Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Masa said work on the establishment of a joint Argentine-Brazilian currency will begin as early as this week, the Argentine press reported.
“There is a decision to start studying the parameters necessary to create a common currency, this concerns everything from taxation issues to the size of the economies and the role of central banks,” Masa said in a conversation with Argentine journalists.
“The goal is to give impetus to regional trade and reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar,” the minister added.
“We have to explore the mechanisms of commercial integration. I am not going to speak with false expectations, because this is only the first step in the long journey that Latin America must take,” Masa stressed.
However, the project initiated by Argentina and Brazil is not limited to these two countries. Other countries in the region may join the initiative in the future.
The idea of creating a common currency for the two countries was voiced at a recent meeting between the presidents of Argentina and Brazil, Alberto Fernandez and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Citizens of Brazil on Sunday will vote in a general election, which will determine the new president and vice president of the country, the composition of the National Congress (parliament), governors, lieutenant governors and deputies of state legislatures.
The main attention is riveted to the election of the head of state. Seven candidates are vying for the post, but two have the most support among the Brazilian population: incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro is a right-wing politician, while Lula da Silva represents the left.
According to the latest Datafolha poll before the vote, Lula da Silva could get 50% of the vote in the first round, and Bolsonaro – 36%. The remaining votes were distributed among five more candidates. Observers note that it cannot be ruled out that Lula da Silva, despite a large lead over Bolsonaro, will not be able to achieve election in the first round.
To win in the first round, a candidate needs to get more than 50% of the votes. If this fails, then a second round is held between the two strongest candidates.
Lula da Silva is 76 years old, he was previously going to take part in the 2018 elections, but he could not do it, as he was convicted and ended up in prison. Despite this, the Brazilians continued to have sympathy for him, and, judging by the polls, even behind bars, Lula da Silva remained the most popular politician in the country.
As a result, the Brazilian Workers’ Party nominated Fernando Addada as a presidential candidate in his place. This politician lost to the current President Bolsonaro.
Lula da Silva ruled Brazil from 2003 to 2010, and in 2017 he was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison for money laundering and corruption. Later, the term was increased to 12 years. He himself never admitted his guilt, his lawyers eventually managed to appeal the verdict. In 2021, the country’s Supreme Court annulled his anti-corruption conviction. Now he can run for reelection again.
Brazilians remember his period in office due to his socially oriented economic policy, and the current election program is also built with a leftist bias: he focuses on the poorest segments of the Brazilian population, promises to expand social programs and increase funding for infrastructure projects, intends to fight for the conservation of forests in the Amazon in in contrast to Bolsonaro, who was criticized for heavy deforestation during his term.
Bolsonaro, 67, is a former military and congressman who was known in Brazil for his controversial remarks about ethnic and sexual minorities and women, as well as for his far-right conservative views, even before he assumed the presidency, and has repeatedly expressed nostalgia for military dictatorship in Brazil.
Bolsonaro has been criticized by many Brazilians for what they see as downplaying the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. Polls showed that the citizens of the country believe that there is corruption in the government under Bolsonaro and that he is incapable of governing the country. Polls conducted throughout August and September indicated that Bolsonaro’s approval rate had fallen to record lows, with between half and two-thirds of respondents disapproving of his work at various times.
During the election campaign, Bolsonaro continued to voice conservative views, promising to defend the traditional values of Christians, criticize the country’s electronic voting system and even members of the election commission that they are “working against him.” Brazilians will remember his campaign for scandals: Bolsonaro made harsh, radical statements, which were then actively distributed on social networks, once he got into a fight with a blogger who criticized him at a public event.
In addition, Brazilians on Sunday will elect 27 out of 81 senators, 513 members of the Chamber of Deputies, 27 governors and members of state legislatures.
Ukrainian athletes won six medals on the eleventh day of the Deaflympic Games in Caxias do Sul (Brazil), the Ministry of Youth and Sports reported.
According to the press service of the ministry, at the XXIV Summer Deaflympics, the national deaflympics team of Ukraine on the eleventh day won 6 more awards – 3 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze.
In particular, Ukrainians won four awards in long-distance orienteering: Anna Fedoseeva and Alexander Sankin brought gold, Ruslan Nikolaenko and Anna Androsovich won silver and bronze, respectively.
The Ukrainian national team won two more awards in bullet shooting: Violeta Lykova won the gold medal in shooting from a small-caliber rifle from three positions, and Sergey Fomin won a bronze medal in high-speed shooting from a small-caliber pistol, 25 m.
Thus, Ukraine remains the absolute leader in the medal count with 116 awards, including 51 gold, 31 silver and 34 bronze medals.
Ukrainian athletes won thirteen medals on the seventh day of the Deaflympic Games in Caxias do Sul (Brazil), the Ministry of Youth and Sports reported.
According to the press service of the ministry, at the XXIV Summer Deaflympics, the national deaflympics team of Ukraine won 13 awards on the seventh day – 8 gold, 1 silver and 4 bronze.
In particular, the gold medals for Ukraine were won by: Elisaveta Topchanyuk (cycling, criterium), Nazar Levitsky, Anna Fedoseyeva (orienteering, mixed relay), Oleksiy Lazebnik, Inna Afonchenko (ball shooting, 10 m air pistol, mixed), Natalka Ursulenko ( shot put), Maxim Ovcharenko, Roksolana Budnik (table tennis, mixed team), Irina Tereshchenko (swimming, 100 m breaststroke), Dmitry Rudenko, Sergey Drach, Solomiya Kuprich, Kristina Kinyaikina (athletics, mixed relay 4×40) and swimmers Artem Karnysh , Ivan Zinenko, Maxim Dudnik, Vladislav Adamovich in the 4x200m free style relay.
Athlete Yekaterina Potapenko won silver in the heptathlon.
Bronze was won by Nikolay Nosenko (athletics, 100m), Vladislav Kremlyakov (swimming, 50m backstroke), Maria Levanovich (taekwondo, up to 67 kg) and Gennady Zakladnoy and Yulia Khodko in table tennis among mixed teams.
In general, the national Deaflympic team of Ukraine won 77 medals: 39 gold, 16 silver and 22 bronze, and continues to occupy a leading position at the Summer Deaflympiad.
Brazil is opening a program for the integration of Ukrainian scientists, the Ministry of Education and Science reports.
“The government of the State of Paraná, with the support of the Araucaria Foundation and the General Directorate of Science, Technology and Higher Education (SETI) of Brazil, announced the admission and integration of Ukrainian scientists who were forced to leave the country due to the full-scale military invasion of Russia,” the press service of the Ministry of Education said.
It is noted that the main goal of the program is to provide an opportunity for scientists from Ukrainian universities to continue their research at the universities of the state of Paraná for up to two years.
It is expected that the program will involve 50 scientists with a scientific title of doctor of projects. These instructors will have the opportunity to teach and develop their skills at the universities of the state of Paraná.
Ukraine in January-February of this year reduced the export of pig iron in kind by 24.4% compared to the same period last year, to 383,523 tonnes.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service on Tuesday, during the specified period, the export of cast iron in monetary terms grew by 0.7%, to $154.176 million.
At the same time, cast iron was mainly exported to the United States (66.92% of deliveries in monetary terms), as well as to Turkey (8.84%) and Brazil (7.38%).
In January-February-2021, Ukraine imported 34 tonnes of cast iron worth $29,000 from Germany (60%) and Slovakia (40%), while in the first two months of 2020 it imported 100 tonnes of similar products worth $71,000.
