Brazilian Minister for Defence, Celso Amorim, will today deliver two helicopters to Santa Cruz in eastern Bolivia to aid with the battle against drugs and crime on the border which the two countries share, an official source informed yesterday.

The two H-1H helicopters will be destined only for use as part of the anti-drug plan enacted between the two countries. The agreement, which was made last year by Bolivia’s president Dilma Rousseff, said that the fight against drugs should focus on the shared borders, which stretch for more than 3,400 kilometres.

The arrival of these two helicopters will “make explicit the compromise of the two countries to cooperate in the area, paying special vigilance to the airspace and combatting illicit cross-border drug trafficking”, said a Brazilian legation in La Paz.

Other commitments to be fulfilled are the donation of helicopters called Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (VANT). These will control the airspace, detecting drug factories in Bolivia even in the jungle, where many of the country’s drug manufacturers have hidden their bases.

Bolivia is the world’s third-largest cultivator of coca leaf, primary ingredient in cocaine. However, the UN has recently revealed a 12% decrease in production of the plant, a positive result of the war against drugs that the country has been fighting.

In a speech at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly today in New York, President Dilma Roussef criticised the expansionist economic policies of the world’s richest countries.

The Brazilian leader was the first head of state to address the 93 nation General Assembly. She indicated that moves to extend economic influence and budget cuts in Europe and the United States were failing to solve the global crisis and having a damaging effect on emerging markets like that of Brazil.

Roussef said that the “expansionist monetary policy” of developed nations was to blame for the depreciation of currency and decrease in exports in Brazil and other emerging economies. She branded the injection of billions of dollars into the system by countries in the E.U. as a “money tsunami”.

“There will be no effective response to the economic crisis without strengthened coordination efforts between United Nations members and multilateral bodies such as the G20, the IMF and the World Bank,” Roussef warned.

The President presented her own country as an example of how to solve the crisis without resorting to budget cuts, arguing that the choice between austerity and economic growth “is a false dilemma”.

The leader of Latin America’s largest economy went on to defend her recent decision to raise tariffs on almost 100 goods, which received intense global criticism, amid fears of rising protectionism amongst emerging markets.

“We cannot allow legitimate trade defence initiatives by developing countries to be unfairly classified as protectionism,” Roussef said.

The President also took the opportunity to show her support for an end to violent conflict in Syria declaring “There is no military solution to the Syrian crisis. Diplomacy and dialogue are not just our best option: they are the only option”.

Last night Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) approved the extradition of Argentine Claudio Vallejos for crimes against humanity committed during the last dictatorship.

Vallejos, known as “el Gordo”, was arrested for fraud in January 2011 in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. He was later identified by members of human rights organizations, and his extradition was subsequently requested in February under the “megacausa ESMA”, a series of lawsuits related to crimes committed during the military dictatorship of 1976-83.

Vallejos, who was in the Army at the time of the last dictatorship, is accused by the Argentine justice system of torture, homicide, kidnapping, and forced disappearing of persons, much of which is alleged to have been carried out at the infamous Naval School of Mechanics (ESMA).

In a 1986 interview with the magazine Senhor, Vallejos admitted to participating in the kidnapping of Brazilian pianist Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Junior, whom had been “confused with a subversive”. Cerqueira, he says, was later killed at ESMA by Alfredo Aztiz, one of the most feared agents of the dictatorship.

STF minister Gilmar Mendes announced that Vallejos will be extradited to Argentina on the condition that he is tried only under the kidnapping charge, and that the Argentine government commutes an eventual life sentence to a maximum sentence of 30 years, in keeping with Brazilian legislation. He also announced that the extradition will not take place until the conclusion of Vallejo’s trial for fraud.

Brazilian law has no counterpart for “forced disappearing of persons,” one of the crimes Vallejos is charged with in Argentina. It is estimated that during the last dictatorship, up to 30,000 people were killed or disappeared.

Brazilian police are investigating the deaths of six adolescents whose bodies were found in Parque de Mesquita, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

It is believed the bodies are those of some youths who have been missing since Saturday.

Investigators believe the victims had no relation to organised crime and were killed by drug traffickers in the nearly district of Chatuba as a show of strength.

The bodies were found without clothes, and showed signs of torture and bullet wounds. Some were tied up. They were found on a route that is being widened as part of the preparations for the 2016 Olympic Games.

It is the second mass-killing in two days. Yesterday, four people were found dead in a house in Japeri.

For most of us, the words ‘pop art’ conjure up graffitied images of Ché Guevara and enormous coke cans. Fundación PROA’s new exhibition of Argentine and Brazilian pop art bears all the familiar hallmarks of the movement but relocates the focus to the southern cone, where familiar bold fonts and cartoon images meet a carnal, visceral movement rooted in the wounds of dictatorship and repression.

Claudio Tozzi & Roberto Jacoby interpret Che Guevara in 1968 (images courtesy of PROA)

This is a brutal yet beautiful exhibition, located deep in the heart of La Boca. Curated by Paulo Herkenhoff and Rodrigo Alonso it charts the links between Argentine and Brazilian pop art in the 1960s and showcases a movement which synthesises the political, social and cultural violence of the era as well as the roots of hope and revolution.

“Ideological clashes, military regimes, resistance struggles the dependence on foreign capitalism, urbanisation and the distinctive popular protestsi n these countries – this is the starting point for this fervent aesthetic and political study,” says Adriana Rosenburg, president of PROA.

“For the first time we are bringing together 59 artists from Brazil and Argentina and more than 150 works, photographs and documents from this movement.”

Western audiences have become increasingly inured to the stylised cartoon images and bold colours which define pop art and it’s easy to forget the political context behind the images which now adorn our aprons and sofa cushions.

For North American and British audiences in particular, for whom Lichenstein’s stylised spots reign supreme, the Coke cans and Ché Guevara images have lost their political and cultural reference points. Yet for Latin American audiences, these are powerful symbols of social and political change, and central to the pop art movement.

“South America produced two key symbols in these years, one local, in the form of Ché Guevara, who represents change, liberation and social revolution and another international, in the form of Coca-Cola which appears in general as a symbol of American imperialism and economic domination,” explains Rosenberg, in literature accompanying the exhibition.

'La civilización occidental y cristiana' by León Ferrari (images courtesy of PROA)

The first room of the show is dedicated to these more familiar manifestations of the movement. It is filled with irreverent subversions of political and cultural imagery. The middle of the stylish room is consumed by a giant model plane suspended from the ceiling with a crucified Jesus attached to its wings. This piece, “La civilización occidental y cristiana” by León Ferrari, is flanked by a series of images of the Kennedys and a playful coke bottle installation.

However the second room introduces us to the darker, carnal themes of Argentine and Brazilian pop art. This work in this space is body-centred and deeply political, with references to torture, repression and social pain. Antonio Dias’ ‘Glutāo’ is typical, depicting a blood red figure with a set of abstract organs on display, brining to mind disturbing hints of physical pain and punishment.

The centre of the room features two disturbing sculptures, one resembling a giant misshapen sack and the other a garish knot of intestinal woollen tubes. The colours of the works here are less brash than the familiar cartoon style and have been created in a range of textures and mediums. As well as flat poster style pieces jammy canvases, thick with murky oil paints line the walls.

Organs on display (images courtesy of PROA)

The third room continues this trend. Its walls are painted black and eerie noises drift from a video playing in the corner. This room features unsettling installations like Ivens Machado’s white tiled slab, plain apart from a light bulb in one corner and a bullet hole in the other with a dark trickle running from it. In another corner is a black veiled chair with spikes on the seat.

Violence – physical and political – lie close to the surface of these works and this movement in general. There are four rooms in total, displaying a wide range of styles and forms of pop art but all have been chosen to reflect these underlying themes and all display Argentine and Brazilian pop art at its politial best.

The exhibition has the added benefit of its PROA setting. An established art venue since 1996, the stylish building boasts panoramic views of La Boca’s industrial landscape and sprawling ports. The gallery is well known for its interesting take on contemporary Argentine art and also boasts an excellent library, bookshop and modern minimalist cafe with a roof terrace.

‘Pop…’ will remain at PROA until 16^th September when the exhibition will move to the Oscar Niemeyer museum in Curitiba. In 2013 the show will relocate to the Bergamo Gallery of Contemporary and Modern Art before ending up in the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro.

Entrance to the exhibition costs $12, for more information go to http://www.proa.org/esp/ or call 4104.1000

The Venezuelan Government announced yesterday that they are investigating allegations that illegal miners massacred dozens living in a Yanomami tribe near the border of Brazil.

The indigenous community of Irotatheri was reportedly attacked last month in the southern Venezuelan Amazon. Although the number of people slain is still unknown, survivors of the massacre and people from nearby villages claim at least 80 people were murdered.

Luis Shatiwe Ahiwei, leader of the Horonami Yanomami Organization, told the New Zealand Herald that visitors from a nearby village found charred bodies and the community’s shabono torched, the shabono is a circular hut where generally dozens of people live.

Due to the community’s remote location it took days for those who discovered the bodies to report the incident to the nearest settlement.

According to the Yanomami organization only three survivors have been accounted for. Ahiwei said the survivors told him they had been out hunting when the hut was set on fire. He said they heard gunshots, explosions and the sound of a helicopter, which is sometimes used by illegal miners to fly in supplies.

The attack prompted indigenous activist groups to call on the Venezuelan government to investigate and to work with Brazil in order to control the movement of miners in the area.

The Yanomami remain one of the largest isolated indigenous groups in the Amazon with an estimated population of 30,000 living in both Venezuela and Brazil. They have maintained their own language as well as traditions such as face paint and wooden facial ornaments.

In recent years the soaring price of gold throughout world markets has created an increase in illegal gold miners that encroach on the Yanomami’s land.

“For three years we have been denouncing the situation,” said Ahiwei to Survival. “There are lots of gold miners working illegally in the forest.”

Numerous Yanomami activists pointed to an attack in 1993 where Brazilian miners killed 16 people, and in 2010 when four people in the indigenous community were killed due to water contaminated by mining.

“This is another appalling tragedy for the Yanomami — heaping crime upon crime,” said Stephen Corry, director of Survival to CNN. “All Amazonian governments must stop the rampant illegal mining, logging and settlement in indigenous territories.”

Unions in Brazil representing almost 90% of public sector workers who have been striking since May have agreed to return to work next Monday.

The Brazilian government released a statement today saying most of the public workers had accepted a 15.8% increase in wages over three years in order to cover inflation.

According to the BBC, Brazil’s Planning Ministry said an agreement had been reached with 30 of the 35 different state unions. The federal police and tax inspectors among a few others rejected the deal.

The more than 400,000 federal workers began striking in May when teachers stopped working, demanding higher pay and better career prospects. Other state employees in one of the country’s largest ever-industrial disputes quickly joined them resulting in almost half of the public workforce being on strike.

The protestors were demanding wage increases anywhere from four to 150 percent.

While most of the public sector had managed to function normally, the strikes sporadically crippled airports, public hospitals, roads and ports.

Travelers were often greeted at airports and ports with protestor’s signs and picket lines. Despite the government’s pleas to return to work and warnings about state security, strikers continued to protest for another four months.

One banner draped across a road read, “Federal Police station closed — free passage for drug trafficking and weapons.”

The striking couldn’t have come at a worse time for President Dilma Rousseff and her Workers’ Party, which actually began as a union movement. The administration feared increasing the wages by more than 15.8% because of the threat it might pose to several policy goals, including driving down interest rates. Rousseff is also releasing the budget on Friday.

The government said it will re-open negotiations with those unions that rejected the deal.

A notary in Río de Janeiro has registered a polygamous union of two women and a man for the first time in Brazil. Claudia do Nascimento Domingues awarded family rights to the polygamous group who have been living together in the country for three years. Domingues claims there is nothing in law to prevent such a union, which is not a marriage but a “public declaration of a stable polygamous union.” However the decision has riled religious groups, with one lawyer calling it “absurd and totally illegal”.

The union was formalised three months ago but only announced to the public this week. The three awarded the union have declined to speak to the press. However according to the notary they have been living together, sharing household costs and maintaining a relationship of “loyalty and companionship for more than three years.”

According to Domingues, “We are not inventing anything here, we are only recognising what has always existed.”

“We have seen big changes in the concept of a family in the past few years” she said, speaking from her home town of Tupa in Sao Paulo, “in my opinion this union does not affect the rights of other people.”

According to Nathaniel Santos Batista Junior, a jurist who helped draft the civil union, the group sought legal recognition of their relationship in order to secure their rights in the case of death or separation. The legal document specifies the wills of each party and features clauses detailing what happens to the members’ pensions and how to divide benefits, health care and property in the case of separation or the death of a partner.

The document does not include provisions for any children the group may have. According to Domingues, those decisions will have to be made on a case by case basis, by a judge.

While it has been registered by a notary however, the document may not be upheld by the court and other organisations, particularly private companies such as health care providers.

Despite this, Domingues is hoping the case will prove a precedent for future civil unions of this nature. The notary studied polygamous unions and the demise of traditional family forms for her PhD thesis at the University of São Paulo and wants to enshrine legal rights for these unions in Brazilian law.

“Studying these families made me want to see how I could help them in my career as a notary and legally register these groupings which already exist,” she said.

The legal status of polygamy varies worldwide but it is accepted in nearly 50 countries, mainly Muslim or African states. Polygamy is legal in Australia and unions are accepted in the UK if the marriage was performed elsewhere.

Brazil has a precedent for a liberal legal attitude to marriage and gay unions, having passed a bill in 2011 to award gay couples the same rights as heterosexual couples. However many religious groups have reacted furiously to the new civil union.

Former Brazilian senator and businessman Luiz Estevão has committed to returning US$234m, which he stole, back to the state.

The ex senator will deposit US$40m immediately into the national Treasury’s bank account, with 96 monthly payments to follow.

“It is the biggest payment for corruption in Brazil’s 500-year history, if not the world. This represents a paradigm shift,” stated the Prosecutor General, Helia Bettero.

It was considered one the biggest corruption cases for Brazil when the ex government official was found to be embezzling public money, destined for the construction of the Regional Tribunal of Labour of São Pablo, for his private construction company in the 1990s. In 2006, Estevão was finally convicted for 36 years in prison for crimes of corruption, embezzlement, fraud, use of false documents, and conspiracy.

Estevão’s case, who is 63 years and a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, goes back to when a company called Incal was awarded a contract to build the Regional Labour Tribunal in 1992.

A few years later, an audit revealed that the costs had been inflated and that the project was abandoned halfway through the contract. At the same time, 90% of the contract had been transferred to Grupo OK, a company owned by Estevão. After this discovery, Congress created a commission to investigate and in 2000 Estevão was the first in Brazil’s history to be expelled from the Senate. After the investigation, it was found that Estevão had taken US$85m, but with inflation, interest, and other costs, the amount now stands at US$234m.

“I need to work and change my life. It’s inadmissible to have the accounts of my children and my business blocked. It’s drama for my whole family,” said Estevão to Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo.

The embezzlement case is another marker of Brazil’s string of breaking the cycle of corruption. Within the past year, president Dilma Rousseff, has asked seven of her ministers to resign based on accusations of shady dealings.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff unveiled yesterday an ambitious, long-term investment scheme for the country. The plan contemplates infrastructure investments for R$133bn (US$66.5bn), to be made within the next 25 years, to expand the road and railway networks.

The aim of the plan is threefold: to boost a stagnant economy, to adjust the country’s lagging infrastructure to its productive capacity, and to generate employment. Rousseff, a critic of the privatisations carried out by president Fernando Henrique Cardoso in the 1990′s, avoided the use of the term ‘privatisation’. However, the construction and operation of roads and railways will be granted to private investors.

Yesterday’s announcement is the first of three. On this first stage, investment will go towards building 75,000 km of roads, at a cost of US$21bn, and 10,000 km of railways, for US$45bn. Most of the money (US$39.7bn) will be invested within the first five years.

It is expected that the next two announcements will come within the next few weeks, and will tackle private investment on ports, airports, and electricity.

Analysts forecast that Brazil’s GDP will grow only 1.81% this year, down from 2.7% in 2011 and 7.5% in 2010. During the announcement, Rousseff said “We want Brazil to grow between 4.5 and 5% yearly. And for that, we hope to build an adequate environment for investment, not only now, but also in the medium term.”

The works will also create an estimated 150,000 direct jobs.

The government expects the tenders to be closed and the contracts awarded by June 2013.