Ahmadinejad to visit Brazil for trade talks

[rabs]

Well, guess they be breaking out the Maalox at the State Department in Washington next week.

In a way, this is a modern-day Grito do Ipiranga (the declaration of the independence of Brazil from Portugal on Sept. 7, 1822). Only this time it is economic independence from the Colossus of the North. Story below does not say it but Ahmadinejad is also expected to visit Bolivia and Ecuador. (Do not know about that May 10 date on the story.)

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BRASILIA (AFP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is set to visit Brasilia on Wednesday for high-level talks accompanied by a huge trade delegation, according to a top Iranian diplomat.

Iran's ambassador to Brazil Mohsen Shaterzadeh said Thursday that 110 representatives from 65 companies representing virtually all sectors of the Iranian economy would accompany Ahmadinejad on his official visit.

"They are entrepreneurs in the oil, gas, petrochemical, agriculture, food, platform construction, mining and auto assembly sectors, among others, and will come to explore business opportunities in Brazil,"" Shaterzadeh told reporters.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=193651

Here is a much longer analysis in Spanish from Bogota magazine Semana

http://www.semana.com/noticias-mundo/iran-ofensiva/123504.aspx

[Judi Lynn]

1. Well, well! We should start a pool guessing a date for the first all out assaults on Lula

by the overwrought right-wing. This may scare them to death!

http://www.semana.com.nyud.net:8090/photos/1409/ImgArticulo_T1_61677_200952_160237.jpg
They should be warned they'll look even dumber to everyone now, considering he's been the president all these years, and they've neglected to rage against him, wearing themselves out, instead, shrieking about the well supported Hugo Chavez.

Clearly, Latin America intends to make its own way in the world, and prefers to proceed with no interference, no back seat driving, no advisors from the North any more. They've already learned a bitter lesson from their own history. Who could blame them?

[Peace Patriot]

2. Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, as the consensus diplomat to President Obama,

on behalf of the leftist democracy movement that has swept South America, told Obama two main things (that I know of):

1) Normalize relations with Cuba. It is a Latin American sovereignty issue, on which they are united and about which they feel very strongly.

2) Stop demonizing Hugo Chavez. He is a friend and ally of Brazil and most other Latin American countries and their leaders. He cannot be faulted on democracy. As Lulu has said, "They can invent a lot of things to criticize Chavez, but not on democracy!" Stop this insanity about him being a "dictator" and a "terrorist-lover."

Obama did not normalize relations with Cuba--despite the unanimous outcry for it at the Summit of the Americas. He did the least thing possible to maintain a friendly face--mere lifting of some travel restrictions. And he went home and permitted his State Department to issue yet another lying report calling Chavez a "terrorist-lover." The only "terrorism" that Chavez has engaged in is against Exxon Mobil. He told them to get the fuck out of his country if they won't agree to reasonable terms for operating there. That's who the State Department is serving--not Obama, not you and me--Exxon Mobil.

So this huge delegation from Iran to Brazil is the upshot. If you completely ignore the advice of the most revered leader in South America, and spit in his eye, he is going to try to teach you by illustration, in this case, a demonstration of Latin American sovereignty by inviting your "sworn enemy" to trade in everything from food to automobiles to oil. Not that Iran really is a U.S. enemy. I don't think it is. But it is not in the U.S. global corporate predator orbit. It is independent--and has that in common with the countries of Latin America--the desire for sovereignty--for self-determination, not U.S./Corporate-dictated determination. I feel for Obama. He is hogtied to our global corporate predators and war profiteers, and their wretched, bloody-minded policies--by the fascist 'news' monopolies, by the rightwing-controlled 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, by the filthy campaign contribution system, and in hundreds of other ways. He cannot govern freely. I think he would be quite good at it, if he could. He can't. So Latin America is going to go its own way, and I hope the rift in our hemisphere does not get too wide before Obama realizes where it is leading--to another corporate oil war--and acts to curtail it (and to curtail Clinton from setting it up, as her husband set up Iraq for Bush Jr).

[rabs]

3. Ahmadinejad postpones visit to Brazil

Portuguese verb "adiar" means to postpone, delay, put off for another time. Braz Forn. Min. says reason was upcoming presidential election on June 12. Ahmadinejad spoke with Lula today and asked for the visit to be put off for another date, after the presidential election.

The massive Iranian trade delegation will still be going to Brazil this week, the ministry said.


Da BBC Brasil em Brasília - O presidente do Irã, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, decidiu "adiar" sua visita à América do Sul para depois da eleição presidencial iraniana, que ocorre no dia 12 de junho, informou nesta segunda-feira o Ministério das Relações Exteriores do Brasil.


http://www.estadao.com.br/noticias/internacional,presidente-do-ira-cancela-visita-ao-brasil,365369,0.htm