|
 Argentine elected president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner this Monday, November 19, will be visiting Brazil, her first overseas "official" trip, following on an invitation from President Lula da Silva and confirming that "Brazil is a priority relation for Argentine foreign policy".
Buenos Aires diplomatic sources quoted in the Sunday press said that the message from Mrs. Kirchner is very clear: emphasize bilateral relations with South America's largest economy and leave no doubts as to which is the strategic relation Argentina most values: Brasília, which naturally leaves Caracas aside.
Lula da Silva first extended the invitation on the night he phoned Mrs Kirchner to congratulate her on her victory in the polls and again during the recent Ibero-American summit in Chile.
"Relations with Brazil are very good and the fact Brazil has been chosen as the first country to visit is symbolic," said Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Taiana who has been confirmed in that post in the incoming cabinet December 10.
Although Mrs. Kirchner actually first met last week with Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, - and had a long "woman to woman" talk -, it was in the framework of the Ibero-American summit and she traveled officially as First Lady.
"Brazil is and will be Argentina's priority relation to show the world, maybe even more than during the current administration of President Nestor Kirchner. We must not forget that during the first two years of President Kirchner they weren't (Kirchner and Lula da Silva) always on the same wave band", said an undisclosed member of Taiana's team.
"The reading must be first Brazil and maybe later (Hugo Chavez) Caracas," added the source. Cristina Kirchner will be traveling with Jorge Taiana who underlined that "we're going to review (with Lula) all issues".
Issues include bilateral trade, - close to nine billion US dollars -, establishing a new currencies system for trade, peso and reais instead of the US dollar, inflation which concerns many Brazilian corporations with investments in Argentina plus Mercosur cohesion and how to overcome internal cracks, be them economic or political.
"I believe that in the currencies issue we'll be able to advance at a good pace," said Taiana. However two thorny points remain in the Mercosur agenda to be addressed: Venezuela's incorporation to the trade block which still faces resistance in the Brazilian Senate and the Uruguay-Argentina dispute over the pulp mill which in the last few days seems to have worsened.
"We must avoid this dispute from conflicting with other Mercosur business and the region's image before the world," said a close source to Taiana.
Another interesting point in the tentative agenda to be considered is the "reindustrialization" of Argentina, an issue Cristina talked about with Lula during a previous visit to Brazil before her October 28 electoral victory.
Reindustrialization is a key word of the "productive" country scheme the Kirchners are pushing for which is based on developing local manufacturing and promoting domestic demand under the umbrella of a very favorable exchange rate for exports. Brazil on the other hand applies a strong local currency and high sensitive tariffs policies.
The incoming Argentine Economy minister Martin Lousteau, a brilliant academic with valuable political experience in the province of Buenos Aires has also written several books in line with the Kirchners "productive" project, but criticizing Brazil's policy in the region that allegedly has eliminated jobs in Argentina and re-directed investments to Brazil.
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.
What job does Dona.Christina intend giving to her hubby Nestor?
Why does Dr.Marty Lousteau criticize Brazil´s policy in the region. If he continues with this negative attitude, I ain't going to read any of his books