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 The Brazilian economy is expected to expand 4% in 2009 as oil exploration bolsters investment even as the United States and European Union slowdown hamper global growth, according to the country's Planning Minister Paulo Bernardo.
Investment from oil exploration in the pre-salt region, which runs along Brazil's coast from Espírito Santo to Santa Catarina, will boost growth, Bernardo said in an interview published on Sunday by daily Folha de S. Paulo.
A worsening of the economy in the US, which is holding presidential elections in November, and a slowing of the Euro zone are the only things that could slow the growth of Brazil's economy argued Bernardo.
"The next US president will have to define an exit strategy in Iraq, strengthen the dollar, recover the housing market and reduce the twin deficit," Bernardo told Folha, adding that "next year there will be changes over in the north, but we don't know their intensity, and this is the only thing that can hinder us."
Bernardo admitted that a prolonged "recession" in United States which is Brazil's biggest trading partner, may slow growth to 3.5%.
A year ago the country's energy giant Petrobras announced it had found five to eight billion barrels of light crude deep beneath the ocean floor in the Santos basin, the world's second-biggest oil find in the last 20 years.
Just last week, Petrobras estimated that another nearby deep-sea field holds between three and four billion barrels of oil and natural gas. Together, the two finds could lift Brazil's proven reserves by 85%, and that may be just the tip of the iceberg.
Some analysts estimate that 50 to 80 billion barrels of oil may lie deep below a thick layer of salt under the seabed along an 800 kilometer stretch off Brazil's southern coast. The development of this resource is expected to boost the Brazilian economy and make it one of world's top producers and exporters of oil.
Precisely last Friday Brazil deployed warships, fighter jets and thousands of troops off its southern coast starting two weeks of military exercises aimed at showing the world it can defend vast new oil reserves.
The exercise, "Operation Atlantic," will simulate an attack by a fictitious enemy on oil platforms and pipelines both on and off shore along the coastline of the states of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Espírito Santo.
"This is an exercise that is intended to dissuade, a show of force," said Admiral Edlander Santos, the commander of the operation. Over the next two weeks, 10,000 troops, as many as 50 fighter jets, 17 ships and at least one submarine will be mobilized for the exercise, which will cost about US$ 12 million to stage.
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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. 
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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.
A 4 skyhawk in the pic used in the 60-70
had some mods done on it and then slod to countries argentia
was used well as ground support and anti ship warfare with the exsoet missle
last time it was a A6 intruder even older