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Brazil’s UN vote on Iran marks first great difference between Dilma and Lula da Silva

Saturday, March 26th 2011 - 08:20 UTC
Full article 28 comments

Brazil’s vote in the UN Human Rights Council in support of a rapporteur to monitor human rights in Iran, proposed by the US, signals the first great divergence in foreign policy between the current administration of President Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor and mentor Lula da Silva. Read full article

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  • GeoffWard

    Mercopress sanitises the issue by using the term ''Lapidating' (Just like the US Government inventing the term “Extraordinary Rendition” for exporting its torture to overseas) .
    What really happens when a woman is stoned to death is that rocks thrown at the buried and head-exposed victim gradually break up the victim's face, jaw, skull, teeth and neck; the mass of pulped flesh and splintered bone progressively looks less and less like a human being so the men and women throwing the rocks feel less and less dehumanized by what they are doing as the victim's screams die away and the excruciating and prolonged process tails away into death. Then the 'stoners' celebrate by dancing around their killed victim.

    Lapidation sounds so 'first world', does'nt it.

    This is what Lula implicitly supported.
    But Lula was a playboy-of-world-politics; anything goes as long as it twists the tail of the USA.
    Amorim, however, was much worse - he actually believed in what he was doing.
    Unforgivable.

    Mar 26th, 2011 - 12:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • JoseAngeldeMonterrey

    All the countries have human right abuse issues, but not all the countries actively support lapidation and other human right monstrosities as the regime in Iran does. Most countries try to end those practices even if they are part of their culture or history, but this is not the case of Iran.

    Brazil is right to vote in favor of monitoring human right abuses in Iran. Shame on Amorim.

    Mar 26th, 2011 - 01:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • briton

    And of course this same BRAZIL a country that uphold human rights,
    in our papers today, in pictures, BRAZILIAN police shoot an unarmed 14 year old scared and frightend little boy, WHERE WAS HIS FXCKING RIGHTS.

    Mar 26th, 2011 - 01:31 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Forgetit87

    @JoseAngeldeMonterrey

    Saudi Arabia does everything Iran does. It is even harsher when it comes to religious minorities. So when will the UN visit that country? Or perhaps it won't because it only visits countries that are not friendly with the US? Amorim was right in not accepting that sort of resolution against Iran since the motivations behind it have so little to do with concerns regarding human rights and so much with isolating that country.

    @Briton

    The men who shot the boy are all arrested. Now let me tell you of something that came up in our papers some years ago. Jean Charles was a Brazilian man who was living in Britain decently when he was shot dead by British policemen. The police said it believed that he was a terrorist. He wasn't. To justify that mistake, British police invented some stories of how Jean Charles' behavior that aroused their suspicion - stories that were contradicted by eyewitnesses, who told that Charles didn't react to the policy not even when an officer pointed a gun to his face. None of the police officers who cornered and shot Charles has been arrested. WHERE WAS HIS FXCKING RIGHTS?

    Mar 26th, 2011 - 06:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Frase

    Touché!

    Mar 26th, 2011 - 07:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Think

    Simultaneous Check Mate against two minor turnips.........

    Mar 26th, 2011 - 07:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • GeoffWard

    As of 2011, stoning (Execution by slow torture: see #1 for the God-given technique) is practiced in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and Iran. It has also been recently introduced into Indonesian law, where, in Aceh, they are eagerly waiting for their first Official Stoning.

    And Forgetit, #4, ascribes Amorim's position to 'motivations' - surely, my friend, there are somethings which we can call Absolutes and vote on them without resorting to second-guessed motivations.

    My guess is that virtually all of the 'civilised world' would consider the process, described in accurate detail in #1, as an Absolute rather than a Conditional.
    Are you with the human beings or with the beasts?

    Sorry to be so blunt, Forgetit, but you put yourself in this position.

    Mar 26th, 2011 - 09:58 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Forgetit87

    @GeoffWard

    I'm not sure what you mean by Absolutes and Conditionals. Is an Absolute a certain moral position that should be supported no matter what? If so, I don't believe in such a thing. And if Iran wants to institute stoning as a form of capital punishment, they, as a sovereign nation, have a right to do so. I personally see nothing wrong with that. I'm much more concerned about the intentions of countries that insist on pushing that sort of resolution because the previous moral denigration campaign they conducted - the one against Hussein's Iraq - culminated in more civilians casualties than the ones that happened under Hussein's dictatorship. And I'm pretty sure the same thing might happen with Iran if the US succeds in isolating it like it did to Iraq.

    Mar 26th, 2011 - 11:00 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • briton

    Forgetit87
    your point has now been lost in the midst of time.
    as soon as someone stands up and makes comparison their opinion has just died, that why justice is rarely served.
    we was not on about the Brazilian boy in London, we are on about a defenceless and frightened 14 year old boy,,,,,,,,
    but as you counter me,, i thus counter you, their were inquires into the incident and it got world attention, and as with counter claims that to will be forgotten by most , except of course by the parents,
    you cannot argue one incident against another, otherwise everybody loses interest,, how many other human rights breaches has brazil committed, and the rest of the 199 independent countries in the world, #
    it still does not make it right does it,
    a 14 year old very frightened boy had his rights abused, it has NOTHING to do with the other event, or what’s happening in libya or anywhere else,, we are talking about a little boy, and the opinion was correct and right, but if you wish to belittle the event that is your choice,
    besides you probably had your say about that Brazilian guy like the rest of us at the time. so please understand a little boy,

    Mar 26th, 2011 - 11:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Forgetit87

    @briton

    I don't see how you can hold Brazil as a country responsible for that event, since the normal law procedures have been applied against his aggressors. Whatever happened to that boy was against the law and that's why the police officers who bullied and shot him are all arrested and will face court. That's not what happens in Libya or Iran, where so-called human rights abuses are institutionalized and practiced by the state itself. And that's what happened in Britain regarding Jean Charles' murder. There might have been inquiries about the case, but his murderers have not been punished or were even trialed. Unless it's normal in the UK for police to murder people around and then receive no punishment after inquiries are produced about the case, the British state closed its eyes to Jean Charles.

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 12:11 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Frase

    I remember the Jean Charles de Menezes story vividly, the breaking news that a suspected terrorist had been shot dead, then that sinking feeling when it broke that they had killed an innocent man. In fact, I almost lost my job at the time after a rather heated debate with my boss after she said (and this was after his identity had been revealed) 'if he was so innocent, why was he running from the police and wearing heavy clothing on a warm day'.....It was a tragedy at a time of heightened national paranoia that should never have happened.

    The 14 year old dying in Brazil is also extremely tragic. But as Forgetit points out, it's not state policy and the murderers are being tried as the murderers that they are.

    Perhaps a positive that could arise from the tragedy, is that an example be made of them, and the police think twice before abusing their power.

    I have a friend in Belém who is in the Brazilian police force, and he is one of the nicest, most decent people that you could ever hope to meet.

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 02:10 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Forgetit87

    Just a correction, Frase, the boy didn't die and is physically well.

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 02:43 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Frase

    My (rather schoolboy) mistake! I saw the video, and the hyperbole and wrongly assumed that the lad had died. I'm glad that my assumptions were wrong, but naturally, still feel rather sheepish!

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 02:54 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Think

    (8) Forgetit87

    I “read” post No.7 as follows:

    Educated minds, but feebly developed souls, firmly positioned on the sunny side of society, convince the “Uniforms” that the Government has gone “Native”, that the “Unwashed and Uneducated” hordes are escaping their cage in the “Social Darwinist Zoo” and that it is their “Patriotic Duty” to act in response……
    *** They are “Conditional Human” ***

    The “Uniforms” react as expected, obviously provoking all the classical “collateral damage” attached to such actions. (+ 30.000 in Argentina’s case)
    When, at last, the springtide of time washes the “Uniforms” away, the “Conditional Human” proclaims:
    *** They are “Absolute Beasts” ***

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 06:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • GeoffWard

    Forgetit,
    Think has attempted, not only to interpret the motives of posters, but he has attempted to answer your concern:
    His colourful posting at 14 seems in no doubt that he understands the nuance between Absolute and Conditional.

    Personally, I see weakness in your position expressed in #8:
    “And if Iran wants to institute stoning as a form of capital punishment, they, as a sovereign nation, have a right to do so. I personally see nothing wrong with that.”

    Lets imagine that Brasil, like Iran, like Venezuela, have a democratically elected Government that, to increase the country's education levels, passes a law to gas all educationally sub-normal children .
    With the right sort of propaganda social-conditioning campaign, even a Brasilian population might be conditioned into believing that the Government knows best. If the German society could be so manipulated by Goebbels' team, Brasil should be an easy target.

    You view this example as Conditional, I view it as Absolute.

    We differ, and I would trust colleagues of a like mind to my position more than I could ever, EVER, trust Conditional-you.

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 11:04 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Think

    As I say in Post 14:
    The nastiest “Absolute Beasts” are those “Conditional humans”
    Especially the British ones......

    Just look at the pathetic effort from the Englishman above to “conveniently forget” the Anglo-Saxon origin, development and leadership of the Eugenics philosophical ideals and put the blame on the Germans.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 12:08 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • GeoffWard

    Hi, Think.
    I disregard your opener @ #16, it is irrational.

    I am very familiar with the link you posted, and have seen it evolve over the last decade and have even corrected it occasionally.

    The last-century thinkers and philosophers in England that debated eugenics did so as an intellectual exercise, considering how one might better the 'human condition' - taken up in the following century through socio-biology.
    Yes, there were those who sought to put philosophy into practice - hence my reference to Fascist Nazi Germany of the 1930-40s.

    Perhaps you are unaware, but Saxony is a State within Germany, and, whilst the Germans spread their genes into England, this did not inevitably spread their behaviour. [Nature & Nurture argument.]

    Watched The Boys From Brazil on DVD last night - did such eugenic-things really happen in South America??? ;-)

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 03:50 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Think

    (17) Mr. Ward

    The more people like you disregard my opener at post No. 16 the more rational it becomes.

    Perhaps you are unaware of it but…………. each and every of your posts exudes that well-known stale odor of British Class Eugenics.

    The Boys from Brazil?
    100% genuine Hollywood story!
    As authentic as Neuschwabenland :-)

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 06:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Fido Dido

    The Boys from Brazil?
    100% genuine Hollywood story!

    Nah, for Geotard it's real. Everything what comes from Hollywood is real. :D.

    If the German society could be so manipulated by Goebbels' team, Brasil should be an easy target.

    The German society were manipulated by Goebbl's team, Today, People in the and from the United states are the victims of that same manipulation. Idiot Ward proves that constantly (brain dead).

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 06:39 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • briton

    Forgetit87 unfortunately you still miss the point
    we all, comment, but unless you were there seeing it hearing it, it is very hard to explain, abusing someone’s rights is one thing, some times tragedies happen and things happen that are unavoidable, the case of the Brazilian guy [and it could have been any one]
    was tragic, but in no way can you compare the same with the little boy, two entirely difference circumstances. it happened once and it most likely will happen again, their is no comparison with the two, and it take far to long to explain. in the case of the boy, he was frightened and shot 5 times by the police, whether or not they have been arrested is irrelevant to the facts, we all wish to know WHY that’s it, WHY , if their was a good reason ,
    then only they can justify it, if not they will be punished, but please do not confuse the two events they are entirely different, under entirely different circumstances,, we will now have to wait and see what comes out of this and find out why this happened, then perhaps we may or may not understand. m

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 09:05 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Frase

    The Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa released a book in 2008, where he theorised that Josef Mengele carried on his work in a small town in the South of Brazil.

    I haven't read the book, but I remember reading news about it and he seemed to be just putting 2 and 2 together. The main thrust of the argument was that Mengele had lived in Paraguay and Southern Brazil (after leaving Argentina), and the town had an incredibly high rate of twins with an 'Aryan' look about them.

    This was countered with the facts that the town was founded by German immigrants, so the blonde hair blue eyes were genetic, and that studies of other 'twin towns' around the world, like the one in question, were found to be isolated and with a prevalence of inbreeding.

    Mar 27th, 2011 - 09:57 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Think

    (21) Frase

    OMG ……

    That’s why I referred to “ Neuschwabenland”, in the vain hope that people would “Think” before typing………….
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A2ndido_God%C3%B3i#Theories

    Try this ”Autentisches Nationalsozialistiches Märchen” instead…..
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A2ndido_God%C3%B3i#Theories

    Mar 28th, 2011 - 04:25 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Frase

    I put forward where it was suggested outside of the film.

    I put forward the author's reasoning

    I put forward my opinion “he seemed to be just putting 2 and 2 together” (i.e the 'evidence' was purely circumstantial and not direct)

    I then put why it was debunked (I was thinking after posting perhaps that would have been a better choice of word than 'countered')

    Mar 28th, 2011 - 05:58 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Think

    (29) Frase

    Ok Señor……..

    I’m just tired of that eternal British Inferiority Complex about the Germans.

    No matter how hard you Brits try, they will always be taller than you.
    No matter how hard you Brits try they will always be better “mean machines” than you.
    No matter how hard you Brits try, their uniforms willalways be prettier than yours. (Hugo Boss design)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V3SqxUomwk

    Mar 29th, 2011 - 05:57 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Frase

    Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I sometimes get the impression that you're waiting for me to slip on a banana skin and expose myself as the German-bashing, colonialism-loving, war-mongering, right wing nationalist that my passport surely suggests....

    ....Germany is a country that I admire, I have several German friends and they've never been anything but friendly and polite....I'm taller than all of them though, but they're arguably meaner and infinitely better dressed. They always beat me in penalty shoot-outs too.......

    errm I mean....

    “2 world wars and 1 world cup.....God save the Queen......bloody Krauts” ;)

    Mar 29th, 2011 - 08:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Think

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knNC2_qxXjE

    Mar 29th, 2011 - 08:42 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Frase

    Like peas in a pod.....

    Mar 29th, 2011 - 09:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • GeoffWard

    I think that the GREAT RIFT between Lula and Dilma is being signalled through these acts.

    Lula snubs USA - Dilma welcomes Obama.
    Lula welcomes Ahmedinejad - Dilma votes against Iran.
    Dilma invites Lula to Obama's Reception - Lula snubs Dilma & Obama.

    Lula continues to make on-the-record pronouncements as if he was still in power and still retained some authority to make statements on behalf of the Government.

    Dilma is making as much space as possible between her and her mentor/nemesis as is possible . . . . and a good thing too.
    Should both she and Lula stand for President at the next election, she wants to be seen as a world-leader, not an appendage to a world-bufoon, a front-row lime-light hogger.

    It will take Lula some time to realise that he is out of office, gone, dead, defunct, he is an ex-person.
    Even an ex-parrot knows when it is dead - Lula is one of the walking, talking un-dead.
    Come to Brasil, Simon Pegg, and do the necessary!

    Mar 30th, 2011 - 10:49 am - Link - Report abuse 0

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