Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for Brazil
Newsline: Iran sacks diplomat for child molestation
Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday it has sacked one of its diplomats who allegedly fondled underaged girls in a swimming pool in Brazil, where he was stationed before being recalled. “After an investigation into the violations by the Iranian employee of the Iranian embassy in Brazil, it was found his behaviour was contrary to administrative regulations and Islamic conduct … thus he was dismissed,” the ministry said in a statement. Brazilian media identified the diplomat as Hekmatollah Ghorbani, 51, and reported that he groped at least four Brazilian girls aged between nine and 15 in a Brasilia pool last month, making them cry and attracting the fury of their parents.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-1-109813-Iran-sacks-diplomat
Newsline: Brazil sex worker may sue U.S. embassy over injuries
A former Brazilian prostitute plans to sue the United States embassy and five of its personnel for injuries sustained outside a strip club late last year, complicating the second of two embarrassing incidents to emerge recently involving American officials and sex workers in South America. Romilda Aparecida Ferreira, 31, and her lawyer said they plan to file suit for injuries, medical expenses, lost income, and psychological trauma after an embassy van ran over her and left her stranded in the club parking lot with a broken collarbone, punctured lung and other injuries. The incident occurred December 29 when an embassy driver was dispatched to the club to pick up three marines and one civilian staffer. A civil suit would compound a case in which Brazilian prosecutors have already said they are considering criminal charges, including assault and failure to provide assistance to an injured person. It also threatens to further tarnish the image of overseas U.S. personnel in the wake of a separate scandal involving U.S. Secret Service members and prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia, earlier this month. Little noticed at the time, the incident in Brasília, Brazil’s capital, gained traction this week when a local reporter asked U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, then on a visit to the country, about what happened. Panetta said the United States had investigated the matter, “severely punished” the marines, and pulled them out of Brazil. Few additional details from the incident have been provided by U.S. officials, including the nature of an unresolved offer Ferreira’s lawyers say was made by the embassy to compensate her in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. Ferreira, who worked as a stripper at the club for three years, said she was traumatized by the incident, which kept her hospitalized for 12 days. Upon her release from the hospital, she said, embassy officials visited her to seek her account of the incident and then offered her nearly 4,000 reais ($2,100), which she rejected. Her lawyers said they then followed up with the embassy, but failed to reach an agreement on payment and a condition that would have required Ferreira to sign a non-disclosure agreement. A U.S. embassy spokesman confirmed there was an inconclusive discussion about compensation, but was unaware of the exact details.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/26/us-usa-brazil-prostitute-idUSBRE83P07W20120426
Newsline: U.S. Embassy prostitution incident in Brazil detailed
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday that three Marines on a U.S. Embassy security team and one embassy staff member were punished for allegedly pushing a prostitute out of a car in Brasilia late last year after a dispute over payment. The incident is similar, but unrelated, to the scandal involving Secret Service agents at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, before President Barack Obama arrived. Panetta, speaking to reporters in Brasilia, said the Marines were pulled out of the country. Two had their ranks reduced, and the embassy staffer was removed from his post. Panetta said he had “no tolerance for that kind of conduct.” A senior defense official said the three Marines — including one supervisor — were members of the embassy security team in Brasilia. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an investigation, said the woman broke her collarbone when she was pushed from the car in late December. The official said the embassy tracked the woman down and paid for her medical expenses. But in the wake of the Cartagena scandal, she has hired an attorney and is suing the embassy.
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20120425/PC16/120429574&slId=12
Newsline: Iranian diplomat accused of Brazil child molestation
Brazil says it will seek an explanation from Iran after an Iranian diplomat was accused of molesting underage girls at a swimming pool in Brasilia. The Iranian official was questioned by police following complaints from parents but released after invoking diplomatic immunity. Iran’s embassy denied the allegations, and said they were the result of a “cultural misunderstanding”. Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota called them “very worrying”. The un-named Iranian diplomat was accused of inappropriately touching girls between 9 and 15 years old at a pool in a private club last weekend, Brazilian media reported. The father of one of the girls told the G1 website that the diplomat was almost lynched by angry parents before security staff intervened. “People wanted to kill him,” the unnamed father said. The Iranian embassy said the allegations were the result of “a misunderstanding resulting from differences in cultural behaviour”. It also accused the Brazilian media of deliberately sensationalising the incident. But Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said he was taking the allegations very seriously and would ask the Iranian embassy for clarification before deciding what action to take.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17780497
Newsline: Australian embassy seeks to help oil execs barred from leaving Brazil
Australian embassy officials in Brazil are seeking to contact three Australian oil company executives who have been banned from leaving the country following an oil spill. ‘‘We can confirm that the Federal Court of Brazil has banned 17 executives of Chevron and Transocean Brazil from leaving Brazil without legal authorisation while an investigation into an oil spill is underway,’’ an official with the Department of Foreign Affairs said. ‘‘Three Australians are reportedly among the group. The Australian embassy in Brasilia is seeking to contact the individuals to offer consular assistance. ‘‘At this stage, neither the embassy nor DFAT has been contacted by the Australians or their employer.’’ Departmental officials said it was not able to provide the names of the individuals due to privacy constraints. Chevron Corp has had two oil spills from an offshore oil rig in the Frade oilfield in the past five months.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/business/australian-oil-execs-barred-from-leaving-brazil-20120320-1vgrk.html
Newsline: Fiji PM opens embassy in Brazil
Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama opened Fiji’s first ever mission in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. While opening the new embassy the Prime Minister said that international co-operation and engagement is critical to achieving global understanding and peace and should not only be confined to nations close to Fiji. He added that enhancing more global integration providesFijiwith more scope to address issues such as climate change and peacekeeping. In the past year, Fiji has opened up resident missions in Indonesia and South Africa. Fiji’s new ambassador to Brazil will be former Permanent Secretary of the Transport Ministry, Cama Tuiloma.
http://www.fijivillage.com/?mod=story&id=300911ee3479d7d23714f5c14c5cca
Newsline: Brazil to set up embassy in Nepal
Brazil is all set to establish its embassy in Nepal after 35 years of signing a strategic agreement. Brazilian officers would be arriving here in Nepali capital Kthmandu within this month with the responsibilities of a residential ambassador. “The cabinet ofBrazilhad decided to establish an embassy inNepalimmediately after Nepal establishes its embassy at Brasilia of Brazil, about one and a half year ago,” said Nepali Ambassador to Brazil Pradyumna Bikram Shah. Foreign Minister Upendra Yadav has reached Brasilia on Monday to inaugurate the Nepali embassy.
Newsline: Palestine to open embassy in Brazil
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has laid the cornerstone for an embassy in Brazil – what will be the first such Palestinian delegation in the western hemisphere. A ceremony was held on Friday to initiate the building’s construction in Brasilia, the capital, and Abbas thanked Brazil for recognising his naiton’s statehood, adding that other countries were following suit. “We thank Brazil for its support in the construction of a Palestine state. This is a favour we will never forget,” Abbas said. Brazil was the first of several South American countries in recent weeks to recognise a Palestinian state along pre-1967 borders. Since then Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador have done the same. Chile, Mexico, Peru and Nicaragua are said to be considering recognition. Israel says the moves are “seriously harmful” to the Middle East peace process and Washington has called them “premature”. However, direct peace talks revived by Washington in September after a year’s suspension collapsed within weeks, and a US-backed drive to keep the process alive is in limbo. In the face of US opposition to a unilateral declaration, Palestinian diplomats are lobbying for widespread recognition of a state within the 1967 borders, recognised by the global community as Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. In a further sign of growing pro-Palestinian sentiment in South America, Mercosur, the regional trade bloc, signed a trade agreement earlier this month with the Palestinian authority. Bolivia broke ties with Israel in 2009 after an attack by the latter on the Palestinian territories. Abbas attends the swearing-in of Brazilian president-elect Dilma Rousseff on Saturday.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/12/20101231172518620189.html
Newsline: Sex Scandal Rocks Ghana Ambassador to Brazil
Ghana’s ambassador to Brazil, Samuel Kofi Dadey, 59, paid R$45,000 to a former employee to stop, via the settlement, a lawsuit in which he was accused of sexual harassment. The case involves allegations of sex, threats, dismissal and an unusual ingredient: the immunity from prosecution of the accused, him being a diplomatic representative of another country. Helen Adewonuola, a Nigerian naturalized Brazilian, 40, who was Mr. Dadey’s secretary until July, accused her boss of threatening to fire her if she did not accept to have sex with him. She said she caved in to pressure and had sex with the ambassador four times. In January of the following year, Adewonuola made the first formal complaint to the Civil Police of the Federal District. A year later, in 2010, the employee filed a court action for damages. The criminal complaint was withdrawn in February 2009 after a conversation between Adewonuola’s husband and the Ghanaian Ambassador. The civil suit was finalized last month, after an agreement in which the ambassador agreed to pay R$45,000. Even after going to the police and instituting civil proceedings, Adewonuola was kept on as an official of the embassy. She was only fired in July after she reported the incident and reporters sought out the Ambassador to obtain his opinion regarding the case. According to Mr. Dadey, until then the employee had not “tried to ruin the” image of their country. The change in the employee’s attitude, he said, forced him to fire her. The ambassador denies having had any extra official relationships with her. The former official of the embassy says she succumbed to the onslaughts of the ambassador for fear of losing her job during a very difficult period in her life. “My husband was unemployed and my youngest son was 4 months old,” she says. Ambassadors have civil and criminal immunity, according to international treaties incorporated by Brazil. But According to the STF (Supreme Federal Court), all states may be sued in court for labor issues. Ambassador Samuel Kofi Dadey said he “never had sex with the former employee or any form of relationship that was not strictly related to work”. According to Dadey, the complaints of harassment are a reaction to the fact that the employee’s functions were changed after some wrong attitude on her part. He also says that in June 2009, she returned from vacation four days late without any communication. Dadey’s attorney said he had nothing to declare.
http://mobile.peacefmonline.com/news/read.php?contentid=95091
Newsline: Zelaya leaves Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa
Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya left the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa where he had been holed up for months after being removed from office. Zelaya, who had been ousted and forced into exile in Costa Rica on June 28, secretly returned to Honduras on September 21. At the time, he sought refuge in the Brazilian Embassy and had not left the compound since. President Porfirio Lobo, who was inaugurated Wednesday, issued a safe conduct order for Zelaya to be able to leave for the Dominican Republic.
