Brazilian balancing act: Lula’s foreign policy plans

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Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Ora Ugumbi. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Despite progress across much of the world, protections for LGBT rights in Ukraine have lagged for for years. But since the invasion, there's been a much more open embrace of gay soldiers on the front lines. And pulling a sickie is the oldest trick in the book. A few sniffs here and a croak there used to be all you needed to convince your boss that you deserved a day off. Now, thanks to a new algorithm, it looks like the jig is up. First up, though, Brazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has been on a whirlwind diplomatic tour. Earlier this month, Lula, as he's widely known, left Beijing with a pledge to boost economic ties with China. This week, he's in Portugal and Spain trying to spur new investments between the EU and Brazil. But his diplomatic efforts have not been without controversy. On a stop in the United Arab Emirates, Lula sparked a diplomatic row with America over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Lula told reporters that neither Presidents Putin nor Zelensky were trying to stop the conflict and suggested that rather than promoting peace, America and the EU were encouraging war by providing weapons to Ukrainian forces. Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, welcomed the comments, but Washington was much less enthusiastic. Of course we want this war to end. Of course we do. And we support President Zelensky's call for a just end to Russia's war of choice. And again, what we heard, the tone was not neutral and it is not true. And so we'll, you know, we'll continue to speak out against that. Despite American criticism, Lula has not backed down. His attempts to take on the trickiest international challenges of the day are part of his wider plans to make Brazil a powerful player on the world stage. But trying to buddy up with Russia, China and America all at the same time is a Risky strategy.

Lula wants Brazil to have a seat at the table on the most important issues of the day.

Ana Lancres covers Latin America for the Economist.

This isn't surprising. He invested a lot in foreign policy during his first two terms in office between 2003 and 2010. His achievements included forming the BRICS, which is a bloc of emerging market countries that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. And he also tried to broker a deal over Iran's nuclear program with Turkey. That deal failed, but it shows you how Lula really tried to play in the big leagues. The world today is a very different place than when Lula was last in power, and that impacts Brazil's foreign policy.

How is the world a different place? What's changed?

Well, firstly, the geopolitical situation is markedly different. The last time Lula was in charge, America was the only really powerful country, and China was a much smaller player. Today, China is a superpower in its own right. And Latin America is also more troubled. There have been increased human rights violations since Lula was last in power. And of course, there's a war in Ukraine. Lula has chosen to stay neutral, but that risks angering the West. Domestically, Brazil is way more polarized than it was in Lula's previous stints in office. He has less support, and that makes his attempts at foreign diplomacy a little bit trickier. Some analysts even interpret Lula's activist foreign policy as a way to regain domestic standing among groups that have turned more hostile towards them.

And in light of all this, what are Lula's ambitions this time around?

So Lula wants to bring Brazil back to the forefront of international politics. And Brazil has historically been a very important power in the region. It makes up around a third of the population of Latin America and almost a third of the region's gdp. And for years, it's tried to get a permanent place on the UN Security Council. But the country's global aspirations suffered in recent years because first, Brazil had a really bad recession in the mid 2010s, and so Lula's predecessors turned inwards to deal with that. And then the most recent president before Lula, Jair Bolsonaro, was a right wing populist who spent his time bashing China and limited his foreign visits to other nationalist politicians like Donald Trump. Now, in Lula's third administration, his priority is to repair the damage Bolsonaro and his predecessors caused, look out outwards once more, and improve Brazil's standing on the world stage. So in his victory speech after being elected, he told the world.

Brazil is back. And what does Lula need to do to show the world that Brazil really is back?

Well, first, Lula needs to manage the rivalry between the US And China, and he's been very clear that he wants to have good relations with everyone. Brazil's foreign minister says Brazil will not have any automatic alignments like many countries in the Global South. So Lula signed over a dozen new deals on his trip to China, which has been Brazil's largest trading partner since 2009. And the deals ranged from cooperation in renewable energy to semiconductors and satellites. Also, before the trip, dozens of other deals had been struck in the agriculture sector. And he still got close ties to America. So in February, he visited President Joe Biden and they bonded over shared democratic values, human rights, and their concern for the environment. America is still the largest investor by far in Brazil, and trade with the US Includes higher value goods like planes and steel. But on his recent visit to China, Lula also took shots at the US which could risk angering it. For example, he said other countries should stop trading in dollars. And in interviews with Chinese media on the trip, he said economic development in countries like China and Brazil make existing powers uneasy, and also said these powers see themselves as masters of the. The second big challenge Lula needs to meet is to figure out Brazil's long term position on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

And where does Brazil stand on the invasion?

It's complex and Lula has really stumbled here. He has proposed setting up a group of what he calls neutral countries that would include India, Indonesia and China to peacefully end the war. But details on that group are scarce. And he's been very soft on Russia. Last year he said that Ukraine's president was as responsible as Putin for the war. In January, he reiterated the point after rejecting Germany's request to send ammunition to Ukraine. And then he reiterated the point on his trip to China and the United Arab Emirates. As much as Brazil says it wants to broker peace, it first of all lacks the heft to get any side to really stick to a deal if a deal is agreed. And second, the narrative that Brazil is an impartial and peace loving country looks a bit weaker given these comments and the fact that Brazil's arms industry sells weapons to other countries in conflict, such as Saudi Arabia and the uae, which are involved in a civil war in Yemen.

So, Anna, you've painted a picture of what Lula is facing globally, but how about the regional picture?

So that's actually Lula's third big challenge, which is re engaging with other countries in Latin America after Bolsonaro turned away from Brazil's neighbors. Lula has had some success in doing this. In January, his first state visit was to Argentina and then to Uruguay. He has revived talking shops on regional cooperation, and he's pushing hard to get a trade deal signed between the European Union and Mercosur, a trade bloc made up of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. And he sent his top foreign policy aide to Venezuela to talk to the country's autocrat, Nicolas Maduro, as well as to the opposition. And he was very well received there. But Lula's had less success with Nicaragua. He compared the rule of that country's dictator, Daniel Ortega, to that of German Chancellor Angela Meakle's tenure of a similar length. And that's obviously not going to go down very well with Nicaragua's opposition.

So it seems Brazil is in a tight spot on several diplomatic fronts. Are there any brighter spots for Lula's administration?

Definitely. Lula's biggest chance for success on the world stage is probably through the environment. Most of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazil, and Bolsonaro made Brazil an international pariah by supporting deforestation. Lula has made it very clear that one of his top priorities in his third term is to protect the Amazon and the environment more broadly. So he wants to reactivate a treaty from 1978 called the Amazon Pact, which brings together the eight countries that share the rainforest. He's also in talks with the other two big rainforest powers in the world, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia, to work out how to reduce deforestation. He revived the Amazon Fund, a billion dollar mechanism funded mainly by European countries, to protect the rainforest. Lula has a proven track record of success at lowering deforestation in the Amazon. So this means Brazil is already a global power on what is actually the biggest issue for humanity's future, which is climate change. Solula may be better off spending his time focusing on the environment, where Brazil actually has clout, than on grand political topics where Brazil has little or none.

Anna, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you, Orey.

Kyiv's early pride marches took place soon after Ukraine's 2014 revolution. The few people who were brave enough to attend them faced serious intimidation. Many were kept away altogether by the threat of violence, and they weren't protected by hate crime laws as in many other countries. But things are changing. Since Russia's first full scale invasion, thousands of Ukrainian recruits of all genders and sexual orientations have rushed to the front lines, taking their identities with them. And that appears to be accelerating the acceptance of gay people just like Pasha.

It can't have been easy for Pasha, now 21, growing up gay in Ukraine.

Wendell Stevenson writes for the Economist from Kyiv.

Homosexual sex has been decriminalized in Ukraine since independence, since 1991. But the acceptance of gay rights and LGBTQ issues has not been universal. Pasha nevertheless wanted to join the army and did so before the full scale invasion in 2021.

And how did Pasha find the army as a gay man?

Initially, it was difficult. He didn't tell people he was gay. And in training, his barrack mates found out he had been texting a man he knew certain what he called kind of spicy text. And his commander called him out of the barracks, out of his room. He left the phone by his bed with the screen on. And some of his fellow soldiers and his roommates found the texts. It led to some bullying, he said. Some of it was physical. They called him faggot and all that stuff. But after his fellow recruits got to know him better, the intimidation died down, and he's now serving on the front lines.

And do his fellow soldiers accept him and his sexuality now?

Everybody in his unit, over 180 people, now know he's gay. He's very proudly out. He's embraced it. He posts selfies from the front lines, looking very fit in his camo fatigues with his washboard abs and immaculate stubble. There are pictures of him with his boyfriend. And he's also now a member of the LGBTQI military, a kind of Instagram account that features LGBT people in military service and their stories, and that even has a link where you can buy military merch and military patches depicting armored unicorns breathing fire and rainbows, as well as Ukrainian flags. He told me that whenever he serves, everyone says, you are here at war. In principle, I have no right to call you gay or faggot. You're just a person, like all of us, protecting us on an equal footing.

And is this a unique story?

Far from it. There are thousands of gay people now serving in the Ukrainian armed forces, and they're often wearing rainbow badges next to the Ukrainian blue and yellow on their uniform. LGBT groups have also been very much visible at the forefront of humanitarian volunteering. And this general visibility has really led to a sea change in Ukrainian society. There's now a bill before parliament that would give same sex couples the right to register civil partnerships, something that was really unimaginable even a year ago. And there was a petition signed by over 25,000 people recently that meets the threshold for presidential consideration, suggesting that there's really kind of support for increasing the rights of LGBTQ people in the military. Over the last few years, several polls have shown that more than half of Ukrainians think that gay and bisexual people should enjoy equal rights. And Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has signaled support for the bill, but his government has yet to make it a priority. But increasingly popular support for the army in general means that protecting the rights of gay people in the military is becoming more and more of an issue that a lot of people are getting behind.

And this new bill that's before Parliament, what kind of impact could it have on the lives of people like Pasha?

If gay people were able to have civil partnerships, it would mean that their partners would have almost the same rights as married partners. So they'd be able to visit them in hospital to make medical decisions if they're wounded in the field. And if one is killed, the survivor would be able to bury him according to their wishes. And it would also protect inheritance laws and state compensation for loss and so forth. Pasha is very excited about this possibility. He says it's what he has dreamed about. He simply wants his boyfriend to be able to come and visit him if he's in intensive care or if he dies, God forbid, he says, to be able to take his body away and to bury it as he wishes.

And I guess by extension, this new law would help those outside of the army as well, right?

Yes. I spoke with Sofia Lapina, the head of Ukraine Pride.

Things start to change after queer people, LGBTQI people, start coming out on front lines.

So Ukrainians attitudes have shifted a lot over the last year, partly because they're being able to see gay people in the military, but also because so many Ukrainians have moved abroad in large numbers. They find out that there's a lot.

Of gay people there and they are.

Not becoming gay as well, just because they see these gay people, you know, and other stuff.

It's not contagious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they've been in different societies, met more gay people. And these attitudes are also helping to shift the way people think inside Ukraine. It's also a way for Ukrainians to oppose Russia, which has outlawed what they call homosexual propaganda.

And, Wendell, do you think we'll actually see these changes in Ukrainian legislation anytime soon?

It's difficult to know. I think that there will be a certain amount of lassitude in terms of the bill that's before Parliament at the moment, but I talked to somebody in the Ministry of Justice and they have another bill a little bit different that would also guarantee certain rights for LGBTQ couples. So I think that it's hard to know how quickly this is going to happen. Certainly not in the next weeks or months, but it's certainly accelerated this process. I think I'm pretty hopeful that something could shift.

And, Wendell, what does the future hold for Pasha?

When I talked to Pasha, he said that for gays in the military fighting for Ukraine now, it's not all easy all the time. He himself is hoping to go on an officer training course so that he can join his boyfriend's unit and they can fight together.

How romantic. Wendell, thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

It's a lie so prolific that it's almost comical. Faking being sick is perhaps the oldest ruse to get a day off work. It's the dog ate my homework of the adult world. But that old excuse and the coughing theatrics that go with it may come to an end soon, thanks to some brand new tech.

I think most of us know from experience that when you have a cold, you can wake up sounding a bit like Darth Vader.

David Adam writes about science for the Economist.

And the reason for that is that essentially, as you become infected, things swell, things inflame, including the vocal cords. And so essentially, they get bigger and looser, and that makes them vibrate and at a lower pitch, and that gives you a huskier, deeper sounding voice. And now a new study can help people, or maybe even companies, be able to more accurately tell a healthy voice from a sick one.

So tell us a bit more about this new study. What's the theory?

This comes from researchers at the National Institute of Technology in Surat in India. They've been looking at this for a while, and the theory is that if you think of a tuning fork, for example, something that can produce a completely pure note, well, the human voice is not like that. It's very difficult, if not impossible, for even a fully trained professional singer to produce a pure note. Every frequency of sound that we produce comes with a family of higher frequency notes that are related in a system, a mathematical pattern called harmonics. And each of these higher notes, what are called overtones, are usually quieter because obviously the main dominant note is the one that we're producing. And these are little echoes that come higher, tend to be quieter. But it's not a perfect relationship. And one of the ways that that relationship between the different volumes, if you like, of these harmonics can change is what we've just talked about because the vocal cords can become inflamed. So the idea that these researchers had was that we might be able to identify how a cold changes attenuates or quietens these harmonics.

And how are the researchers so sure that this happens? Tell us about the data they used.

They were able to do some experiments because they have a data set of recordings of more than 600 people in Germany, of whom 111 had a confirmed colt. Now, these recordings, they're quite old, and they get the people to do various things, like they all count to 40. They might talk a bit about what they did at their weekend. They read a set text, and the scientists could then break down these recordings to find the dominant frequency and the harmonics. And then, because they knew who had a cold and who didn't, they could then use essentially computers and machine learning algorithms to analyze the relationship between the loudness of those harmonics. And the computer was able to find patterns in those relationships that allowed it to distinguish healthy voices from sick voices.

Hmm, interesting. David, I don't know if you can tell, but I've got a bit of a sore throat myself this morning. I'm not lying, obviously, but if I were lying, could this really determine if I was or wasn't sick?

So, to be fair, the algorithm is not foolproof. Yet in these tests, it was able to correctly identify a voice with a cold about 70% of the time. Now, that's obviously better than chance, but is it good enough either for employers or for people who are maybe going to try it on? But it's a really interesting example of possible applications of being able to differentiate speech in this way.

Like, what else. What other kinds of applications could we use this algorithm for?

So maybe not this algorithm in particular, but certainly this kind of technique. We know that other ways that the voice can change during illnesses, not just colds, but also things like Parkinson's disease, depression, and head and neck cancers, can physically change the way that people's voice sounds. And in theory, you could analyze those changes in voice to perhaps diagnose these conditions earlier. And it's not just voice. This is part of a bigger trend in healthcare and computer scientists working together to find better biomarkers for diseases based on how people, not just how they sound, but the words that they choose when they talk, the patterns in which people write, or even the way that they walk. So this field is much more than just people not being able to pull a sickie anymore to get out of a boring Monday at work.

Well, here's to hoping that we can keep this algorithm far, far away from my boss. David, thank you for coming on the show.

Thank you.

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Sam.