hitler: "It is these people who make the country's wealth and they are those we want to help more and more." The president refused to comment on statements made the previous day by opposition candidate senator Heloísa Helena, who had harsh words against him, calling him among other things a gangster. When reporters asked him to talk about an open letter by Cardoso criticizing his democracy he questioned the journalists: "Why don't you ask about what's happening here?" in a reference to all the applauses he had won from the pastors assembly.
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Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
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. 
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.
Just full of trash.....Lula !