São Paulo – The press advisory of former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva informed on Friday (8) the cancellation of his trips to Egypt and Tunisia, initially scheduled for next week.
According to his advisory, Lula and his team evaluated that it would be more convenient to promote visits after the elections in both nations. Public protests early this year in Tunisia and Egypt resulted in the resignation, respectively, of dictators Zine El Abdine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak.
Both nations are under provisional governments. Elections in Tunisia have been scheduled for October. In Egypt, the elections are scheduled for September, but may be brought forward.
In Egypt, Lula was scheduled to give a talk at the Library of Alexandria. He would be one of the keynote speakers, alongside North American economist Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize laureate. The agenda in Tunisia had not yet been disclosed.
*Translated by Mark Ament
