Walk into a polling station in Belford Roxo, an impoverished city on the fringes of Rio de Janiero, on Oct. 5 and you will be faced with an historic choice. You could vote for Alcides Rolim, the Workers’ Party mayoral candidate promising a “city for all,” or Elizeu Pitorra, a local communist who believes it is “time for a change.” Most voters, however, will probably opt for Barack Obama, a 39-year-old Brazilian who, until recently, was known as Claudio Henrique dos Anjos.
Welcome to Obama-mania, Brazil-style. Few countries have embraced the idea of the first black US president as enthusiastically as Brazil, a country with one of the largest Afro-descendant populations on Earth yet where black faces remain a minority in politics. Obama T-shirts are everywhere, while chat shows and newspaper columns are filled with talk of the 47-year-old Illinois senator.
Now even Brazil’s politicians are lining up for their piece of the pie. Because of a quirk of Brazilian law, candidates are allowed to run under the name of their choice. As a result, at least six Brazilian politicians have officially renamed themselves “Barack Obama” in a bid to get an edge over their rivals in October’s municipal elections.
“In truth it was an accident,” says Belford Roxo’s Obama, an IT consultant who is bidding to become the city’s first black mayor. “I’d been on the television wearing a suit and people thought I looked a bit like him so they started calling me Barack Obama. They’d see me in the street and shout: ‘Hey! Barack!’ So I decided to register it.”
Like his illustrious US counterpart, who has relatives in Kenya, Brazil’s Obama also has one foot in Africa. His grandfather was the descendant of slaves.
He admits he has also been looking to his namesake’s speeches for inspiration.
“I say the same things. I talk about political renewal, change, about transforming the city,” he said.
Despite their similarities the two Obamas have yet to meet although the Brazilian Obama says that as mayor he would “extend an invitation” to the real Obama to dine in Belford Roxo.
“It would be great if he could come and see our reality,” he beams. “Just imagine.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing