President travels to participate in opening ceremony of 67th United Nations General Assembly

President Dilma Rousseff traveled to New York yesterday, Sunday, September 23. She will speak at the opening ceremony of 67th United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday when she is expected to demand a joint effort to contain the consequences of the international financial crisis that threatens efforts to expand social inclusion and reduce poverty worldwide. Dilma will also report on advances made at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development – Rio + 20 that took place in June. In doing so, she will push for a stronger global effort in the direction of sustainable development calling on nations around the world to work on practical and objective goals such as those established at the Rio de Janeiro conference.

Dilma travels with her daughter, Paula Arauja, and ministers Antonio Patriota (Foreign Relations), Marco Aurélio Garcia (Special Secretariat for International Affairs), Aloizio Mercandante (Education), Fernando Pimentel (Development, Industry and Foreign Trade), Aguinaldo Ribeiro (Cities) and Helena Chagas (Social Communication). They will be in New York until September 26.

The only meeting Dilma has scheduled is with the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. However, she may have talks with the president of the European Commission, Durão Barroso.

With regard to world politics, Dilma will reiterate the need to respect internal sovereignty and the democratic order, positions Brazil has defended consistently and remain pertinent to the situations in Syria and Paraguay. In Syria, Dilma will call for an end to violence, peace through dialogue and respect for human rights. She will express opposition to military intervention.

She will also once again support the Palestinian right to an independent state and call for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Dilma will point out that Latin American regional integration is directly related to democracy and for that reason area leaders were concerned about the legality of the removal of president Fernando Lugo of Paraguay in June.

Minister Antonio Patriota will have a parallel schedule of meetings, including the G4 (Brazil, Japan, India and Germany) and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), mainly dealing with discussions of expanding the UN Security Council.