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 Condoleezza Rice, the United States Secretary of State, is traveling to Brazil and Chile this week to highlight the US' strong relationship with the two strategic Latin American countries. Rice is expected to focus on growing economic ties with both countries, regional security as well as nonproliferation and arms control.
In Brazil, Rice is expected to try to advance cooperation on biofuels in an effort to boost an agreement signed last year to promote diversifying energy supplies, energy markets and sustainable development.
Brazilians have been touting their agricultural potential and energy experience, especially in ethanol, which Brazil makes from sugar cane. Rice is also expected to visit Salvador, the capital of Bahia state, a city on the northeastern coast of Brazil.
More than 80% of the population in the area is of African origin and Rice, who is African American, is expected to discuss what State Department officials say is a joint effort against racial discrimination.
"Brazil has dealt with issues of minorities and minority rights and you overlay onto that how to deal with racial and ethnic differences over the years and how to deal with those in the context of a democracy," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"Essentially how does a multi-ethnic democracy work, progress and thrive? We have had our own struggles in that regard, so there are some common bonds there."
Rice then goes to Chile where she will meet in Santiago with President Michelle Bachelet and Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley. There, Rice plans to revive a long-standing, but largely dormant strategic partnership between Chile and the state of California.
State Department officials say both have complimentary economies and spokesman Sean McCormack says a centerpiece of the visit is a proposed educational exchange program.
"The secretary is very interested in international educational exchange programs and in the issue of education as an important national security priority. This particular program really highlights those two aspects of her personal as well as policy interests," he added.
U.S. officials say relations between the U.S. and Chile have never been stronger and the secretary is also expected to discuss issues such as diplomacy, security, culture and science.
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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. 
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.
Just going to reinforce the beliefs about your Brazil for those nasty, racist, Americans!