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The leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa have criticized rich countries for failing to act quickly to prevent the global financial meltdown. At a summit in New Delhi, they urged Western nations to manage the crisis in a manner that will not hurt their developing economies. Anjana Pasricha has a report from the Indian capital. After the leaders of India, South Africa and Brazil wrapped up a summit in New Delhi Wednesday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva expressed fears that developing countries will not escape if the West is hit by a deep recession triggered by the...

MANAUS, Brazil, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Latin America's leftist leaders on Tuesday accused the United States of "irresponsibility" in its handling of the financial crisis that has pummeled markets and threatens economies around the world. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned the crisis over credit could slow economic growth across Latin America and took a stab at Washington, predicting that U.S. economic power is in dramatic decline. "This crash of capitalism and of neoliberalism will be worse than that of 1929," Chavez told reporters at a meeting with the leaders of Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador in Brazil's Amazon city of Manaus....

Chávez lashes out at Mexico On the same day the Calderón administration took steps to ease rocky relations with Venezuela and Cuba, Venezuela´s Hugo Chávez on Thursday hurled personal insults at his Mexican counterpart Wire reports El Universal Viernes 02 de febrero de 2007 On the same day the Calderón administration took steps to ease rocky relations with Venezuela and Cuba, Venezuela´s Hugo Chávez on Thursday hurled personal insults at his Mexican counterpart. Chávez´s ire was raised as he attacked Calderón for comments the latter made in Davos, Switzerland, last week criticizing countries that "nationalize industries" and "interfere in the...

The British Prime Minister and the Brazilian President write for Times Online on two nations committed to working togetherIt is a commonplace to say that our globalising world needs international co-operation more than ever before. But actually we also need a shared understanding and a shared vision.Three weeks ago during the Progressive Governance Summit hosted by Thabo Mbeki, our meeting underlined once again that, to both of us, progressive governance isn’t just about sharing experiences on the domestic front. It is also about a shared approach to international challenges.We must ensure that the benefits of globalisation are felt by the...

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Cuba contributed $3 million to the 2002 election campaign of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a violation of electoral law, a leading news magazine reported on Saturday. The charges could reignite a government corruption scandal that the president had appeared to be putting behind him in recent weeks. Lula's campaign received the money in August and September 2002 through a Cuban diplomat stationed in Brazil, Veja magazine said in its latest issue. Lula, an old friend of Cuban President Fidel Castro, won the election in October that year. It was his fourth...

Brazil’s President Lula da Silva is immersed in a seemingly endless corruption scandal; his once larger-than-life reputation has been reduced to tatters. The significance of this is not negligible: Lula has become an emblem of the post-Cold War left with his combination of conservative fiscal and monetary policies and big social programs targeting the poor. A breathtaking sequence of revelations involving the government and Lula’s Workers’ Party—beginning with the confession by opposition legislator Roberto Jefferson that he had received bribes for his vote in Congress—has brought to the surface a vast scheme of bribes to legislators and irregular methods of...

LulaWatchFocusing on the Latin American Left"The Lula government, as we knew it, is over." This is how an Epoca magazine editorial summarized Brazil's current political crisis. This undeniably serious crisis raises many questions about the future of the president and his administration.Veja magazine says that "Lula is trying to save the government and his legacy" while several members of the government are calling this time a "period of political agitation" in a climate of apprehension and instability.Until recently, this crisis seemed to have peaked with the resignation of the president's chief of staff, José Dirceu, usually seen as the government's...

Brazil has plans to build seven nuclear power plants reported Sunday the Sao Paulo press quoting government officials. The country currently has two nuclear power plants in operation and the major expansion is contemplated under the new Brazilian Nuclear Program (PNB), which the government is reviewing. President Lula da Silva officials told newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo that the government considers the new nuclear plants essential to expanding Brazil's role as a player on the world stage and bolstering its bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. PNB is currently under a coordinated review...

For the past three years, an annual conference called the World Social Forum has been the biggest international gathering of radicals on earth, attended by all the leaders of the world left. Labor unions, Communist parties, non-governmental organizations, anti-globalization activists, anti-American 'peace' groups, multiple heads of state, and the representatives of armed guerilla insurgencies all gather yearly at Porto Alegre, Brazil, to make new connections and plan for the future. While the organizers of the World Social Forum claim the event is a "open meeting place" for those interested in building "a planetary society centered on the human person,"...

<p>Lula's Approval Rating Drops to Record Low on Jobless (Update1) June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's approval ratings fell to a record low in June as voters held him responsible for failing to meet campaign pledges to reduce unemployment.</p>

<p>Brazil's Lula, Losing Support at Home, Seeks Recovery in China May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is taking more than 400 executives to China to help spur exports, seeking to pull South America's largest country out of its worst recession in 11 years.</p>

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil on Sunday condemned as slanderous a New York Times article about the drinking habits of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.``The Brazilian government will study the appropriate measures to defend the honor of the president of the republic and the image of Brazil overseas,'' presidential spokesman Andre Singer said in a statement.The article in the Sunday New York Times said ``some of his countrymen have begun wondering if their president's predilection for strong drink is affecting his performance in office.''But Singer said Lula's social habits were ``moderate and not at all different from those of...

RASÍLIA - Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has never hidden his fondness for a glass of beer, a shot of whiskey or, even better, a slug of cachaça, Brazil's potent sugar-cane liquor. But some of his countrymen have begun wondering if their president's predilection for strong drink is affecting his performance in office.In recent months, Mr. da Silva's left-leaning government has been assailed by one crisis after another, ranging from a corruption scandal to the failure of crucial social programs. The president has often stayed out of the public eye and left his advisers to do most of the heavy...

Brazil considers inadmissible a US proposal that the Brazilian government signs an additional protocol on nuclear energy. José Luiz Santana, a nuclear scientist and professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro says that the US idea contains conditions that violate Brazilians' citizenship. Brazil can negotiate, but it will decide as a sovereign country the terms of a possible additional agreement for international inspections of Brazilian uranium enrichment facilities. That was the message to the world from Brazilian Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim, during a public hearing at Brazil's House of Representatives. "This issue of accepting the additional protocol has...

When the U.S. was attacked by Al Qaeda on September 11, 2001, Brazil’s president at the time, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, immediately invoked the Rio Treaty – a pillar of the Inter-American system upon which the Organization of American States was founded. It has a simple and important premise: if any member country in the Americas is attacked militarily by an outside force, that constitutes an attack on all member states. Brazil stood firmly by the United States after the 9/11 attacks. But times have changed. President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim is now attempting to remove...

There has been a sharp increase in the number of illegal farm seizures by landless peasants in Brazil. Across the country, more than 50 properties have been invaded since mid-March by rural people who want the government to speed up land reform. The governing Workers Party has traditionally been seen as an ally of the agrarian Movement, or MST. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has vowed to help the landless, now finds himself in an awkward position. He has announced plans to resettle more than 100,000 landless families this year - but the MST says the pace...

<p>Lula's Effort to Cut Deficit Threatened by Unions (Update2) April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's effort to reduce the government's budget deficit is threatened by union demands for higher wages, economists such as CreditSights Inc.'s Christian Stracke said.</p>

Landless movements throughout Brazil have launched a wave of protests and illegal property invasions to pressure the left-leaning government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president, to accelerate land reform. During the past fortnight, the MST or Landless Workers' Movement, the largest of the landless movements, invaded more than 40 rural properties, including the Veracel tree plantation in southern Bahia state, which is half-owned by Stora-Enso, the Swedish-Finnish paper company. Thousands of protesters there converted 25 hectares of tree saplings into vegetable gardens. "It's a very bad sign for investors. The government can't lose control like this," Vitor Costa,...

<p>Lula, Facing Drop in Polls, Vows to Maintain Policies (Update3) March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, facing a drop in approval ratings for failing to revive economic growth, said he will stick with his policies of fighting inflation and controlling spending in a bid to keep South America's largest economy from defaulting on its debts.</p>

The Brazilian president spent the end of 2003 in the Middle East on a journey that Veja magazine called “Lula’s tour of dictatorships.” Presidential aides called his itinerary – which included several dictatorships and even regimes suspected of supporting terrorism – “historic.” Moreover, it represented an “audacious policy” that provided an “alternative” to the American agenda. Consistent with the crafty attitudes that have characterized the Lula da Silva administration, Brazilian foreign policymakers said the primary purpose of the trip was to develop trade relations. However, after only a few days, several publications saw through this claim and said the trip’s...