Summary

Communication – In December this year will be held the 1st National Communication Conference (Confecom) aimed at defining the criteria and parameters that will guide the setting of rules and regulations for Brazil’s media.

Global warming – Despite mounting pressure to reduce the devastation in the Amazon forest and the cerrado, the Brazilian government is against the adoption of forest credits, as the Redds, on the grounds that they inhibit investments by rich countries in less pollutant technologies.

Environment – The Ministry of the Environment and the Brazilian Federation of Banks signed the Green Protocol, a document in which the private financial sector pledges to extend credit only to undertakings that contribute to the country’s sustainable development.

Health – According to the WHO, the so-called neglected diseases affect more than one billion people. However, there are few medications designed to combat them, since laboratories prefer investing in the development of drugs with guaranteed financial return.

Pollution – In Brazil, the population does not know what to do when the time comes to dispose of medication that will no longer be used. Domestic garbage and the toilet are, quite often, the destination of such substances, which may provoke environmental or even public health problems.

Economy – Foreign direct investment is increasingly being redirected from developed to emerging countries. In 2009, Brazil appears in fourth in this ranking, only trailing behind China, the United States and India.

Tourism – Brazil is beginning to exploit alternative routes as a way to better take advantage of its tourist potentialities. With the diversification, the sector gains in sustainability and economic importance.

Memory – According to official data, today Brazil has over 2.6 thousand museums, 300 of which were opened in the last eight years. The majority is thematic, a modern and popular concept that has become mainstream worldwide.

Food supply – At the Entrepots and General Warehouses Company of São Paulo (Ceagesp), the quantity and variety of greens, legumes, fruit, fish, etc. are superlative. From this food supply center leave the products that will feed the population of the largest city in the country.

Agri-business – Brazil is the world’s sixth producer of milk, yet has the potential to become the first if it surmounts obstacles such as infrastructure problems, its poorly skilled workforce and the insufficient use of technology.

Science – A serious problem faced by developing nations is the emigration of good part of their highly-qualified workforce, the so-called brain drain. In the case of Brazil, however, a number of scientists are returning home with the purpose of giving their contribution to the country.

Behavior – Vandalized pay phones, damaged public lighting and graffiti painted walls are just some examples of the vandals’ action, an urban plague that generates incalculable losses. Fighting such practice entails, primarily,
investments in the population’s education and awareness.

History – In 2009, an important event of the twentieth century turns fifty years old: the descending of the Sierra Maestra hillsides by Fidel Castro and his comrades and the march on Havana to topple the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

Thematic panels – Hugo Napoleão has already held offices as governor, minister of State, representative and senator of the Republic. With broad political experience, he debated the bills for the so-called political overhaul presently being discussed in the country with the members of the São Paulo State Fecomercio, Sesc and Senac Council of Economics, Sociology and Politics.
At the same council yet on a different date, scientist Miguel Nicolelis spoke on the Natal Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute for Neurosciences, a compound that is being built in Rio Grande do Norte, in the Brazilian northeast, with educational and scientific purposes and focused on technological research and capacity building.