Prince Charles,a long-term campaigner in the fight against climate change said that that tackling the environmental threat should have a higher priority than fighting poverty, as the danger posed by global warming is the greatest threat facing mankind.

The two men discussed a range of issues from how the global economic slowdown is affecting Brazil to ways of encouraging sustainable development in the country.

Brazil is home to the Amazon - the world’s largest rainforest - and is a key partner in Britain’s efforts to get an agreement between nations at a major climate summit being staged in Copenhagen in December.

Last summer President Lula launched a global fund to protect the rainforest and combat climate change with officials hoping to raise 21 billion US dollars by 2021.

Promoting low-carbon, high-growth economies in South America is also a major concern for the British Government which has asked the Prince to visit South America.

The prince, accompanied by his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall are touring South America and have already visited Chile. They will spend four days in Brazil then travel to Ecuador and its Galapagos islands.

The girl, who was not identified because she is a minor, was last week found to be four months’ pregnant after being taken to hospital suffering stomach pains.

Officials said she told them she had suffered sexual abuse by her stepfather since the age of six.

Police said the 23-year-old stepfather also allegedly sexually abused the girl’s physically handicapped 14-year-old sister.

He was arrested a week ago and is being kept in protective custody. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

Abortion is illegal in Brazil, which has more Catholics than any other nation, but judges can make exceptions if the mother’s life is in danger or the fetus has no chance of survival.

The case has sparked off fierce debate in Brazil, Fatima Maia, director of the public university hospital where the abortion was performed, said the pregnancy, which was in its 15th week, posed a serious risk to the girl, who weighs 80 pounds.

But Marcio Miranda, a lawyer for the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in northeastern Brazil, said the girl should have carried the twins to term and had a Caesarean section. “It’s the law of God: Do not kill,” he said in comments reported by the newspaper

An archbishop for the northern region where the termination was conducted, Father Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, said the church was excommunicating all those responsible for the abortion: the medical team and the girl’s mother.

The operation - carried out because of doctors’ fears the slender girl might die if she carried the fetuses to term - was a crime in the eyes of the chuch, he said.

“God’s law is above any human law. So when a human law … is contrary to God’s law, this human law has no value,” Archbishop Cardoso told the news television network Globo.

“The adults who approved, who carried out this abortion, will be excommunicated,” said the archbishop for the Recife region.

Brazil’s health minister accused the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday of an “extreme” and “inadequate” position.

“I believe the position of the church is extreme, radical and inadequate,” Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao said on a government radio program.

“I am shocked by the radical position of this religion which, wrongly saying it is defending a life, puts another life in danger that is as important as any other.”

Temporao, who has frequently challenged the church on issues from abortions to the government’s supply of free condoms, defended the doctors’ decision to perform the abortion, saying they had acted “strictly within the law.”

“I did raise it at the highest levels of the Brazilian government,” Clinton, told NBC television in an interview of the case of Sean Goldman.

“I’ve been working with several members of Congress. We are hoping that this case gets resolved.”

“It is in their court system. They have an independent judiciary like we have an independent judiciary. Sometimes we’re on the receiving end by families elsewhere in the world,” Clinton added.

Clinton said Goldman’s case is an example of a problem around the world. She said there were nearly 50 U.S. children in similar situations in Brazil who should be returned to the U.S. — and more around the world.

She compared the case to the Elian Gonzalez custody battle, which ended in 2000 when the administration of her husband, President Bill Clinton, decided that a young boy should be returned to his father in Cuba over the objections of relatives in Miami.

American David Goldman in 1999 wed Brazilian Bruna Carneiro Ribeiro, who gave birth to Sean in 2000. The family lived in the eastern US state of New Jersey.

Goldman says that when he and his wife went to Brazil for a visit in 2004, she disappeared and then called him to say the marriage was over and she would not be returning to the United States.

She got a Brazilian judge to grant a divorce, and then she remarried. She died in childbirth in August.

David Goldman reestablished contact with her family and started legal efforts to win custody of his son, and in September he visited Brazil but made no progress.

Clinton, who was speaking from Jerusalem, stressed that: “It is important that we spend some time working with friends and partners like Brazil.

“This is an ally on many important issues with the United States, a neighbor, and Latin America, and we have similar concerns with others — that we have an international agreement about how to handle these child custody cases. We have one, the Hague Convention.”

Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen,

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, 31 and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen, 28, tied the knot in a romantic ceremony at St. Monica Catholic Church in Santa Monica, California, on Thursday night with only close friends and family in attendance.

The private ceremony was attended by immediate family, including Brady’s 1-year-old son, John, whose mother is his ex-girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan.

The Brazilian-born model, reportedly one of the wealthiest women in the world, had been dating the New England Patriots quarterback since 2006. She previously dated Leonardo DiCaprio.

Brady and Bundchen had denied the engagement rumors that started in December. This is the first marriage for both.

This new class of drug peddlers is a far cry from the heavily armed drug lords and their young, impoverished foot soldiers in the slums, where the Brazilian police send small armies to wage deadly battles against them. Instead, those accused of dealing Ecstasy are often university-educated clubbers in the booming electronic dance music scene, an import from Europe and the United States that is taking South America by storm.
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The sheaths are to be handed out during the extravagant parades featuring bare-breasted models and stirring drums, and in the innumerable street parties that will take place across the country between February 19 and 25.

Church officials in Brazil, home to the world’s largest Roman Catholic population, have opposed the condom program. Catholic Church preaches sexual abstinence over condom use. but In a dig at churches, Temporao said: “The churches pray. And we are working to reduce the number of cases of illness.”

Also Friday, Brazil Health Ministry hosted a “Mature Woman’s Block Party” in Rio de Janeiro to highlight its latest target demographic: women over the age of 50, about 70 percent of whom do not use condoms, according to the ministry.

Health officials said AIDS cases have tripled among that group in the last decade, from 3.7 cases per 100,000 people to 11.6.

“We senior citizens are still sexually active nowadays, so these types of campaigns are very important,” said Ana Leila Goncalves, a 62-year-old grandmother who took part in the event.

Earlier this month, the health ministry reported it would spend $500,000 this year on 15 million small packets of personal lubricant, which it said helps keep condoms from breaking.

Held since 2004 by Insafe – a European network that coordinates Internet safety awareness, the Safer Internet Day is always held in February, aiming to promote the conscious use, safe and responsible web and mobile phones, especially among young people and children.

Brazil has participated since 2008, this year Safer Internet Day in Brazil involves a series of internet safety events and activities organized by the non-governmental organization, Safernet, which defends human rights in the virtual environment, and the Federal Public Ministry of Sao Paulo.

Usher’s reps say Tameka Raymond is in a Brazilian hospital after “suffering complications from routine surgery.”  She is in stable condition and Usher is with her at the hospital, according to the reps. No further details are being released. apparently an American neurosurgeon is already on the way to South America for help.

Tameka, 37, recently gave birth to the couple’s second child, Naviyd Ely Raymond. The couple’s first child, Usher Raymond V, was born in November 2007.

The couple were married on Aug. 3, 2007. Tameka formerly worked as Usher’s stylist.

The missing included four babies, Paulo Roberto Pereira, a spokesman for regional charter airline Manaus Aero Taxi, told local media.

According to Manaus Aeorotaxi’s passenger list, the plane was carrying 17 adults, seven children and two crew members, local media reported.

Authorities said the plane took off Saturday from Coari, about 225 miles (362 kilometers) southwest of Manaus, and fell into the Manacapuru river.

Civil Defense Coordinator Daniel Guedes told O Coariense, a local Coari newspaper, that the plane was trying to make an emergency landing on a make-shift landing strip.

“The circumstances and causes of the accident are still not known and are being investigated by authorities,” Manaus Aerotaxi said in a statement.

Sean Goldman, who is 8 years old, was taken to Brazil by his mother Bruna Goldman in 2004, and kept in Brazil without the consent of the boy’s father - David Goldman
His Mother was married another man there and died giving birth to another child last year. Goldman says he has not been allowed to see his son since. Sean is currently in Brazil with his stepfather.

A congressman, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith has joined the attempt to get Sean Goldman return by asking Congress to pass a resolution to pressure Brazil to return Sean Goldman to his father, David, of Tinton Falls.

Smith says not returning custody to Goldman is a violation of an international treaty. The Republican from Hamilton Township is known for delving into human
rights issues around the world,

In January, Sen. Lautenberg personally met with David Goldman and U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Clifford Sobel in separate meetings about the abduction case.

Here is a copy of the Senators’ letter

Dear President Lula:

We are writing to bring your attention to an international custody dispute involving David Goldman, a United States citizen from New Jersey, and his son, Sean Goldman.  In 2004, Sean, a United States citizen, was taken to Brazil by Mr. Goldman’s late wife, Bruna Goldman, for a two-week vacation.  Once in Brazil, Mrs. Goldman informed Mr. Goldman that she would permanently stay in Brazil with the child without Mr. Goldman’s consent. Since that time, Mr. Goldman has not been permitted to visit with or gain custody of his son, even after Mrs. Goldman’s death in 2008.

For the past four years, Mr. Goldman has been working within Brazilian and U.S. courts, to secure return of his son and assert his parental rights.  On August 26, 2004, two months after the child’s arrival with his Mother in Brazil, the Superior Court of the State of New Jersey issued a ruling ordering that Sean be returned to the United States.  When the child was not returned, Mr. Goldman filed judicial proceedings with the Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro based on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of the International Abduction of Children.  Under the Hague Convention, of which both the U.S. and Brazil are signatories, a child who is a habitual resident in one party country, and who has been removed to another party country in violation of the parent’s custodial rights, is to be returned to the country of habitual residence.

The failure to return Sean to Mr. Goldman appears to be in direct contradiction to the intentions of the Hague Convention.  It is our understanding that Mr. Goldman has been prevented from securing the return of Sean to the United States based upon Article 12 of the Hague Convention, which states that it is within a judge’s discretionary power to refuse return of a child if the application for return is made more than one year after the date of the taking and the child has become settled in the new environment.  However, this application of Article 12 hardly seems fair under these circumstances, and seems inconsistent with the language and purpose of the Treaty.  Mr. Goldman did petition for the return of his child within a year of his being taken to Brazil.  Additionally, it would set a dangerous precedent to deny parental rights based of the length of time for which the parent was denied access to the child and time-consuming judicial proceedings.

Further, with the death of Bruna Goldman, any possible argument of the child having become acclimated in the care of his Mother has dissipated.  Mr. Goldman is Sean’s remaining biological and legal parent.

As we are sure you can appreciate, these four years have been extremely painful for Mr. Goldman.  He has not been permitted to see his son Sean since 2004 - and even when Mr. Goldman traveled to Rio de Janeiro in October 2008 for visitation ordered by the Brazilian court, Sean was hidden from him and those rights were violated.  Many diplomatic efforts have been made to ensure Sean’s return to his father.  The U.S. Embassy in Brazil has repeatedly urged Brazilian authorities to recognize Mr. Goldman’s paternal rights and the international and national laws that favor his case. Furthermore, the Special Secretariat for Human Rights of the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil, the central authority for the Hague Convention in Brazil, has sent a request to the Office of the Attorney General for the return of Sean to the U.S.

Given the strong and friendly relationship between our two countries, we are writing to respectfully ask that you examine this case and take appropriate action to reunite Sean and his father.  We also request a meeting with Ambassador Antonio de Aguiar Patriota at his earliest possible convenience. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ)
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ)