Emerging South

Just look how Brazil is shining with India and China at the G20.  Lula and Hu squeezing Bush, literally. "We need new, more inclusive governance, and Brazil is ready to face up to its responsibilities," Lula said at the meeting of finance ministers and central-bank presidents in São Paulo.

For years, critics said that Brazil was long on potential and short on performance.
Not anymore. The massive country has become one of the world's biggest democracies and an economic powerhouse. Now Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wants his nation to have a bigger role in world affairs.  In the short term, Brazil wants the smaller G-7 group of industrialized countries to expand to include Brazil and other developing countries.  He wants a  permanent G-14  with Russia, China, Mexico and India among the additions. Brazil also wants developing nations to have a greater voice at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations.
Basically, what Lula is sayingis that excessive latitude of action was given to European countries during all the decades after WWII.
Brazil learned its lessons during the 90s with hyperinflation and political instability. 
However, Lula has promoted business investment while putting more money into the hands of the poor. The economy has boomed for three years. With the world's 10th-biggest economy, Brazil has surpassed the United States as the biggest producer of iron ore and coffee. It's become the world's biggest exporter of beef, poultry, biofuels and orange-juice concentrate, and is rapidly gaining in soybeans, corn and pork.
Brazil has also accumulated 200 billion US$ in foreign reserves, almost as much as the rest of Latin America combined. That money will help cushion the global meltdown.
Now, Brazil wants to be recognized for its fiscal track record and to avoid the risks that come with a global economic crisis.