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 Three days after Brazil's worst air accident ever, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva addressed the nation and promised that in 90 days he will be announcing the construction of a new airport for the city of São Paulo.
Lula five minutes speech late Friday evening begun with a message to the "hearts of all Brazilians" asking God to give strength to all the families of the victims of the Tuesday air accident, when a landing TAM Airbus 320 skidded off Congonhas's airport runway and crashed into a repairs building killing all 187 passengers and crew members plus ground personnel.
Only 45 bodies were identified until now by the coroner's office. The work of rescuers has turned now to collecting fragments of bodies under the rubble with the help of search dogs.
Congonhas airport is Brazil's busiest with over 20 million travelers annually, but it is also one of the most difficult for pilots since runways are too short for large modern aircraft, and the whole area is insufficiently drained causing additional problems when it rains.
Originally in the middle of fields, but now trapped in the sprawling cement of São Paulo, Congonhas has become the hub for regional flights and has suffered several tragic accidents in the last few years.
However as promised by Lula, Congonhas traffic will in the future be significantly reduced to flights in the São Paulo region and the Rio/São Paulo shuttle, a new international air terminal is to be built and overall air safety should be improved.
A federal judge closed Congonhas for several days last summer on safety grounds and it was reopened on promises of improved runways drainage conditions. This Friday, 19 pilots refused to land in Congonhas fearful of what happened last Tuesday.
Lula promised a rigorous investigation into all events of last Tuesday but also cautioned that it will all be done with no "precipitation or impassiveness", adding that "we don't want to condemn or absolve with precipitated actions so as not to commit possible injustice."
Besides practical common sense measures for the airport, Lula promised to exert greater influence over the Civil Aviation Agency to ensure they act in defense of travelers; a modernization of Brazil's air traffic conditions thus cutting drastically potential risks.
As to the cause of the accident, TAM airlines revealed early Friday that a thrust reverser from the crashed aircraft had been deactivated during maintenance checks.
The reversers can be used to help jets slow down on landing but TAM Airlines insisted the deactivation was in accordance with proper procedures and "in conditions stipulated by the maintenance of the manufacturer Airbus and approved by Brazil's National Civil Aviation Agency".
Tam Airlines' comments came after Brazil's Globo TV said a problem with the right thrust reverser had emerged four days before the crash.
Tam said Airbus's own manual says an inspection can be done up to 10 days after it is first detected and that the plane can continue to operate in the meantime. The same plane, it was reported, had problems landing at Congonhas the day before the crash.
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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. 
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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. 
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Congonhas's runways are dangerously short, the runways are slippery when wet and still ungrooved, and other planes before the crash had problems because of those conditions, issues well known to all the airlines there, yet in fine Brasilian fashion no action is taken. A big airplane like the A 320 needs all the help it can get to stop safely in those conditions, yet, "well, the manual doesn't say that an non-working reverse thruster should be dealt with immediately".
In fine Brasilian fashion, NO ONE WANTS TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANYTHING, NO ONE WANTS TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES, NO ONE WANTS TO TAKE INITIATIVE.
And as a result, 200 innocent people lost their lives and hundreds more are in profound grief over losing loved ones.
Oh well, At least a nice new airport will be built and we can all look forward to using it when it's finished.....in 25 years? 35 years? Maybe 50 years?