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The Spanish newspaper El Pais reports that Julian Assange is considering Brasil as a new home and WikiLeaks base.
Assange reportedly said: Brasil... "is sufficiently large so as to resist U.S. pressure; the country has the requisite economic and military means to do so." He added that Brasil "is not like China or Russia which are intolerant toward freedom of the press."
Outgoing President "Lula" da Silva has defended Assange, calling him a champion of free expression. "I don't know if they put up signs like those from Westerns saying, 'wanted dead or alive.'The man was arrested and I'm not seeing any protest defending freedom of expression...Instead of blaming the person who disclosed it, blame the person who wrote this nonsense. Otherwise, we wouldn't have the scandal we now have."
But that's Lula. What does president-elect Dilma Rousseff think about WikiLeaks and Assange?
Also, as Kozloff explains, Brasil does not come off looking strong nor innocent in some of the cables, especially during the GW Bush years.
ALSO: The media report that Lula da Silva will not extradite former Italian terrorist Cesare Battisti, posing a possible challenge to Brasil's ties with Italy.Brasil's supreme court ruled last year that Battisti should be extradited on murder convictions in Italy but gave the final decision to Lula.
Battisti denies killing anyone and says he is being persecuted politically in Italy. He faces life in prison there for murders in the 1970s when he belonged to a guerrilla group.
FOR DETAILS, SEE:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/29/brazilian-president-extradite-cesare-battisti
ALSO: Oil giant Petrobras has announced that it will rename its biggest offshore Tupi oil field after outgoing President Lula da Silva. Brasil's the crown jewel in the so-called subsalt oil fields will now be known simply as the "Lula." President Lula da Silva responded by saying : "I'm proud," he told reporters. "But it's not my name -- it's a (mollusk)."
FOR DETAILS, SEE:
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFN2928116520101229
