Brazil

Brazil
 * Background: ** More than 20 years of military rule ended in 1985 and a new constitution was ratified in 1988.
 * Population: **196,342,592
 * Infant Mortality Rate:** 23.33 deaths/1,000 live births
 * People with HIV/AIDS:** 660,000 (2003 est.)
 * Political structure: ** The president **(** **President Luiz Inacio "Lula" Da Silva)** executes policy approved by the 513-seat Chamber of Deputies (the lower house) and the 81-seat Senate (the upper house).
 * Environmental Issues: **
 * deforestation in Amazon Basin destroys the habitat and endangers a multitude of plant and animal species indigenous to the area; there is a lucrative illegal wildlife trade; air and water pollution in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and several other large cities; land degradation and water pollution caused by improper mining activities; wetland degradation; severe oil spills
 * Brazil **** ’s Army: **
 * Brazil’s army occupies an ambiguous place in national life. Its officers, fired with a faith in progress imported from France, replaced the monarchy with a republic in the 19th century.
 * The army has often seen itself as a force for nation-building, laying down roads and putting up hospitals. But it has also seized power at times, such as in the 21 years to 1985, during which time one member of the current cabinet was tortured for her political views.
 * Since 2004, Brazil has commanded the United Nations’ intervention in Haiti. After a slow start during which the mission was plagued by unclear objectives, it is now held up as a great success.
 * A second use for the army, featured prominently in Mr Unger’s plans, is in the policing of the Amazon region. “The Amazon is a bit like the Mediterranean was at the beginning of the 19th century,” says Alfredo Valladão of Sciences Po, a French university, “full of smugglers and pirates, and without much effective state presence.”


 * Brazil/Italy Extradition Controversy**
 * Italy and France have long argued about the number of once-violent Italian activists who have settled in Paris. Last year the French government refused to extradite Marina Petrella, a former Red Brigades terrorist. Italy’s government had hoped Brazil would be more helpful. But its protests have been met with a snort from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of the sort reserved for occasions when he thinks a more developed country is telling Brazil what to do.
 * Cesare Battisti, an Italian thriller-writer who was once a member of a group called Armed Proletarians for Communism, has been granted refugee status from Brazil. Before he came to Rio, Mr Battisti enjoyed a comfortable exile in France.
 * Mr Battisti was convicted in absentia of killing two policemen in Italy in the late 1970s. He was also found guilty of taking part in the murder of a butcher, and of helping to plan that of a jeweller (shot in front of his 14-year-old son). Mr Battisti denies these charges, but there is little doubt in Italy that his trial was fair.
 * Brazil’s reasons for protecting Mr Battisti are unconvincing. The justice minister, Tarso Genro, referred to his country’s tradition of harbouring political exiles, ranging from Alfredo Stroessner, a particularly nasty ex-dictator (of Paraguay), to Olivério Medina, an ex-guerrilla (in Colombia). Mr Genro also seems to think that Mr Battisti was convicted of political crimes, rather than plain murder.
 * One is Brazil’s reluctance to examine its own past. Whenever the question of an inquiry into the military government of 1964-85 arises, it is quickly squashed (unlike similar demands in Argentina or Chile). The second sentiment, that of solidarity, is to be found among some members of Lula’s party who were far-left militants in the 1970s. In Italy, which lost a former prime minister to the Red Brigades and had a government adviser murdered as recently as 2002 by its imitators, attitudes are much less indulgent.

Sources: The CIA World Factbook, The Economist