Women Take Power in Brazilian Government

[xchrom]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,809834,00.html


DPA
Brazil's new president, Dilma Rousseff, has quickly stepped out of the shadow of her charismatic predecessor Lula. After one year in office, she is more popular than any former president was at this stage. She has surrounded herself with powerful women, who are now calling the shots in Brasília.

The epicenter of Brazilian power can be found on the fourth floor of the Palacio do Planalto in Brasília, the nation's capital. Liveried waiters elegantly carry trays of coffee through the hallways of the presidential palace, high-ranking officials wait in anterooms and air-conditioning units hum in the offices.

Planning Minister Miriam Belchior rushes past on her way to visit Chief of Staff Gleisi Hoffmann, with whom she will discuss a multi-billion-real investment program to combat poverty. On the way she is greeted by Ideli Salvatti, the woman who manages the government's relations with Congress. Two floors down, Press Secretary Helena Chagas is talking on the phone. In the front office, several women are reviewing the day's newspapers.

Wherever you look in this white marble palace, there are female ministers, female advisers, female experts and female undersecretaries. Only the waiters and the security guards in the entrance hall are men. Thanks to President Dilma Rousseff, everything else at government headquarters is firmly in female hands.

[bemildred]

1. Cool. nt

[xchrom]

2. i thought so, too. nt

[bemildred]

4. We got nothing to lose.

The big monkeys seem to be too excitable, always making messes, might as well try the smaller ones.

[xchrom]

5. ...

[Blue_Tires]

3. kick

[Judi Lynn]

6. Dilma Rousseff proved herself strong, heroic, willing to die for her principles as a torture victim

under the US-supported military dictatorship long ago. She's someone with real character.

Here she is, before the court so long ago. How interesting the judicial figures are hiding their faces.

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All that, and a cancer survivor, too.

Best possible wishes to this mondern day heroine and her well chosen adminstration.

Thank you, xchrom.

[xchrom]

7. sure thing. i'm a fan of her. nt

[Judi Lynn]

8. Adding images of President Obama and family as they met President Rousseff in Brasilia.

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Pres. Barack Obama and Pres. Dilma Rousseff greeting students of a public school -
Divulgação-Roberto Stuckert Filho

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