Porto Alegre, April 16.

The Foot-and-mouth disease Comitee at OIE (Organization
Internationale de Epizooties), meets today in Brussels. One of the
topmost meat producers in Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, ten miles away from
a known focus of the disease in Argentina (and free from it for the time
being), urged the Ministry of Agriculture to attend the meeting and
discuss solutions. The government simply refused. This ?good side? of
globalization might be ?bad? for individual political careers. Where is
Brazil being represented?

Porto Alegre, April 16.

The Foot-and-mouth disease Comitee at OIE (Organization
Internationale de Epizooties), meets today in Brussels. One of the
topmost meat producers in Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, ten miles away from
a known focus of the disease in Argentina (and free from it for the time
being), urged the Ministry of Agriculture to attend the meeting and
discuss solutions. The government simply refused. This ?good side? of
globalization might be ?bad? for individual political careers. Where is
Brazil being represented?

Brazil will be officially represented in Quebec City´s FTAA meeting
by president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Cardoso´s latest move was firing
embassador Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães, head of the Brazilian Foreign
Office´s Research and International Relations Institute, because the
diplomat dared to suggest that FTAA would not serve his country´s
interests.

At least one member state of the Brazilian federation decided to
openly question the FTAA´s secrecy scheme. Rio Grande do Sul, the same
state which is successfully promoting organic farming and the settlement
of landless workers against all capitalistic odds, demanded the right to
participate, as an observer, of FTAA´s meetings in Quebec City. A
representation led by vice-governor Miguel Rossetto will leave Porto
Alegre, the state capital where the World Social Forum took place less
than three months ago, on April 16. Rossetto will talk at the People´s
Forum, in Quebec City, about income redistribution and the role of the
State.

Olivio Dutra, governor of Rio Grande do Sul, has invited embassador
Guimarães to work here, joining his Foreign Relations team. Dutra is
known for refusing to hand millions of dollars to the Ford Company
without renegotiating a scandalous contract his predecessor had signed,
and also for declaring Rio Grande do Sul a zone free of GMOs. Under the
Workers Party (PT) the state has become a reference, in Brazil and
abroad, for social policies such as the participatory budget, where
citizens choose what to do with public money, and learn to decide their
own future.