A campaign poster in Brasilia shows how strongly Dilma Rousseff is linking her campaign with the legacy of Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Photo: Maria Elena Romero/Al Jazeera. Brazil is leaning heavily towards electing the country's first female president. Dilma Rousseff has never been elected to public office, but the... » read this article

Introduction Two elections in Latin America this fall will have decisive importance in the direction of economic and foreign policy for the coming decade. Venezuelan legislative elections on September 26 will determine whether President Chavez can secure the two-thirds majority needed to proceed with his democratic socialist agenda without the... » read this article

Editor's Comment: On May 24, Iran officially informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna of the deal made between Brazil, Iran and Turkey on May 24 to exchange fuel. The agency immediately forwarded it to the United States, France and Russia for their opinions. The 3 countries responded with nine questions... » read this article

(Subtitles added by Axis of Logic) The 2008 report of the US National Intelligence Council - which supports the Director of National Intelligence and is the centre for long-range analysis in the US intelligence community - published in November 2008, issued the latest in a series of futuristic publications intended... » read this article

Brazil and Turkey have brokered a deal with Iran over its nuclear programme that shows the two countries are a new global force. The dramatic news from Tehran that a last-minute breakthrough may have been reached to avert a global crisis over Iran's nuclear programme is a highly positive development... » read this article

Earlier this month, as the US loudly complained about Venezuela’s decision to purchase arms from Russia, South America’s ministers of defense came together in Guayaquil, Ecuador and put the finishing touches on an agreement to develop common mechanisms of transparency in defense policy and spending. The agreement, which also calls... » read this article

Millions of Brazilians have serious housing problems. The Movimiento Sin Techo (Homeless Movement) seeks to organize them, and to occupy abandoned properties and land on the outskirts of the city to pressure the government. When they get settled, even temporarily, they try to transform social relations based on their dreams... » read this article

Johann Hoffmann started patenting inventions to protect the environment while still a young boy in his native Austria. His first—created when he was just 14—was a buoy system to contain oil spills in the ocean, a system that's still being used today. Hoffman's work eventually led him to Brazil, where... » read this article

When the United States first realized circa 1970 that its hegemonic dominance was being threatened by the growing economic (and hence geopolitical) strength of western Europe and Japan, it changed its posture, seeking to prevent western Europe and Japan from taking too independent a position in world affairs. The United... » read this article

5 October 2009 US President Barack Obama’s failed effort to attract the 2016 Olympics to his adopted home city of Chicago reveals much about the character and priorities of his administration. Obama flew to Copenhagen on October 2 to deliver a personal appeal to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which... » read this article

 Honduran people now fighting alongside their president THE legitimate president of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya, has returned to his country and confirmed that he will continue the struggle until constitutional order is restored, Telesur reports after contacting the president at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. "I am not going again.... » read this article

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- For four decades, Edimar Bentes and his family have survived by farming tiny clearings in the jungle near their dirt-floor shack in the state of Para in the Brazilian Amazon. On this April afternoon, Bentes, 56, squats in the driving rain and dips a glass into... » read this article

Brazil has long been committed to developing alternatives to fossil fuels to power its vehicle fleet, to the extent that 90 percent of new cars sold in the country are flex-fuel, running on ethanol or gasoline in any proportion. Now the government is embarking on another technological field: electric vehicles.... » read this article

5 December 2008 With South American heads of state scheduled to assemble in Bahia, Brazil later this month for a meeting of the recently created UNASUL (Union of South American Nations), relations between the continent’s so-called left governments, which were at the center of the alliance’s creation, appear fraught by... » read this article

Implications for Brazil The Venezuela-Colombia Rift Regional Autonomy The Rebirth of the Fourth Fleet and with it the Ghost of Gunboat Diplomacy The new Pattern of United States-South American Relations Member states of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) signed a pact on Friday, May 23 in Brasília to... » read this article

Editor's Comment: President Hugo Chávez cited this article in last Sunday's (May 11) "Alo Presidénte" on VTV. He described President Lula as a close friend. President Lula is an enigma for many, left and right. Here's what he had to say in this interview about relations between Latin America and... » read this article

At the tiny airport on the outskirts of the city of Governador Valadares a plane draws up to the terminal building, bringing with it just a handful of passengers. On board - as with many flights these days - is a Brazilian who has decided that the "American dream" is... » read this article