|
 Brazil and Venezuela launched yesterday, April 16, in the municipality of Barcelona, in the Venezuelan state of Anzoátegui, the foundation stone for the joint construction of a petrochemical complex.
The agreement was signed by companies Braskem, from Brazil, and Pquiven, from Venezuela. The investment, of approximately US$ 5 billion, will be divided in equal parts by the two countries.
"Once a hub such as this one is ready, then Brazil and Venezuela will have technology to take other hubs to other countries in the world," said president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during the signing ceremony.
To the president, this is not just about a partnership between Venezuela and Brazil. In his assessment, from a petrochemical plant, knowledge will be generated that will transform Latin America in an exporter region of high value-added products.
"It is important to benefit from the political and economic moment the country is going through, so that Venezuela can transform its potential for natural gas and oil."
The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, endorsed the speech of his Brazilian colleague, but claimed that, although Latin America has the potential to cater to the region's energy demands, investments and technologies must be sought in order to do so.
Chávez informed that Latin American countries consume 7.5 million barrels of oil per day, an amount that should increase by 22% over the next few years. From Barcelona, the presidents headed to Isla Margarita, where the 1st South American Energy Summit is being held. The Summit should end today.
ABr
 |
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.