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US diplomat says president opposes country’s permanent membership and will avoid topic during March visit

[Translation of an article from Estadão of São Paulo for February 6. See original here and related articles here and here.]

By Denise Chrispim Marin

United States President Barack Obama is not likely to bring up support for Brazil’s membership in the UN Security Council during his visit to the country in March. The White House and US diplomats are working to skirt inevitable embarassing questions [on the topic] from the press in order to avoid damage to their project of relaunching bilateral relations…

According to a State Department source, any change in Washington’s position is a remote possibility. It would be a “miracle.” As far as the US government is concerned, Brazil committed a “mortal sin” in June when it voted against a Security Council resolution on new sanctions against Iran.

The Brazilian action was more serious than its insistent attempts to reach a nuclear accord with Iran because “it compromised the very credibility of the system” and revealed signs of interference by former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and former Chancellor Celso Amorim in the most sensitve foreign policy decisions. “It was a blunder,” the source said.

It is still not clear to the State Department whether the administration of Dilma Rousseff, as a continuation of the Lula administration, will continue on the same path in foreign affairs.

The doubt will be resolved on the 23rd when Foreign Minister Antônio Patriota will make his first visit to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington.

This will be the first opportunity for dialogue between the US and Brazil on restructuring the Security Council, which is still pending in the UN.

Academics point out enormous disparity in costs to Mexico and US

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for January 26. See original here.]

By Emir Olivares, Andrea Becerril and Ciro Pérez Silva

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Mexico evoked several different readings among academics and politicians. For the former, it represents a demand by Washington that the federal government not change its strategy against organized crime; senators of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional), the PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) and the PT (Partido del Trabajo), meanwhile, consider that the purpose was “damage control” in bilateral relations after Wikileaks revelations in which United States diplomats were critical of the army and government authorities.

Academics and politicians agreed that there are enormous disparities in the countries’ struggle against organized crime: while Mexico has spent more than seven billion dollars during the Calderón administration and has seen more than 35,000 deaths, in addition to the 55,000 military personnel occupied in the struggle, in some places in the United States there are efforts to legalize the use of drugs and the businesses of arms and drug dealing are reporting enormour profits. (more…)

An interview with Harvard Professor Jorge Domínguez

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for June 21.]

By Gerardo Arreola

Havana, June 20 – “It is really a shame” that Barack Obama sits on his hands on the subject of arms trafficking to Mexico, Jorge Domínguez, veteran researcher at Harvard University and one of the most prestigiuos students of Latin America, told La Jornada.

It is no longer only a problem of drug consumption in the United States but in some ways that country is assuming the responsibility for “arming organized crime in Mexico,” says the Vice Provost for International Affairs at Harvard and teacher of generations of politicians and academicians in the region. (more…)

Caracas declares Clinton tour a failure

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City]

Agence France Presse and Deutsche Presseagentur

Caracas, March 4 – Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro has called Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Latin American tour “a failure” and declared that she came to the region “to scheme, to attempt to divide the countries that are trying to unite our continent, to attempt to sow doubt about the process of democratic transformation that countries like Venezuela are living through.” (more…)

Lula warns that Hillary “has not been wise in forcing Iran against the wall”

[Translation of an article from Hora do Povo of Brazil for March 5]

President Lula has issued a warning against US pressure to impose sanctions on Iran based on suspicion raised by the US that that country possesses, or is on the verge of possessing, weapons of mass destruction.  “It isn’t wise to force Iran against a wall.  What is wise would be to initiate negotations,” Lula declared on Wednesday.  “What I want for Iran is the same as I want for Brazil: to use the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” he stressed, emphasizing that Brazil does not support the proliferation of nuclar weapons. (more…)