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 Brazil's Foreign Affairs Minister, Celso Amorim, said that developed nations' agricultural subsidies and tariff barriers for farm goods remain the biggest obstacle to an agreement on the long-stalled Doha round of World Trade Organization talks.
"The text made no advances in terms of market access; the latest proposals are too vague and may represent a step back for Doha talks." Amorim said, following a meeting of ministers from Mercosur, to prepare for talks in Geneva next week.
"Our common position is that the motor is agriculture and the velocity has not yet been defined," said Amorim talking for the group. Brazil holds Mercosur chair in the second half of 2008.
The talks have been on a long stalemate because of a standoff between developing nations - which want more access for their agricultural products in the United States, the European Union and Japan - and rich nations, which want more access for their industrial goods and services in the developing world.
Amorim said the latest proposal would allow more products in developed nations to be subjected to tariffs than in earlier agreements and is too vague about what level of agricultural subsidies would be allowed.
His remarks contrasted with a more positive view offered Monday by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
In his weekly radio program, Silva said he believed the developed nations were prepared to cede ground if poorer nations opened their markets to industrial goods and services.
The Rio meeting was convened by Brazil to "coordinate" positions among Mercosur members ahead of next week's meeting of trade ministers in Geneva. Besides Amorim, Argentina was represented by Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Taiana, Paraguay by deputy minister Didier Olmedo and Uruguay, Deputy minister Pedro Vaz.
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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. 
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).
Knowing that the NON AGRICULTURAL sectors have a far higher weighting in the GDP even in the emerging nations, saying the agricultural sector is THE problem....is obviously a pure LIE !!!
Cars/trucks/tractors/harvesters made in Brazil by foreign firms are TO AVOID A STIFF IMPORT TAX !!!!
And they benefit from the BNDES subsidizes !
Therefore the same should occur in developed nations : should Brazilians wish to produce grains or ethanol IN developed nations, YOU are welcome to invest and produce HERE and will also benefit from our subsidizes !!!!
This is called RECIPROCAL TRADE - TAX LAWS !!!!
Was the word RECIPROCITY included in the Brazilian Dictionary ?????
I bet not !
Fact being that without the developed and advanced INPUTS goods...Brazil COULD NOT compete for the OUTPUT goods you produce !!!!
More simple there is not.
A dumbass could understand this. But of course not a brazilian !
More simple there is not.