Brazil's gets new defense chief after Jobim resigns

BRASILIA: Defense Minister Nelson Jobim has resigned and will be replaced by Brazil's ex-foreign minister Celso Amorim, the president's office said Thursday.

Jobim, 65, who took the job in 2007 under then-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and oversaw a still-pending multi-billion tender for 36 new fighter jets, resigned after reports that he made derogatory remarks about two female senior government officials.

"Jobim presented his resignation to President (Dilma) Rousseff on Thursday night at the president's office and she accepted. The new minister is Celso Amorim," spokeswoman Helena Chagas told AFP.

Amorim, 69, was foreign minister during Lula's eight years in office and a key player in the former president's foreign policy successes.

He is best known for efforts to improve ties among developing nations, and for helping get the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) to negotiate for trade deals as a group.

Jobim fell from grace after he was quoted in a magazine as saying that the minister of institutional relations, Ideli Salvatti, lacked power, and that cabinet chief Gleisi Hoffmann "doesn't even know" the capital Brasilia.

The outgoing defense chief also said in an interview that he did not vote for Rousseff in the October 2010 election.

Over the past year, Brazil has repeatedly delayed making a decision on the jet fighter tender, estimated to be worth between $4-7 billion and pitting the US F/A-18 Super Hornet by Boeing against France's Rafale by Dassault and Sweden's Gripen NG by Saab.

In February, Jobim announced that Brazil will make no decision in the "short term" on the jet fighter tender due to budget cuts.

Jobim is the third minister to lose his job since Rousseff became president in January.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011