Brazil, Japan, India Back German UN Bid

Germany, Brazil, Japan and India will announce next week in New York that they plan to back each other's bids for permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council, the German weekly Die Zeit reported Wednesday. The newspaper cited German government sources as saying Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer would make the announcement Tuesday at the UN. Die Zeit said that Fischer had laid the groundwork in recent weeks by dispatching German ambassadors to the foreign ministries of their host countries. It added that the ambassadors had each been accompanied by their counterparts from close ally France, which along with Britain, China, Russia and the United States holds a veto-wielding permanent seat on the Security Council.