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 The President of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, is scheduled to make his first official international incursion (and test) next September 17 when he visits Brazil and meets with his counterpart, Brazilian ruler Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The visit was announced Friday, September 5, in Brazilian capital Brasília following a two hour meeting between Foreign Affairs ministers Alejandro Hamed from Paraguay and Celso Amorim from Brazil.
In a brief press conference the officials said they had analyzed bilateral relations, Mercosur and the South American integration process, and other international issues.
Hamed pointed out that Paraguay will support the Mercosur incorporation of Venezuela which remains stalled in the Paraguayan and Brazilian congresses. Uruguay and Argentina have already finished the process.
"President Lugo will wait for the right moment to make the official request to Congress, but I'm hopeful, certain that the newly elected Congress will support the initiative", said Hamed.
Regarding bilateral relations Hamed admitted that Paraguay's claim of higher prices for electricity generated in the shared Itaipu hydroelectric dam, South America's largest, was what most time demanded and was analyzed "in depth."
According to the Itaipu treaty Brazil and Paraguay share 50/50% the 14.000 MW electricity generated but the small landlocked country satisfies its demand with only 5% of the volume, and under contract must sell the rest to its senior partner. And for this Brazil pays annually US$ 300 million, at 1970s prices.
During his electoral campaign Lugo said the price must be reviewed and increased to the correct value in the range of US$ 2 billion, which Brazil rejects.
Amorim said that Brazil had offered to build a high tension line from Itaipu to the capital Asunción, at a cost of US$ 200 million.
Hamed said the Brazilian offering and all issues concerning Itaipu will be addressed next September 17 and "probably that will be the correct moment to seat a technical commission to discuss all which is necessary."
Mercopress
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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.
In my modest opinion, Brasilia should oblige Asuncion with the first (and by far the most important) issue. Because our country much richer than the visiting partner, Brasilia should make a gesture by recognizing the unfairness of the existing arrangement of a fix price based on 1970’s energy costs, which Paraguay has been selling to its neighbor for so long. Granted that Brazil need to recoup the bulk of the investment made (I’m sure Brasilia financed the bulk of the project), yet, 30 years later it should be willing to recognize the unfairness of the current deal for its poorer neighbor… Perhaps a compromise could be found whereas instead of utilizing either 1970 or 2008 energy costs for an “adjusted” treaty, perhaps it could settle of the figure for, say 1995, along with a clause calling for further “adjustments” every 10 years.
Regarding Venezuela’s admission to Mercosul (suggesting that Hugo Chavez is likely to be found - behind the scene - pressuring to the Paraguayan government), I would strongly suggest that the Brazilian Senate continues pursuing its steadfast, uncompromising position against such unreliable and potentially dangerous new member! Such formality should be postponed until such time with the “light of freedom and reason” returns to Caracas with the election of a new President (an event which appears unlikely to occur in the short term).
Either way, I hope Brasilia and the government elite, will be sufficiently gracious to make the visiting (poorer and politically weak) president welcome by making his visit to be perceived as “relevant”…