Posted by Rachel
President Lula is making a big splash in the U.S. this week, where he’s attending several important events. 
First, he accepted an award from the Woodrow Wilson Center, where he celebrated with other world leaders. Yesterday, he attended the UN General Assembly in New York, where he gave a long speech (watch and read the speech here). Now he is off to Pittsburgh for the G20 Summit.
Also, Lula was featured in Newsweek this week as “the most popular politician on earth” — read the article here. There’s also a special Q and A section with Lula available on the Newsweek website.
Posted by Rachel
At this week’s G-8 summit in Italy, President Lula of Brazil gave President Obama an official Brazil soccer jersey signed by members of the national team.
The signatures included those of “Edmílson, Gomes, Lúcio, Vágner Love, Daniel Carvalho, Gilberto Silva, Ronaldinho Gaúcho, Elano, Robinho, Júlio Baptista, Alex and Dida.”
President Lula also teased President Obama about the US team’s 3-2 loss to Brazil last week, chanting “Yes, we can” several times. Obama joked about the game and took the teasing lightly, making a sad face while holding up the shirt to show his disappointment in the US loss. Lula also gave the same signed shirts to members of the G-5 earlier in the week.
Posted by Rachel
Effective February 1st, the national minimum wage in Brazil was raised to R$465 per month (US$201) from R$415 by order of the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The salary increase is expected to affect twenty percent of the Brazilian population, about 42 million people. However, each state has its own legal minimum wage, and it is common for employers to pay below the minimum wage.
The president passed a provisional order, expected to be ratified by Congress this week. Some politicians hope the move will also include incentives to prevent companies from laying off workers, since higher wages and lower demand due to the crisis may lead to job losses.
The economic crisis recently hit Brazil with the loss of 655,000 jobs in December, as well as recent lay offs in multinational companies, like Deere’s factory lay offs in January.
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