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 The Brazilian government announced it will promote Brazil's shipbuilding industry not only to supply vessels and oil rigs for domestic demand but also to export them to the rest of South and Latin America.
"We've started a new policy to promote the building of new shipyards and updating existing ones so we can have a strong shipbuilding industry both for the local market and for exporting to other South American countries," said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
"Brazil has the potential, technology and therefore we have a comparative advantage in world markets in a strategic sector such as is the manufacturing of oil rigs and other support vessels."
Lula made the announcements in his weekly radio program mentioning that last week he visited the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the extreme south of the country for the opening ground ceremony of a new dry dock, which will supply oil rigs and other maritime equipment for the development of deep sea huge oil and gas fields discovered offshore in the Atlantic area.
Brazil's government oil corporation Petrobras, which exploits most of the country's oil and gas resources, and has discovered giant deposits in the Atlantic Ocean is behind the project to develop the naval industry in Rio Grande do Sul.
Besides oil rigs Petrobras has contracted 26 new vessels for its merchant fleet. "We're talking of the rebirth of the Brazilian fleet and the empowerment of our maritime interests."
Lula said Brazil must pay every year over 8 billion US dollars in freight because it doesn't have the necessary cargo vessels.
"It's not possible that a country that ships 95% of its exports by sea doesn't have Brazilian flagged vessels," said Lula. In the 70s Brazil's merchant fleet was among the world's top five but without support and incentives the industry began to collapse and "reached the year 2.000 with a mere thousand workers in the whole industry."
Lula said that Petrobras oil rigs have an average international cost of a billion US dollars but built in Brazil 50 to 100 million US dollars could be shaved from the final price. "And that does not include resources, jobs, taxes and technology development for the naval industry."
"We must look ahead to the strengthening of the Brazilian nation and in treasuring the scientific and technological knowledge we have," said the Brazilian president who added that "Brazil in the short term will become the main reference in oil rig and vessels for the industry; our naval development can be and will be as successful as our air industry which manufactures and exports aircrafts all over the world," he concluded.
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Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
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.
Neverland from the air: looks to be in need of maintenance.
There is a new emphasis in reading everything back to controllers and tower guys.
They may install traffic lights at airport intersections, for the planes!
A number of previously complicated procedures such as DME arc approaches have been simplified.
What may be bad news for EMB: the pure jet commuter plane is in serious trouble. The only turboprop EMB makes is the Tucano, right? Well, costs trump comfort. the ERJ 135, 140, 145/Legacy series, what Embraer makes most of, over 1000 total, is precisely the type of plane that may soon be parked in the sun at Mojave whilst the two remaining makers of turboprop commuter jets, which are significantly cheaper to operate, are getting orders due to big jumps in fuel costs. Big airlines are trying to shed their commuter subsidiaries anyway.
No way that the business guys are giving up their jets for props, though.