It is also been reported that 150 journalists have chartered a plane to make the trip. Cabinet members, advisors and business leaders will  accompany Obama.

American authorities are mainly concerned with security for the president, his wife, Michelle, and two children, Natasha (known as Sasha) and Malia Ann, who will accompany him.

In Brasília, Dilma Rousseff and Barack Obama will sign at least ten bilateral agreements. One of the agreements that is still being worked out deals with economic and commercial cooperation and will reduce or eliminate sanitation barriers on fruit and meat.

The US already has a similar agreement with Uruguay. It seems that in the commercial area, it has not been possible to suspend surtaxes on certain goods.

Other partnership agreements in the areas of energy, human rights, climate change and sustainable development are reportedly close to being concluded.

The United States has expressed an interest in participating in Brazil’s ultra-deep pre-salt oil fields and jointly expanding assistance to poor nations, such as Haiti. 

In Rio, Obama will probably go to a slum neighborhood that has been occupied and pacified by the police (known as a UPP). It is also expected that the president of the US will make a public speech in Rio.

The final details of the visit will be ironed out in Washington next week, February 23 and 24, when the Brazilian Foreign Minister, Antonio Patriota will meet with Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, and the National Security Council advisor, Tom Millon.

The most recent signals from Brasília and Washington are that both countries consider it a priority to move ahead on their mutual desire to reach agreements in the areas of renewable resources and clean energy.
Brazil is concerned with what it sees as unilateral measures by the US that weaken the dollar and distort global economic relations

The Americans are concerned with losing business in Brazil to the Chinese who have recently become Brazil’s biggest trade partner.

After Brazil, Obama will visit Chile and El Salvador.

ABr

In 2000, Brazil and governments from other developing countries joined the Millennium Development Goals initiative and made the commitment to reduce in half by 2015 the number of people without clean water and sanitation.

Since 2005 the country reached the water goal, but things are not running that smoothly in the sanitation department. In 1990, only 71% of the population had basic sanitation at home. By 2005 this number had grown to 75%. At this rhythm, Brazil will not reach the 80% goal by 2015.

In water the story was different. 83% of Brazilians had running water in 1990 and the goal was to reach 88% percent by 2015. This goal was already surpassed in 2004 with 90% of Brazilians connected to water.

The Brazilian situation is worse in the country, where 2/3 of the population has no access to sanitation. In this area, nothing has changed since 1990.

WHO says that Brazil and the world are in danger of missing targets for providing sanitation unless there is a dramatic increase in the pace of work and investment between now and 2015.

More than 1.1 billion people in the world, in both urban and rural areas currently lack access to drinking water from an improved source and 2.6 billion people do not have access to even basic sanitation, the WHO report shows.

The health impact of this can be seen particularly in children. WHO estimates that in 2005, 1.6 million children under age 5 (an average of 4500 every day) died from the consequences of unsafe water and inadequate hygiene.

Children are particularly at risk from water-related diseases such as diarrheal and parasitic diseases. Lack of sanitation also increases the risk of outbreaks of cholera, typhoid and dysentery.

The populations of urban areas in the developing world are growing rapidly and, if the MDGs are to be met, a huge amount of work will have to be done simply to maintain the proportion of those living in cities with access to improved drinking water and adequate sanitation.

Currently, 95% of city dwellers have access to an improved source of drinking water, while 80% have access to sanitation services.

Meeting the water and sanitation targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be one of the most effective means of raising the health and general living standards of many of the world’s poor. But reaching the water and sanitation targets will require much greater efforts by policy makers, funding and training agencies, planning and construction.

These solutions must focus on poor and underserved people worldwide, WHO warns. According to the report, MDG Drinking Water and Sanitation Target – The Urban and Rural Challenge of the Decade, to meet the sanitation MDG will require a doubling of current efforts. A one-third increase in efforts will be needed to meet the MDG drinking water target.

"It is a tragedy that the world may not reach the water and sanitation MDGs. Safe drinking water and basic sanitation are so obviously essential to health that they risk being taken for granted," said Dr Anders Nordström, Acting Director-General of WHO.

"Efforts to prevent death from diarrhea and other diseases are doomed to failure unless people have access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. This report underlines the importance of the new WHO strategy on public health and environment to radically reduce the global burden of disease through preventive health measures. Only by tackling the root causes of diseases such as water and sanitation can we reduce the 24% global burden of global disease caused by the environment."

Sub-Saharan Africa is still the main focus of concern. An estimated 80% of people without access to an improved drinking water source live in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Asia and Southern Asia. Due to population growth over the period from 1990-2004, the number of people without access to drinking water in Sub-Saharan Africa increased by 23%.

Currently, just 56% of the population has access to an improved water supply. Just 37% of people in sub-Saharan Africa had access to basic sanitation in 2004, compared to a global average of 59%.

In rural areas, access to an improved source of drinking water and to basic sanitation services was very low in 1990 (the baseline year for measuring the MDGs): only an estimated 64% had access to a drinking water source, while 26% had access to sanitation services. While those percentages rose substantially by 2004 – to 73% and 39% respectively – these numbers still fall way short of what is needed to achieve the MDGs.

From the report comes one example of a success story in terms of raising coverage. In Ethiopia, the Amhara region had a coverage rate for access to sanitation services of only 3.8% in 2003, and only 100 latrines were being constructed annually in each district.

In that year, the government initiated a social marketing campaign which increased community knowledge and understanding of sanitation and its linkages to health. Community demand for latrines sky-rocketed, and by 2005, the average number of latrines constructed per district was 26,400.

The Codex Alimentarius, a permanent forum of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), seeks to protect people’s health through food standards and guidelines, along with equitable practices in the commerce of food regionally and worldwide.

This is the first time a Latin American nation hosts the meeting which will focus on limiting pesticide residuals in food.

The Brazilian delegation will seek to establish norms for pesticide residuals on some 420 Brazilian products that are on the Codex.

FAO

Technicians from Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture are in Rome since Sunday, April 2, for the 1st Meeting of the Commission on Sanitation Measures, which is taking place at the headquarters of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

According to Girabis Ramos, head of Vegetable Sanitation at the ministry, the meeting will focus on measures to ensure the safety of goods in transit, establishing areas free of fruit flies and standards for vegetable quarantine in international commerce, along with protocols for the diagnosis of regulated plagues.

ABr

We, the 21st-century Brazilians, inherited a great quantity of knots that hobble us in our long walk. Within a few decades, when the history of these days is studied, it will seem that the future of Brazil was tied into merely two knots: the high interest rate and the unbridled corruption.

As if our future were not imprisoned by a long string of knots impeding Brazil, which has been independent now for almost 200 years, from making the transformation into a nation.

In the news, in Congressional action and in administration decisions there is no reference to the many other knots inherited over the course of two centuries: the income concentration, illiteracy; backwardness in public education; regional inequality; social apartation; economic stagnation; indebtedness; unemployment; violence, deficiencies in the healthcare system; environmental depredation; international vulnerability; corporativism; weakening of the universities; disdain for culture; paralysis in the debate over ideas.

These problems have been forgotten, or put on the back burner, because it is in the interest of those who make the news to choose that which directly affects them. The problem of the knots is in us: the republican aristocracy who refuses to distinguish the knots that tie up Brazil, affecting the excludeds.

The illegal, clandestine appropriation of public money by individuals is a clear act of corruption.

But something else that should be seen as corruption is the utilization of public resources to benefit the wealthy segment of society to the detriment of social investments even when this is done legally by means of Congressional budget approval.

The diversion of the money for construction of the São Paulo Regional Labor Court (TRT) into a judge’s bank account was an act of corruption.

But in a country with 14 million inhabitants without access to running water, a country in which only half the population has indoor plumbing, the spending of public money to construct a luxurious building is as great an act of corruption as is the theft of that money.

Everyone was indignant because a judge diverted R$ 169 million (US$ 71.2 million) while the project was under construction.

But no one protested when R$ 220 million (US$ 92.7 million), which could have been destined to housing construction for poor people and to water and sewer system installation, was transferred to the construction of a luxurious government building.

The diversion was a corruption of conduct; the decision was a corruption of priorities. To make matters worse, up until the 30th of July of this year, merely 3% of the budget allocation for 2005 sanitation works had been spent.

In a country with such a great fiscal and social crisis, that is a diversion in the ethic of priorities. Resources are spent to benefit the rich population, or simply wasted, without provoking our indignation.

We consider it natural to divert public funds to take care of the interests of us, the republican aristocracy, instead of fighting so that they will be utilized to benefit the poorest sectors of society.

The problem of the knots that tie up Brazil is in us, the Brazilians. The Brazilian republic has not been completed, the society remains divided, separated with one part excluded, like the slaves, and one part included, like the nobility.

The government continued as if it were a royal court; it changed its address to Brasília; it altered the manner of selecting the chief of state through elections; it exchanged the title of emperor for that of president and the name of Pedro for that of Luiz.

As for the rest, everything continues as before: the knots are the same ones because we are the same. We are the knots.

Cristovam Buarque has a Ph.D. in economics. He is a PT senator for the Federal District and was Governor of the Federal District (1995-98) and Minister of Education (2003-04). You can visit his homepage – www.cristovam.com.br – and write to him at cristovam@senador.gov.br.

Translated from the Portuguese by Linda Jerome – LinJerome@cs.com.

Brazil’s National Water Resource Council (CNRH), an organ linked to the Ministry of Environment, unanimously approved a resolution determining the collection of a fee for the use of water resources.

In accordance with the resolution, every segment of society that uses water from a specific hydrographic basin will pay a fee for this use.

The coverage of the measure ranges from the industrial sector to common citizens. Rates will be set by regional hydrographic basin committees, according to local needs.

The president of the Technical Chamber on Charging for the Use of Water Resources, Décio Michellis Júnior, says that the resolution will serve as a reference point for basins to define their own criteria for charges and investment.

“Without a doubt, the big investment deficit at present is in the area of environmental sanitation, not just to supply treated water and treat effluents and sewage, but for all the other environmental sanitation activities as well, such as solid wastes, garbage, streetcleaning, and tree trimming. These are investment priorities, without a doubt, but this will be defined by the basin committees,” Michellis explains.

The practice of charging for water use is already being applied in the Paraí­ba do Sul River basin region, which includes the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro.

The committee is the only one of the 100 existing committees that has begun to impose such charges. The National Water Agency (ANA) estimates that this year alone the fees collected in this basin should generate revenues on the order of US$ 4.4 million (R$ 12 million).

If the rates applied by the Paraí­ba do Sul committee are taken as a benchmark, the new assessment should represent, at most, a 2% increase in final consumers’ water bills.

Translation: David Silberstein
Agência Brasil

On Friday, November 5, the Rio Grande [do Sul] Press Association (ARI) launched the second edition of the National Forum on Water, which gets underway tomorrow in Porto Alegre.

The president of the ARI, Ercy Torma, said that the object is to define policies for the sustainable management of water resources, as well as to evaluate the results of the projects presented at the first edition of the forum, which took place in 2003.

“We want to offer practical proposals to solve problems such as the waste and pollution of water resources,” he affirmed.

To this end, the event will gather representatives from Europe, the US, and Mercosur countries, chiefly from environmental organizations of international scope.

Among the government authorities whose presence is confirmed is the Brazilian Minister of Environment, Marina Silva.

The II International Forum on Water is sponsored by the ARI, together with the Ministries of Environment and Cities, the state secretariat of Public Works and Sanitation, the Porto Alegre municipal government, and the United Nations (UN).

The program includes conferences, speeches, panels, and workshops. According to data issued by the Forum on Water, in a span of only 50 years, following World War II, the planet’s reserves of available fresh water decreased 62.7%.

The figures for South America and Africa are even more disturbing: reductions of 73% and 75%, respectively.

Brazil’s water resource potential corresponds to 53% of the reserves in South America and 12% of the global total.

However, in a few years cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro will not have enough water to meet the needs of their populations.

This is the case, because the rate of waste is estimated to be 40%, demonstrating the inept management of these abundant resources.

In the North, where Brazil’s largest reserve of potable water is located, the water supply and basic sanitation systems are considered the worst in the country.

Agência Brasil
Translator: David Silberstein

This week Brazil and the United States will return to the negotiating table for talks at the Brazil-US Agriculture Consultive Committee in Washington. The committee was set up following a meeting by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and American George W. Bush in June 2003.

According to the head of the Brazilian delegation, the executive secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Amauri Dimarzio, at this meeting plant and animal sanitation will be at the top of the agenda.

The talks will deal with sanitation questions surrounding Brazilian exports of in natura beef and chicken, pork, fruits (especially papaya and mangoes) and fruit juices and coconuts.

The Americans are interested in resolving similar problems with their exports of wheat and genetic material (mainly goats and sheep). Both countries have expressed a desire to harmonize their sanitation norms.

“We intend to show the committee that Brazil has made progress in plant and animal sanitation. We have done our homework well and believe there is a good possibility we can sell more to the American market,” said Dimarzio.

The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture’s official added that Brazil is investing more and more in animal and plant sanitation so as to increase the quality and competitivity of its farm produce exports.
 
Translator: Allen Bennett

The level of contamination of rivers, lakes, and ponds in Brazil is five times what it was ten years ago. This is one of the findings contained in the “Report on Brazil’s Actual Water Conditions,” which will be released today at the headquarters of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB) in BrasÀ­lia.

The document will also be presented in Geneva, Switzerland, in October, at a meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The report, which was unveiled September 21 at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), is an undertaking of the Shout for Water Movement (an NGO), the CNBB, the Federal Public Interest Defense Ministry, and the UFRJ.

The document also lists around 20 thousand contaminated areas, mostly industrial waste dumps, with populations potentially at risk.

According to Leonardo Morelli, Secretary-General of the Shout for Water Movement, 70% of all water is used for commercial agriculture, 20% for manufacturing industry, which returns the water in polluted form, and only 10% is left over for human consumption.

“This has consequences for public health, rendering the population more vulnerable to diseases and perils to future generations, such as infertility and genetic alterations,” he said.

He also asserted that the report indicates a growing risk of water shortage. “In the next 10 years, the metropolitan areas of Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo will be most exposed to this shortage,” he underscored.

Water Policy

The formulation of government policies to finance water supply and sewage treatment systems in Brazil and the Southern Cone countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) was the chief focus of a seminar held in August.

The seminar called “Financing Water and Sewage Services in the Southern Cone: Challenges, Alternatives, and Limitations,” was sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Association of State Basic Sanitation Companies (Aesb).

“We wish to analyze South American experiences and see how we can contribute to the improvement of water and sewage services in Brazil, as well,” said the Superintendent of the Aesb, Walder Suriani.

The United Nations (UN) projects a 50% reduction in the deficit of basic sanitation services in all the countries of the Southern Cone by 2015 and the universalization of these services by 2025.

“International organizations, such as the IDB, are concerned about helping countries achieve the UN targets,” the Superintendent explained.

An agreement concluded between the Ministry of Cities and the IDB will provide US$ 95.4 million to finance the water supply and sewage treatment sector in Brazil. The announcement was made during the seminar by the Minister of Cities, Olí­vio Dutra.

43 million Brazilians currently do not even receive water supply services.

“The IDB funds will be directed at cities with low Human Development Index (HDI) rankings and populations between 15 thousand and 75 thousand residents,” Dutra explained.

The President of the IDB, Enrique Iglesias, called for the establishment of a social pact, with the creation of public-private partnerships (PPP) to assure greater investments in the basic sanitation sector in Brazil and the Southern Cone countries.

In Iglesias’s view, this pact will have to consider three key aspects: the expansion of access to these services, the application of fairer charges for consumers, and the increase of investments in the sector.

According to him, in order to achieve the UN targets, Latin American countries will have to invest around US$ 25 billion – US$ 12 billion on water supply and US$ 13 billion on sewage treatment – by 2015.

He emphasizes that the big obstacle to new investments is the value of the charges, which frequently need to be subsidized and are insufficient to give investors the return they expect.

Iglesias believes that one of the solutions is the establishment of partnerships with private enterprise, in order to meet the aspirations of private investors and the public sector, as well.

Agência Brasil

Amorim says that Brazil will also soon be exporting meat and heart of palm, which were on the lunch menu for prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s state visit last week. According to Amorim, the Japanese are also interested in importing Brazilian sugarcane-based ethanol fuel.

“There is a new excitement in Brazil-Japan relations. We are all aware that there is a natural tendency for the relationship to be strengthened,” said Amorim, adding that over the last 30 years Japan stopped investing in Brazil because of economic difficulties in both countries.

“We need to get our business communities involved in this process,” said Amorim, as he announced that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will visit Japan soon and intends to have a large business delegation accompany him.

During the bilateral conversations, Lula told Koizumi of the importance of a social security agreement and the need for Brazilian public schools for the large community of Brazilians living in Japan.

The two leaders also agreed on a commitment to reaching a satisfactory conclusion to the Doha Round talks and moving ahead on environmental protection.

Agencia Brasil

The Minister of National Integration, Ciro Gomes, affirmed today that regional disparities face the country with the “risk of fragmentation.” According to the Minister, inequalities among regions have worsened in the past ten years.