Weekly Report - 07 June 2012 (WR-12-22)

The US and Brazil are once more at loggerheads over foreign policy. Mike Hammer, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, called for “more action” from Brazil to pressure Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on 1 June. In a swift and firm riposte Brazil’s foreign minister Antonio Patriota insisted that Brazil’s commitment to supporting the plan of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for settling the Syrian crisis was “perhaps greater than that of the US”. He added that Brazil not only supported the Annan plan but also a resolution by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) calling for Assad to allow it to send an independent team, led by a Brazilian, to investigate the massacre of some 100 civilians in the town of Houla on 25 May.