"Things are going very quickly", said Lula

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed on Monday a decree raising the level of indebtedness for host cities to ensure the completion of infrastructure works for 2014 World Cup and Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games.

During the ceremony to launch the decree, the president announced that 3.545 billion will be allocated to upgrade airports and ports in the twelve cities hosting the soccer tournament in 2014.

“Things are going very quickly,” said Lula, countering criticism of his government for delays in works, which he attributed to the “folly” of people who have no patience with the ritual required to put projects into practice.
Lula stressed that the project development stage is completed, as well as laws and measures necessary to enable state and local governments to raise funds for the completion of works.

Moreover, the president claimed that authorities in Sao Paulo, the richest state in Brazil, which is behind the work schedule, to accelerate the necessary measures.

“I honestly cannot imagine a World Cup in Brazil without counting on Sao Paulo as one of the corners where the athletes are going to play football. I am willing to participate in that conversation, I think the governor should have already called all involved to talk and find a solution, because the time is pressing, ” he said.

After the president’s speech, the Sports Minister Orlando Silva said that the government of Sao Paulo will meet on Thursday with representatives of Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) and Sao Paulo Football Club (SPFC) to discuss a solution to the controversy over the stadium for the Cup in the state capital.

SPFC’s stadium was vetoed by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) and the alternative could be to build a new complex in the neighborhood of Pirituba.

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"We will invest in the country what was not invested in 30 years"

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on the weekend that the country’s airports will be ready to answer the demand of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

The Brazilian president, who met with South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma in Pretoria, said that any worries about Brazil’s infrastructure for the 2014 World Cup are unwarranted.”I think it is inopportune to be worried about the Brazilian infrastructure for the 2014 Cup,” he said. “Thanks to the Growth Acceleration Project (PAC), Brazil will invest some 624 million U. S. dollars. We will invest in the country what was not invested in 30 years.”

President Lula admitted that the transports infrastructure in Brazil needs improving, but assured that everything will be ready by the beginning of the tournament. According to him, the Cup will make people see Brazil with better eyes.

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Farmers from Kenya have been increasing the amount of land they dedicate to plants known to be good sources of biofuel.

The Seattle Times has published a very interesting article saying that Brazil, the world’s leading ethanol exporter, will help Kenya produce biodiesel and improve its agriculture sector. According to the article, Kenya is an investment hub that Brazilian companies and entrepreneurs can use to seek business opportunities in the wider East African Community, a five-nation economic bloc of more than 125 million people, Brazil’s President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva said at a news conference with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.

Silva’s visit is the first by a Brazilian president to the East African nation. Silva and Kibaki did not give more details about how Brazil will help Kenya develop biodiesel or improve its agriculture. For several years, however, a growing number of Kenyan farmers have been increasing the amount of land they dedicate to plants known to be good sources of biofuel. The production of such fuel remains small scale in Kenya.

“Kenya is especially keen on exploiting Brazilian advances in the area of biodiesel technology. Brazil is a world leader in this field and Kenya stands to gain as we seek ways of becoming more efficient in our management of the energy sector,” Kibaki said.

Later at a luncheon in his honor, Silva said trade between Kenya and Brazil has increased six-fold between 2002 and 2009.

“Now is the time for the challenge to diversify exports from Kenya to Brazil and to stimulate Brazilian investments in Kenya. So that is why I came, followed by a Brazilian business delegation that are interested in establishing partnerships and identifying business opportunities,” Silva said.

He said Brazilian construction companies would like to bid to build roads, ports and hydro-electric power plants in Kenya. In recent years Kenya has invested in rehabilitating its dilapidated roads network and expanding it.

Earlier in the day, Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula and his Brazilian counterpart, Celso Amorim, signed five agreements to act as a framework for future investments and assistance. The agreements include one that will allow Kenyan students join a university the Brazilian government will build in its northeastern state of Ceara to train 5,000 African and 5,000 Brazilian students in various fields.

Silva and a delegation of Brazilian Cabinet ministers, officials and businesspeople arrived in Kenya on Monday. They go to neighboring Tanzania later Tuesday and then to Zambia before ending their six-nation African tour in South Africa.

The Brazilian leader began his tour last week in Cape Verde, where he attended a meeting with the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States. He then visited Equatorial Guinea before arriving in Kenya.

By TOM MALITI

Associated Press Writer

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If you are curious about Brazil and want to know more about its people and the soft way they do things, especially when it comes to international politics, you will enjoy reading the  article written by Robin Lustig, for the BBC.  He says: “take a nation that is at peace with itself and with all of its 10 neighbours. Add a strong and stable economy, with a charismatic, democratically-elected leader and huge untapped oil reserves, and what do you have? Brazil”. Further more, he says: “A country that, in the eyes of its leaders oozes self-confidence and likes to think of itself as ideally placed to demonstrate to the world the benefits of “soft power”.

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The heads of state of Brazil, Rússia, India and China will meet again on April 16^th, in Brasília, the Brazilian capital. They first met in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg last year to discuss the international financial crisis. The agenda for the April summit is still being discussed. The meeting comes as Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy, tries to take a more prominent role on the world stage. It has become an important member of the G20 group of nations – now a key forum for global economic and financial discussions. The BRIC group summit will be preceded on April 15th by a meeting of heads of states from Brazil, India and South Africa, also in Brasilia.

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Brazil´s well respected Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (IPEA) has just published a study which concludes that:  “If Brazil maintains the same trend toward decreasing poverty and inequality as it has in the past five years, by 2016 these social indicators will resemble those found in developed countries. Extreme poverty could be eradicated for all practical purposes, and income inequality could be furthered reduced below the Gini coefficient of 0.500.” For Brazilians the news couldn´t be better. For centuries Brazil promised prosperity amidst the constant plague of poverty and inequality. Today the tide has turned, and it appears that indeed the poor shall inherit Brazil.

Read more:

NYTimes

OECD

BBC

Brazzilmag.com

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The four members of BRIK: Brazil, Russia, India and China

By Schott´s Vocab – The New York Times

An oil-industry acronym for Brazil, Russia, Iraq, Nigeria and Kazakhstan – five countries predicted to make a significant mark on oil production in the 2010s.

Discussing the possible impact of an increase in oil supply, Liam Denning observed in The Wall Street Journal:

Meanwhile, in a nod to the BRIC countries that helped define the last decade, consultants PFC Energy has coined its own acronym for the next: BRINK, or Brazil, Russia, Iraq, Nigeria and Kazakhstan.

Brazil has hosted a string of big discoveries, while Russia has defied expectations by overtaking Saudi Arabia’s output. Kazakhstan is expanding three major projects, while a tentative peace is allowing Nigeria to start raising output.

The wild card is Iraq, where more licenses for foreign oil companies were awarded Friday. Contract terms encourage firms to maximize output quickly. Winners to date aim to boost output from five fields 12-fold to 8.5 million barrels per day.

Given Iraq’s fragile peace and ravaged infrastructure, that looks unrealistic. But even if production increased by a more conservative 1.5 million barrels per day by 2015, it could pressure oil prices through unsettling the organization Iraq helped found 39 years ago: the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

(The term BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India, China – seems to have been coined by Goldman Sachs in 2001.)

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