|
 The Brazilian initiatives proposed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during his Monday summit in Uruguay with his counterpart Tabare Vazquez were previously considered with Argentina, according to reports in the Buenos Aires press.
Although Argentine president Nestor Kirchner was not present at the Monday summit in Colonia, (only 30 miles away from Buenos Aires), Argentina interpreted the summit as "a positive signal for the consolidation of a solid and united Mercosur in spite of circumstantial bilateral differences which might exist between some of the block's members" is quoted Deputy Secretary for Latinamerican Integration, Eduardo Sigal in the Buenos Aires press.
Reliable sources from Casa Rosada, seat of the Argentine Executive, also admitted that the global proposals put forward by Lula to his Uruguayan counterpart Vazquez had been previously considered by Brazilian diplomats with the Kirchner administration, and "although the president (Kirchner) did not participate of the meeting he strongly supported the gestures and willingness of both leaders to reach an understanding".
A delegation of Brazilian negotiators headed by the Deputy Secretary for Latinamerica, Jorge Touney met last week in Buenos Aires with Agustin Colombo Sierra, cabinet chief of the Foreign Affairs ministry and "went over the agenda of issues to be addressed by President Lula with President Vazquez".
"All issues to be considered in the Colonia summit were analyzed and a final polish of proposals was agreed with the Brazilian delegation," said a spokesperson for the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affair.
One of the issues which were axed in the Buenos Aires meeting was Lula's initiative to make origin rules more flexible, a measure designed to soften Mercosur asymmetries and facilitate junior members' exports to Brazil and Argentina, a reiterated demand from Uruguay and Paraguay to help boost their own industries. However the "good will" gesture from Lula could have opened the door to imports from third countries which would only be forced to pay the block's common external tariff.
"From Brazil's point of view the initiative would open its market to industrialized goods from junior members, but for Argentine industries it could be highly harmful, for example with a proliferation of auto parts for automobile manufacturers," said Argentine sources.
They also pointed out that even when Lula in Uruguay talked about the need for every Mercosur member to reach bilateral trade agreements with third parties, this did not represent a specific approval for Uruguay to go ahead with talks for a free trade agreement with United States.
"A free trade agreement with the US is political utopia since the US Congress has yet to ratify the agreements reached with Colombia and Peru. Uruguay wouldn't even have time to talk about it when President Bush visits the country," added the sources.
"Any trade agreements of this kind with the Bush administration are currently non viable," concluded Argentine sources from Casa Rosada.
Mercopress
 |
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.