Hillary and Open Borders

In a 2013 speech to a Brazilian bank, Clinton said “my dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.” She goes on to say that she wants “energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.”


So ... protect the US, or invite everyone in?  Weaken the ability of Americans to get jobs while the unskilled pour in, taking jobs from poor Americans ....

Hugo: Preparing for Hell, packing lite.

Hugo Chavez weeps and calls on God to spare his life

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wept and asked God to spare his life during a pre-Easter Mass on Thursday after returning from his latest session of cancer treatment in Cuba.

9:47AM BST 06 Apr 2012

Very little is known about the 57-year-old socialist leader's condition, including even what type of cancer he has. Chavez has undergone three operations in less than a year, and received two sessions of radiation treatment.

He says the latest surgery was successful, that he is recovering well and will be fit to win a new six-year term at an election in October. Yet big questions remain about his future, and on Thursday the strain appeared to show.

In a televised speech to the Catholic service in his home state of Barinas, Chavez cried and his voice broke as he eulogised Jesus, revolutionary fighter Ernesto "Che" Guevara and South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.

"Never forget that we are the children of giants ... I could not avoid some tears," the former soldier said, his parents and other relatives looking on from the church rows.

"Give me your crown, Jesus. Give me your cross, your thorns so that I may bleed. But give me life, because I have more to do for this country and these people. Do not take me yet," Chavez added, standing below an image of Jesus with the Crucifix.

[To read more, click on the link above]


Hugo, sorry old chap, He is not inclined to give you anything.  Not the crown, not the thorns, and he certainly will not listen to anyone who invokes political bullshit with his egocentric tirade about being saved so he can continue the revolution.

You can save some money on  your campaign - you will not be around in October to be elected by the few who stuff the ballots and chase away those who would vote contrary to your wishes.

Good luck in Hell and enjoy your time with Che and Saddam, Osama, and Adolph, along with the other dictators of history.

John of God

Mar 24, 2:17 PM EDT Ill flock to Brazil 'psychic surgeon' John of God By MARCO SIBAJA Associated Press

ABADIANIA, Brazil (AP) -- John of God grabs what looks like a kitchen knife from a silver tray and appears to scrape it over the right eye of a believer. The "psychic surgeon" then wipes a viscous substance from the blade onto the patient's shirt. The procedure is repeated on the left eye of Juan Carlos Arguelles, who recently traveled thousands of miles from Colombia to see the healer. For 12 years, Arguelles says, he suffered from keratoconus, which thinned his cornea and severely blurred his vision. John of God is Joao Teixeira de Faria, a 69-year-old miracle man and medium to those who believe. He's a dangerous hoax to those who do not. For five decades he's performed "psychic" medical procedures like that for Arguelles. He asks for no money in exchange for the procedures. Donations are welcomed, however. The sick and lame who have hit dead ends in conventional medicine are drawn to Abadiania, a tiny town in the green highlands of Goias state, southwest of the capital of Brasilia. Faria says he's not the one curing those who come to him. "It's God who heals. I'm just the instrument." "Psychic surgeons" are mostly concentrated in Brazil and the Philippines with roots in spiritualist movements that believe spirits of the dead can communicate with the living. Like Faria, they often appear to go into a trance while doing their work, allowing God, dead doctors or other spirits to flow through them. Such practices have been roundly denounced. The American Cancer Society has said practitioners of psychic surgery use sleight of hand and animal body parts during procedures to convince patients that what ails them has been snatched away. But Arguelles, the 29-year-old Colombian who had his eyes worked on by John of God, doesn't care what the medical establishment says. A week after visiting Brazil and undergoing the procedure, he said his vision had improved "by 80 percent" and was getting better each day.

Fat Brazil

Thin may be in but fat's where it's at!

Too often countries around the world play with their figures (pun intended) to present a more svelte-like appearance to their fat facts.  The US is most often the first criticized.

Perhaps if we accumulate enough evidence ....

Brazilian bikinis burgeon to fit the fat

Jan 28, 2012

3:10 PM (ET)
By JENNY BARCHFIELD

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - Tall and tan and young and ... chunky?

The Girl From Ipanema has put on a few pounds, and for many sunbathers on Brazil's beaches the country's iconic itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny bikini just doesn't suffice anymore.

A growing number of bikini manufacturers have woken up to Brazil's thickening waistline and are reaching out to the ever-expanding ranks of heavy women with new plus-size lines.

That's nothing short of a revolution in this most body-conscious of nations, where overweight ladies long had little choice but to hit the beach in comely ensembles of oversized T-shirts and biker shorts.

"It used to be bikinis were only in tiny sizes that only skinny girls could fit into. But not everyone is built like a model," said Elisangela Inez Soares as she sunbathed on Copacabana beach, her oiled-up curves packed into a black size 12 bikini.

"Finally, it seems like people are beginning to realize that we're not all Gisele," said the 38-year-old mother of four, referring to willowy Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

Clothing designer Clarice Rebelatto said her own swimwear-hunting travails prompted her to found Lehona, an exclusively plus-size beachwear line.

"Honestly, the problem went way beyond just bikinis. In Brazil, it used to be that if you were even a little chunky, finding any kind of clothes in the right size was a real problem," said Rebelatto, herself a size 10. "And I thought, 'I'm actually not even that big compared to a lot of women out there, so if I have problems, what are they doing?'"

Since its launch in 2010, the line has become a hit.

In brash leopard spots and flower prints not meant for wallflowers, the label's 14 bikini styles aren't what you'd normally associate with plus-size swimsuits. The necklines plunge dramatically. Straps are mere strings. And while the bottoms provide too much coverage to qualify for the famed "fio dental" or "dental floss" category of Brazilian string bikinis, they're significantly more audacious than the standard U.S. cut.

"We're working from the principle that bigger women are just like everyone else: They don't want to look like old ladies, wearing these very modest, very covering swimsuits in just black," said Luiz Rebelatto, Clarice's son and director of Lehona.

He said that recent publicity of the brand and several other new swimwear lines catering to plus sizes has triggered an overwhelming number of calls and e-mails from would-be customers.

"They're all excited and they say, 'I've been looking everywhere for a bikini like that. Where can I get one?'" said Rebelatto.

Lehona is currently sold exclusively at big and tall specialty stores throughout Brazil. Its bikinis retail for about 130 reais or $75 - a relatively high price-point here, but Rebelatto said sales have grown at a galloping pace, though he did not provide any figures.

It's the same story at Acqua Rosa, a conventional swimwear label that added a plus-size line in 2008. Now, plus-size purchases account for more than 70 percent of the brand's total sales, said director Joao Macedo.

It makes sense.

For centuries, large swaths of Brazil were beset by malnutrition, and in 1970, nearly 10 percent of the population in the country's poor, rural northeast region was considered underweight, according to Brazil's national statistics institute.

But the phenomenal economic boom that has lifted tens of millions out of poverty and into the burgeoning middle class over the past decade has also changed the nation's once-svelte physique: A 2010 study by the statistics institute showed that 48 percent of adult women and 50 percent of men are now overweight. In 1985 those figures were 29 percent for women and 18 percent for men.

(Still, there's been no rash of plus-size male swimwear lines, as men here wear Speedo-style suits that don't impinge on big guts.)

Analysts attribute Brazil's rapidly widening girth to changes in nutrition, with chips, processed meats and sugary soft drinks replacing staples like rice, beans and vegetables.

And while the country's elite are widely known to be fitness freaks - and also among the world's top consumers of cosmetic surgery - those recently lifted out of poverty and manual labor are becoming increasingly sedentary. A 2008 study showed that barely 10 percent of Brazilian teens and adults exercise regularly.

Still, despite their growing numbers, not everyone is eager to embrace "gordinhas" - or "little fatties," as chunky women are affectionately known here.

Many high-end bikini-makers have turned a seemingly deliberately blind eye to the burgeoning plus-size market. Rio-based upmarket brand Salinas, for example, offers five sizes, from extra-small through extra-large. But their sizing runs notoriously small and it's hard to imagine anyone over a size 6 actually managing to fit into any of the brand's minuscule two-pieces.

Luis Rebelatto of Lehona chalked it partially up to snobbery.

"Some brands, they don't want their image to be associated with chunky women," he said. "Only the thin, the rich and the chic."

While Brazilians' increasing heft is a public policy preoccupation for the government, growth in the ranks of the overweight population has given them increased visibility in Brazilian society. Extra-wide bucket seats for the obese have been installed in Sao Paulo's metro system, and on Sunday the city will host Brazil's first ever Miss Plus Size beauty contest.

"It used to be that people would stare at me," said Soares, the voluptuous sun-worshiper on Copacabana beach. "Now when I come to the beach I see women who are much bigger than me - and lots of them are wearing bikinis - so I'm not self conscious any more.

"God makes some people thin but he made me like this," she said, rubbing down the well-oiled bulge of her stomach and thighs. "So who am I to think that he was wrong?"

fat

Brasil: The Pretense Marches On

In what country does the army get called in to deal with criminals?  In what country can the police not address criminal elements and resort to using the army, navy, and perhaps air force.

A country that has a corrupted judicial system with an inept political branch, pretending for the world.





Brazilian soldiers and police raid slums overrun by drug trafficking gangs as they clear the way for 2014 football World CupBy Daily Mail Reporter



20th June 2011
Daily Mail



Hundreds of Brazilian soldiers and police officers have swooped on a crime-ridden slum this morning as part of an operation to rid Rio De Janeiro of gangs ahead of the 2014 World Cup.

A group of marines, backed by helicopters and armoured vehicles, were joined by around 800 armed police and other officers during the raid in the Mangueria neighbourhood, one of Rio de Janeiro’s most populous neighborhoods.

The shantytown is a key part of the city as the Maracana stadium located nearby will host both the 2014 World Cup final and the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Olympic Games.

The operation is an attempt to drive from the area the drug traffickers that have held sway there for decades, Brazilian officials said.

This morning’s raid, which was pre-announced, began with 14 vehicles entering the streets of the slum closely followed by groups of soldiers on foot.

The convoy made their way through the streets before finally reaching the summit of the hillside neighbourhood around 90 minutes after they first moved in.

Officers then raised the Brazilian flag to mark the successful completion of the operation.

Rio state public security director Jose Beltrame said in a televised news conference that officers had taken control of the slum without exchange of gunfire.

Swoop: A group of armoured vehicles enters the Mangueira district of Rio de Janeiro to rid it of gangs ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics

The swoop was the final link on a series to build a ‘security perimeter’ around the Maracana Stadium, which will be the main venue for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.

So far more than 20 slums have been cleared of gangs during a three year operation by authorities in Rio, but officials insist a Police Pacification Unit, or UPP, will be established in the favela and will work with security and social agents on an ongoing basis.

They hope to drive down levels of crime and violence in the slums.

Taking aim: A member of Brazil's special police unit BOPE points his gun at an unseen target during this morning's operation

This was believed to be because the drug gangs which were previously in control had already fled.

But some say that by announcing their occupation of a favela several days in advance, the authorities are effectively warning the criminals who had been based there to seek refuge in other neighborhoods where they can continue their crimes.

Following the operation, many residents refused to comment because they feared reprisals by the gangs and those who did speak did not want to give their full names.

Bete, a mother of five told the AFP news agency: ‘We were woken at six in the morning by the helicopters. Everything was already calm before that. It would have been better if they spent the money on improving the hospitals.’

Her seven-year-old nephew Donatan said: ‘When I heard the noise, my legs started shaking. The house was shaking too. I thought the police were going to start shooting.’

While many residents of Managueria district are afraid of the gangs, others are now worried about police officers on the streets.

They have suggested that there could now be gunfights between officers and drug traffickers.





"so para os Ingleses ver"



.













brazil

Brasil - A Regional Power or a Regional Headache

25 November 2010
BBC


Rio de Janeiro shaken by fresh gang violence


Police and gang members have clashed in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro for a fourth day, despite further raids by security forces.

At least 15 people were reported killed on Wednesday as police sought to quell the wave of gang violence.

Heavily armed men continued to stop cars and buses, rob passengers and set vehicles alight, police said.

Officials say drug traffickers are fighting back against police operations aimed at pacifying city slums.

"There are groups of criminals who have been installed here for 20, 30 years, and they might not want to give up," said Rio state public safety director Jose Beltrame.

"But we're not giving up either. If they keep this up, we will redouble our efforts. Anyone who gets in our path will be run over."

Military police said 15 suspected gang members had died in shootouts with officers on Wednesday. Since the weekend, more than 20 people have died in clashes.

One of the victims was a 14-year-old girl hit by a stray bullet in the area of Penha, the Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported.

Two policemen were wounded in the clashes, officials said.

The Brazilian G1 news website said bombs, grenades and guns had been seized in police raids.

Gang-related violence has plagued Rio for decades, but most has been contained within the city's slums, known as favelas.

Now some of the recent attacks have spilled into wealthier areas closer to the beach.


"The scary part is that now it is getting close to us," said Olga Silveira, shopping in the wealthy Ipanema neighbourhood.

"Before, the violence was always far away. The criminals have discovered the power they have and they want to show it."

Rubem Fernandes, from Viva Rio, a group trying to address issues of violence, told the BBC that the situation was attracting outside attention because of the way the gangs were targeting vehicles.

"The pattern is one to provoke images of burning cars and buses, images which are very powerful on TV, and which can provoke a sense of fear," he said.

Correspondents say the latest wave of violence has raised further doubts about Rio's ability to safely host the 2014 Fifa football World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games.

The latest clashes began on Saturday night when armed men began blocking some of the main roads leading out of Rio, robbing motorists and setting vehicles on fire.

Police said officers had been deployed in 28 slum districts.

More than 1,000 officers were removed from desk jobs to join the operation and 300 extra motorcycle police were on patrol, they said.

Rio's favelas have for years been controlled by heavily armed drug trafficking gangs.

The city's pacification programme is aimed at improving security and the rule of law in Rio in the run-up to the World Cup and Olympics.




















brazil

Air Marshals Arrested for Arresting Woman Who Bit Them

Two U.S. air marshals flee Brazil after being charged with assault


By Mike M. Ahlers
CNN
October 22, 2010




Washington (CNN) -- Two U.S. air marshals who arrested the wife of a Brazilian judge on a flight to Rio de Janeiro -- and were themselves arrested and had their passports confiscated by Brazilian authorities -- fled the country using alternate travel documents rather than face what they believed to be trumped-up charges, sources said.


The incident has impacted air marshal operations on flights to Brazil, officials said, and air marshals contacted by CNN said the case raises questions about Brazil's willingness to support future law enforcement actions by U.S. officials on international flights.

The incident occurred on October 1 on Continental Flight 128 from Houston, Texas, to Rio de Janeiro. During the flight, a female passenger who appeared to be intoxicated tried to serve herself drinks by going to the plane's galley, one source said. The plane's crew asked air marshals to intervene, and two marshals approached the woman, who began struggling with them.

Two sources said the woman bit one of the air marshals, and she was handcuffed and placed under arrest.

At the Rio airport, the air marshals went to turn over the woman to local authorities but were themselves brought before a federal judge and charged with misdemeanor counts of assault, sources said. Brazilian authorities took the air marshals' passports, so they could not leave the country and set a court hearing for the following week, sources said.

"They (Brazilian officials) did not want them to leave. They were not free to go," one U.S. law enforcement source said.

But the air marshals used alternate travel documents and quietly departed the country on a commercial flight that same day without the knowledge of the Brazilian court officials who had sought their detention.

One source said the air marshals believed the charges against them were retaliatory because the passenger they arrested is the wife of a prominent Brazilian judge. The air marshals believed it was to their benefit to leave the country and let the U.S. and Brazilian governments resolve the dispute, the source said.

The air marshals had not recovered their passports when they left, the sources said.

A Transportation Security Administration official, contacted by CNN on the day of the incident, confirmed that air marshals had confronted a "disruptive passenger" on Flight 128, and said that U.S. officials were working with their Brazilian counterparts to resolve "an issue," which the official declined to discuss.

Shortly before midnight the day of the incident, the TSA official said the air marshal team had left Brazil, but the official did not elaborate on the circumstances.

U.S. officials on October 1 and again this week declined to discuss the circumstances in which the air marshals left Brazil. But, commenting about the incident on board the aircraft, an official said, "We believe our federal air marshals acted appropriately within the provisions of the Convention on Offenses and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft (Tokyo Convention)."

Air marshals and union representatives contacted by CNN say it is important that Brazil and other nations recognize law enforcement actions taken by air marshals during international flights.

"In theory we're all working together to combat the threat of terrorism and we should not let egos or marital relations impact proper procedure and legal protocols," said Jon Adler, national president for the union that represents air marshals.

Numerous sources said the issue is still unresolved. According to court documents in Brazil, after the air marshals missed a scheduled court appointment on October 6, the court contacted the U.S. Embassy in an attempt to get the air marshals' addresses.

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano met with Brazilian Minister of Defense Nelson Job to discuss strengthening the global aviation system. The United States and Brazil signed a "joint statement of intent on aviation security." A Department of Homeland Security official said the parties did not discuss the Continental Flight 128 incident or its aftermath.

Sources said they believe the two agents remain charged in Brazilian courts. They did not know if the agents' passports had been returned to them or the U.S. government.

State Department officials have declined to comment on the incident, but said it is not affecting relations with Brazil.

"We've got broad, deep relations with Brazil," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. "We have many, many areas of cooperation with Brazil. And on those areas where we have had disagreements, or rather issues to address, and challenges, we've worked through them quite effectively."

A call to the Brazilian Embassy in Washington on Thursday was not immediately returned.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
brazil

Brasilian Walls

We will have to get Sheila Jackson Lee, Roseanne Barr, and others to get in boats and sail down to free the people.  Perhaps protests, divest investments from Brasilian businesses ... why haven't we heard the hue and cry from the left in the last year?  Where is the outrage?





The Times
May 26, 2009

Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro




Fury at ‘ghettoisation’ as Rio slums are to be sealed off by 10ft walls



Walls are going up around the hillside slums of Rio de Janeiro, further dividing a city already separated between rich and poor.

Beneath the gaze of the statue of Christ the Redeemer, work is nearing completion on one of 19 walls to be built around the city’s sprawling favelas — the informal and often crime-ridden shantytowns that are home to more than a million people.

Critics say that the concrete barriers, up to 3m high, will seal the favelas as ghettos, segregating the inhabitants by sealing them off from the richer areas.

“We had the Berlin Wall, we have the walls of Palestine, now the walls of Rio,” José Saramago, the author and Nobel laureate, said.

Sérgio Cabral, the Governor of Rio, has plans to surround 13 favelas in the south almost completely in a project that he says is designed to stop their sprawl destroying the last of the city’s forested peaks. In a city riven by violence, mistrust and social inequality, few believe him.

“The Government does not have access to the favelas, so they are going to encircle them,” says Rossino de Castro Diniz, the president of the Association of Rio Favelas.

About a fifth of Rio’s six million inhabitants live in its 946 favelas, which have grown rapidly in the past decade. Many are controlled by drug traffickers, armed police can enter only in force and every week people die in pitched gun battles.

In the Rocinha favela, home to an estimated 160,000 residents and the largest slum in South America, rubbish is piled up, sewers overflow and there is a huge rat infestation.

“I am totally against the wall,” says Antonio Ferreira de Mello, known locally as Shaolin, who is the president of the residents’ association. “It’s an offence to human dignity.”

He says that the association, despite struggling to cope with the rapid expansion of the favela, has banned further building on new land so the Government’s ecological argument is redundant. Instead, expansion in Rocinha is vertical — one storey on top of another.

At the highest reaches of Rocinha, among the trees on a vertiginous slope, a wall is also under way. Far below is the city and above there is nothing but trees. It is a wild place.

“There are a lot of animals here,” says Waldir Domingo da Silva, who lives in one of the wooden shacks in one of the highest reaches. “Snakes. Scorpions. It’s a forest.”

The authorities say that the walls are designed to keep it that way. Icaro Moreno Junior, the president of Emop, the Rio state public works department, says that if nothing is done the green space will be gone in ten years. “We are protecting the forest,” he says. “We’re not dividing people . . . It’s crazy to compare it to the wall of Berlin or the wall of the Gaza Strip.”

In Dona Marta, on the slopes of Corcovado below the statue of Christ and once one of Rio’s most dangerous favelas, a new wall is almost finished. Its building has been carefully co-ordinated with other public works and the project has more widespread support.

Joel Miguel Rondon, 52, is one of the many residents working on it. “It’s a good idea,” he says. “Protect the environment.”

Since the police took control of Dona Marta in November and installed a base there, it has also become more secure and state money has been spent on a crèche, new housing and a network of secure concrete walkways instead of the usual treacherous paths. A free tram that opened in May last year climbs the favela’s steep gradient, lifting passengers to its dizzy heights.

“It got better with the wall,” says José Raimundo Brito do Santa, 26. He says that his sister’s house has increased in value from £2,500 to £4,600 since the tram arrived in May 2008.

Joseli Sebastião, 51, is hanging out washing. She welcomes the changes in the favela that have accompanied the wall. “I want peace,” she says. “I want to live.”

Even tourists are seen in Dona Marta, says Marlene dos Santos, 56, smiling as she sells cold drinks from her tiny house. “Everything that’s coming here really helps.”

For Rubem César Fernandes, the director of Viva Rio, an NGO that works to reduce violence in the favelas, the walls are an aggressive symbol of deeper divisions within the city.

“A wall satisfies public opinion,” he says. “Symbolically it is control. It is a bad solution to a real problem.”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
walls

Brazilian Palestine

What we could hear if we attended the Olympics in  Brasil -

"Welcome Olympians.  Welcome visitors of the world, to Brasil.  Please stow your wallets, cameras, rings, watches, hats, purses, chains, pendants, and anything more valuable than a postage stamp, ensure your kevlar vest is properly fastened, and your helmet is in place before you enter the queue.  Ensure you have the paperwork signed before you get to the signing stations.  Form A is your life insurance papers, Form B is your statement of authorization transfering funds from your bank in the event you are kidnapped for ransom, and Form C authorizes us to inject you with a GPS tracking device in order that we are better able to protect you.  Have a nice time at the Olympics."






The Times
February 27, 2010



The gun-toting boys from Brazil who rule Rio’s ‘Corner of Fear’


Dom Phillips in São Paulo


A boy steps boldly into the night traffic and waves a gun to bring the cars to a halt, clearing a path for a motorcycle which screeches into the intersection. Riding pillion is another boy, brandishing a machinegun.

Later two teenagers, also riding pillion on motorbikes, flash their guns at other motorists; nearby, a boy can be seen taking aim with a rifle equipped with a telescopic sight. Other youths wander the street smoking crack.

For residents, the junction between the busy Dom Helder Câmara and dos Democráticos, in North Rio de Janeiro, has become known as the Corner of Fear — and video footage of daily life there has shocked a nation already familiar with guns and violence.

The latest images, captured by undercover journalists from the Rio tabloid Extra, have exposed the city’s criminal youth culture in a manner that echoes the journalistic investigation featured in the film City of God.

The age of the criminals — one pistol-toting boy is 12 — is obvious cause for alarm, but so is the seeming impunity with which they act.

The video footage has provided a glimpse into the city’s underworld that hardly touches Rio’s wealthier citizens.

Local newspapers rarely show at first hand the violence that permeates the city’s slums (favelas). Since the brutal torture and murder of the journalist Tim Lopes — who was caught filming secretly in the Vila Cruzeiro favela in 2002 — Brazilian reporters have been reluctant to take their cameras into slum areas. Any reports that are filed tend to come from correspondents talking from inside armoured cars, or are images showing the aftermath of a shooting.


“What is shocking is this parallel power, the fact that they are very young,” said André Cabral De Almeida Cardoso, 41, a teacher. “They are so brazen about it.”

Valera dos Santos, 34, a maid who lives in a favela in São Paulo, said: “My God, I’ve never seen pictures like this. It’s absurd, they’re just boys.”

The journalists who captured the images were also taken aback. “Even knowing the reality of what could happen, you are still shocked by the glamour that these weapons represent in the arms of minors,” said Fernando Torres, 27, one of a team of three who spent four nights undercover at the Corner of Fear.

“These images are desolate,” said Lucy Petroucic, 56, a translator. “These boys have become little Taleban who think they have nothing to lose.”

Within hours, police arrested one of a group of bandits shown in the video and promised that changes were on the way. Luiz Fernando Pezão, Rio’s Deputy Governor, told reporters that a new police base would open nearby in May.



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Brazil

Brazil: Carneval, Crime, Corruption, and the Coming Olympics

Dutch tourist shot in Carnival mugging in Rio: police


Feb 13, 2010
05:53 PM US/Eastern
Agence France Presse


A 37-year-old Dutch tourist was in hospital in Rio de Janeiro Saturday after being shot twice by a mugger who attacked him and his wife during Carnival festivities, police told AFP.

"This is the worst crime we have had against a foreign tourist this year and we are worried about it," the head of the special tourist police unit handling the assault, Gilbert Stivanello, said.

The Dutchman, identified as Alexander Kors Johannes Vervoort, was shot in the stomach and arm during the assault late Friday. He remained in intensive care, though was conscious.

The crime occurred as Vervoort and his wife, Ella Vervoort Ferwerda, were walking alone to the summit of a hill where Rio's landmark giant Christ the Redeemer statue is located. The popular tourist spot attracts 1.8 million visitors a year.

The wife, also 37, was beaten about the head with a pistol but was not badly hurt.

The single mugger, described as a very young and small man, ran from the scene, leaving behind the camera, wallet, backpack and handbag he had been trying to steal.

Police were hunting him.

The police chief said the man also risked being murdered by the drug gang which runs the slum where he lives, near the Christ statue, for bringing officers into their lawless neighborhood.

Stivenello corrected an initial Brazilian news report by the O Globo newspaper that said two muggers were involved, and which gave incomplete names for the victims.

The police chief said the attack was the most serious against a foreigner so far during Carnival.

"Usually, there are fewer assaults but more thefts," including pickpocketing, reported during the festivities, which began Friday and continue well into next week.

Stivanello said he did not yet have statistics on tourist crimes reported to his unit for the first two days of Carnival.

A dozen other tourists, mostly young British backpackers, were at the reception of the tourist police office when AFP visited. All were there to file reports that they, too, had been mugged, though none had been hurt.

"I was mugged twice the same night," said one, Ed Grissell, 18.

He explained that two thugs had yanked away his digital camera he had been using. Minutes later, a larger group returned to also grab at knifepoint a friend's digital camera he was holding.

Sarah Fellows, 22, said she and a friend were seized by two men in a dark street as they were walking back to their lodging after a night in the same area, Lapa, a downtown area filled with bars and nightclubs.

"They cornered us. They made me give my handbag, which had my camera and 50 reais (30 dollars) in it," she said.

She said she pleaded with the muggers to leave her make-up, which they did.

Brazilian officials warn victims of assaults not to put up any resistance or speak back during assaults because many assailants are armed and have no hesitation in using their weapons.

Rio, which is to host the 2016 Olympic Games, has endemic street crime.

The state of Rio de Janeiro had 5,794 murders last year, a rise of 1.3 percent, while the number of muggings increased by two percent.




We need to keep it all in perspective though.  One bad story doesn't a trend make nor is it any more alarming than the US crime rates.  In 2007, there were over 11,376,000 crimes committed in the US reported to the police.  11 million.  That is a bit inclusive - every crime from burglary to assult, rape, to murder, fraud to car theft.   There were, the same year, over 1,424,000 serious crimes committed in the US (rape, murder, robbery, aggravated assult).  Narrowing the window a bit more, there were approximately 18,300 murders in the US in 2007.  By 2008, the number was 16,470 give or take - a drop from the year before, and an ongoing decrease since 2001.
 
Therefore, compare the 5,794 murders in the state of Rio with the 16,470 murders in the United States.  That would be a better comparison than considering the overall crime rate.
 
Oh, wait ... the 5,794 murders were in one state.  Brazil has more than 25 states, although I am quite sure they are not all as bad as Rio.  After all, Brazil only has 193,000,000 people - it should certain ly have a much lower murder rate.  It is nearly half the size of the US population.
 
Unfortunately, that is not the case.  According to two different sources "Uma vitória sobre o crime". Revista Epoca. http://revistaepoca.globo.com/Revista/Epoca/0,EDG81450-6009-507,00-UMA+VITORIA+SOBRE+O+CRIME.html  and  "Mapa da violência Brasil 2008" (in Portuguese) (PDF). Organização dos estados Ibero-Amricanos para a educação, Ciência e cultura.. http://www.ritla.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2314&Itemid=147, there are approximately 48,000 murders in Brazil (2008), and that would be the ones we know about.
 
On a positive note - the Olympics will the defining moment for Brazil.  An opportunity to showcase the country and the people. 

Concerns like this in Brazil, or in Mexico, are usually dismissed by frequent travellers to those countries.  I suppose it is very much like the Wildebeest.  They travel in groups as small as 25-30, and herds as large as several thousand.  You would figure, given their range and habitat - from  Botswana to South Africa, the Tanzanian Serengeti equatorial plain, and throughout Zambia - that they would be easy pickings for every predator on the Serengeti ... and they are, except they travel in herds and even when the lions take one out for lunch, the others flee and among a herd of several thousand, you never notice the loss of one.  That, unfortunately, is the attitude some people have toward crimes in Brazil or Mexico.  They gamble.

The wildebeest, meanwhile, is lunch and dinner for the pride, and the remains become snacks for whatever other lesser predators may be about, waiting and watching for an opportunity to jump in and grab some meat.



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
brazil

Al Gore: Whats mine is mine and whats yours is mine and its all in your best interest

empty space






Whose Rain Forest Is This, Anyway?


The New York Times
May 18, 2008

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO



RIO DE JANEIRO — For as long as most can remember, Brazil has gazed nervously at maps of the vast, mostly uninhabited territory of the Amazon rain forest.

In the 1960s and ’70s, generals here saw the colonization of the Brazilian Amazon, which is half the size of Europe, as a national security priority. Ocupar para não entregar — “occupy it to avoid surrendering it” — was the slogan of the day. Highways were built, and Brazilians were offered incentives to conquer the land in the Amazon and transform it in the name of development.

There was more behind the nervousness than idle conspiracy theory. Even then, such a unique and vast repository of riches stirred imaginations worldwide. Herman Kahn, the military strategist and futurist, pushed the idea of establishing a freshwater lake in the Amazon to transform the area into a center of agricultural production.

Now, with the world focusing on the promises of biodiversity and the perils of global warming, a chorus of international leaders have ever more openly declared the Amazon part of a patrimony far larger than that of the nations that share its territory. “Contrary to what Brazilians think, the Amazon is not their property, it belongs to all of us,” Al Gore, then a senator, said in 1989.

Such comments are not taken lightly here. In fact, they have reignited old attitudes of territorial protectionism and watchfulness for undercover foreign invaders (now including bioprospectors).

The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is pushing a law that would restrict access to the rain forest, requiring foreigners and Brazilians alike to obtain a special permit to enter it. Brazilian officials say it would separate bad non-governmental organizations from good ones, and deter so-called “biopirates” — those who want to patent unique substances discovered in the forest.

“The Amazon is ours,” Justice Secretary Romeu Tuma Jr. said in an interview. “We want to know who is going there and what they are going to do. It’s a question of national sovereignty.”

But that question is not as straightforward as it may seem. One man’s savior of sovereignty can be another’s despoiler of the forest.

And many Amazon experts say the proposed restrictions conflict with Mr. da Silva’s own efforts to give Brazil a greater voice in global climate change talks — an implicit acknowledgment that the Amazon is critical to the world at large. In addition, his critics have seized on a report in January of a spike in deforestation, as proof the government has not been safeguarding the region well.

Last week, Marina Silva, a fierce advocate of rain forest preservation, resigned as Mr. da Silva’s environmental minister after losing a series of political battles to him over development programs.

Seen in a global context, the restrictions reflect a larger debate about sovereign rights versus the world’s patrimony. International companies, for example, vie with nations to claim and develop resources in virgin territory in the Arctic, as melting ice reveals potentially vast oil and mineral deposits. There is also a struggle over who is entitled to grant access to international scientists and environmentalists seeking to protect such areas, and to companies seeking to exploit them. It is a struggle likely only to become thornier in coming years, in the face of two conflicting trends: rising demand for energy resources and increasing concern about climate change and pollution.

Here in Brazil, which contains 60 percent of the Amazon’s territory, this new debate is cast in terms recognizable from the past — notably the long-held suspicion by conservatives and the military that the real goal of foreigners is to take control of Brazil’s tropical wilderness and its riches.

The Amazon’s global importance is well established. It acts as a climate regulator, directly affecting rainfall patterns in Brazil and Argentina. Its winds, recent studies say, may even affect rainfall in Europe and North America. The burning and decomposition of trees cut down for development makes Brazil’s chunk of the Amazon responsible for about half of the world’s annual greenhouse-gas emissions from deforestation, says Meg Symington, Amazon director for the World Wildlife Fund in the United States.

Brazilian fears that the Amazon would be occupied by thieving foreigners go back at least to 1876, when Sir Henry Alexander Wickham took seeds from Brazil’s rubber-bearing trees back to London, from where they were sent to what is now Malaysia, as well as Africa and other tropical locations, dooming the Amazonian rubber boom.

Since then, there have been only scattered documented cases of what the Brazilians think of as biopiracy. The pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb, for example, found that the venom of the jararaca snake could help control high blood pressure and used it to create the drug Captopril. But by and large, said Thomas E. Lovejoy, president of The Heinz Center, a supporter of environmental research, “Biopiracy is a real red herring.”

Still, Brazil has extreme sensitivity to foreigners doing scientific work in the Amazon. Marc van Roosmalen, a Dutch-born primatologist and naturalized citizen, was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 16 years for possessing monkeys in captivity without proper authorization, according to Brazilian newspapers. He is appealing the sentence.

Mr. Lovejoy and others in advocacy organizations worry that the Amazon restrictions will discourage science, hurt ecotourism and shield Brazil from scrutiny. “The government is not interested in more people going to the Amazon to address the incompetence it has shown in slowing deforestation,” said Marcelo Furtado, campaign director for Greenpeace Brazil.

Mr. Tuma said the authorizations for access will be decided by the justice and defense officials. Foreigners in violation without a permit could be fined $60,000 or more.

“We are not looking to criminalize the activities of the N.G.O.’s,” he said. “We want to give prestige to the serious N.G.O.’s, the serious international groups that have contributions to make to Brazil and to the world.”

But José Goldemberg, a former environmental secretary for the state of São Paulo, echoed many environmentalists in calling the strategy “paranoid,” and evoked the way the cold war Kremlin sealed off whole areas from prying eyes.

“If you try to control it, this will end up like the Soviet Union,” he said.















brazil

Rio and Lula: LOTS of WORK to do before the Olympics and Scorecard So Far isn't Promising

Lula has a LOT OF WORK to do in the next six or so years and at this rate ...



Helicopter downed in Rio violence; two police dead


17 Oct 2009

Source: Reuters

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Suspected drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter and set fire to five buses and a school in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday, killing two policemen, police and media said.

It is one of the worst recent outbreaks of violence in Rio and comes two weeks after the city was awarded the 2016 Olympic Games, despite worries over its high levels of violence and poor security.

Traffickers set fire to the buses in response to a police operation against them, the O Globo network said on its website, which showed pictures of the destroyed helicopter and buses on fire. It reported that three suspected criminals were also killed.

"The helicopter was hit by criminals and the pilot made a forced landing on a football pitch," Major Oderlei Santos of the military police told Reuters.

The helicopter had been carrying six police officers as part of an operation in one of Rio's hundreds of slums, which are dominated by heavily armed drug gangs, police said.

They said the helicopter exploded after it landed and that the four surviving officers were wounded, suffering from burns.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
rio
 

Obama to Honduras: Collapse into a Civil War

Making the world safer, undermining one country at a time ...



Chavez, Lula, Obama Make Honduras Unstable: Alexandre Marinis


Commentary by Alexandre Marinis


Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- If Honduras descends into civil war, we can thank Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and credit Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva with an assist.

Pushing the Central American nation to the brink is precisely what Chavez accomplished when he persuaded Lula to welcome ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya inside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the capital, last month.

Reasonable people can argue whether Zelaya deserved to be tossed out of office. The fact is his ouster was legal, according to a detailed report issued by the U.S. Congressional Research Service.

The Honduran Congress has the authority to rebuke the president and decide constitutional intent, the report says. “In the case against Zelaya, the National Congress interpreted the power to disapprove of the conduct of the president to encompass the power to remove him from office, based on the results of a special, extensive investigation,” it states.

Chavez and Lula engaged in wise-guy diplomacy. Their actions violated international laws by helping Zelaya enter the country illegally. And they disrupted the economy of Central America’s second-poorest country, which was already reeling from the global economic crisis.

Besides acting unethically, the two Latin leaders showed they aren’t serious diplomats. We’ll see if this inaugurates a new era in which Brazil and Venezuela throw their weight around and increasingly interfere with their neighbors’ politics. If so, they will resemble the U.S., which Latin leaders have long criticized for butting into the region’s internal affairs by propping up or taking out national leaders.

Rough Transition

This much is already clear: Hondurans now seem farther away from a safe transition to a new democratically elected leader who adheres to the country’s constitution.

Don’t expect Zelaya to regain the presidency with full powers before the national election scheduled for Nov. 29. Less than 50 percent of Hondurans support their former leader and his approval rating has tumbled, according to a CID-Gallup poll taken two days after Zelaya was ousted in late June. Hondurans are evenly split about whether he deserved to be forcibly removed from office.

Zelaya provoked his opponents by trying to bend the constitution so he could seek another term as president. He was dragged out of the presidential palace in his pajamas and flown out of the country.

Sneaking In

His ambition endures, which is why Zelaya snuck back into the country last month in advance of the national election. He had tried unsuccessfully to re-enter Honduras in the three months since he was booted out. His most recent attempt might have failed too if the Brazilians hadn’t welcomed him inside their embassy.

By opening the doors to Zelaya, Lula allowed himself and his country to be used to promote the individual aspirations of a foreign leader. Zelaya’s situation in Brazil’s embassy is illegal, according to Jorge Zaverucha, a political scientist who directs the Center for Study of Coercive Institutions at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil.

Brazilian authorities claim they aren’t violating international law because they didn’t welcome Zelaya as an exile. They have refused to define his current political status by arguing they are simply offering him “humanitarian shelter.”

The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations doesn’t say that a diplomatic mission should take in a legally deposed president and let him use the shelter as his political campaign headquarters.

Taking Advantage

More important, Article 41 of the convention states that anyone enjoying the same privileges and immunity as Zelaya in Brazil’s embassy has “a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs” of the host country.

A leader who disrespected his own country’s constitution can’t be expected to follow international rules of conduct.

Protected by the inviolability of the Brazilian embassy, which is considered foreign soil in Honduran territory, Zelaya has given speeches to his followers from inside the mission, made political phone calls, held numerous media interviews and even incited a rebellion against the de facto government.

In turn, acting president and former head of Honduras’ National Congress, Roberto Micheletti, has also committed his share of mistakes. By exiling Zelaya to another country, Micheletti clearly violated the Honduran constitution.

Suspending Civil Rights

Then in late September Micheletti ordered military troops to shut down pro-Zelaya radio and television stations, banned protests for 45 days and suspended other civil rights. As a result, Honduras has reached a political dead end.

The most obvious way out of the stalemate is for a member of the international community to mediate an agreement between the two men to respect the outcome of the election. Achieving even that modest goal seems difficult at this point.

Micheletti is expected to allow members of the Organization of American States to enter the country this week to attempt to mediate a solution to the crisis. Meanwhile, Hondurans grow increasingly indifferent about the coming election. Only 43 percent of eligible voters say they will cast ballots and almost half believe the elections will be fraudulent.

One of Central America’s most unpopular presidents -- second only to Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, another of Chavez’s pals by the way -- Zelaya knows he can’t win a presidential election any time soon. Micheletti is just an interim political figure supported by less than a third of the population and, thus, unsuited to run for president. Neither man has a stake in smoothing the way for elections.

Making things even worse, President Barack Obama’s administration, which correctly criticized Venezuela and Brazil for letting Zelaya into Honduras, says it won’t recognize the scheduled November election unless the political crisis is resolved.

That gives carte blanche to Zelaya. The more turmoil Zelaya creates, the closer to civil war the country will be.








honduras

Brazil: We Want Nukes

Once it starts, where does it stop.

Iran.

Brazil now wants nuclear weapons and while the article marginalizes the vice president's voice, his statement echoes that of many, within the party holding power, through all the corridors of power in Brazil ... even if they do not say it.

WHO does Brazil need to protect itself from?

Who? Honestly, tell me who.

You need a nuclear bomb to protect yourself against ... Uruguay? or Ecudaor? or Bolivia? What, the drug dealers will stop because you will nuke them? I am sure Brazil is worried about Chile marching over the Andes to invade and take trees.

Come on.

Get serious. Protect itself?

It has large martime holdings and so if a navy from say ... the UK were to offend Brazil, what then - Brazil will drop a nuke on a ship, ending all martime activity for 100 years, and solving Brazil's worry. is that it? Or putting the nuke on a ship and sailing it back to the UK to throw it at them. OR would Brazil then need missile capability to deliver the weapon to the UK or the US. And be honest, they want the nuke to be taken seriously - like Amadinejad. To threaten and swagger is their desire.

So Mr. Obama, whatcha gonne give Brazil to keep them quiet for the next year or two!!








Brazil VP says country should build nuclear arms


Sep 25, 2009

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) - Brazil's vice president says his country should develop nuclear weapons.

Jose Alencar says "a nuclear weapon has great importance" to prevent attacks on Brazil because of its extensive borders and maritime holdings. Alencar tells Brazilian newspapers that Brazil doesn't have a program to develop nuclear weapons, but should.

Alencar's influence is relatively limited and he is not a member of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's party. Brazilian officials insist they are developing nuclear energy only for peaceful means.
Alencar aide Adriano Silva confirms the comments published Friday by newspapers including O Globo and O Estado de Sao Paulo. He says they are personal opinions and not a position of the government.








nuclear

Honduras on the Brink, and Brazil Tipping it Over

It looks like Brazil is staying out of Honduras' internal affairs, minding its business, and not meddling. Glad to see that. After all, most of what we hear from the South is how the US is always meddling. I am pleased that these countries do not meddle. I am waiting for Venezuela to get into this, after all - none of those countries like the US meddling, so they completely understand.






Curfew imposed in Honduras after Zelaya's return

21 Sep 2009


TEGUCIGALPA, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Honduras' de facto rulers imposed a curfew on Monday after ousted President Manuel Zelaya returned the country and took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy, a spokesman for the interim leaders said.

"The government has declared the curfew for the entire country from 4 in the afternoon until 6 a.m. to conserve calm in the country," spokesman Rene Zepeda told Reuters.

Thousands of Zelaya's supporters surrounded the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, with a 100 police wearing riot gear deployed nearby.








Honduras

H1N1 - Brasil Style and Canada Body bags

Two articles. The first: Brazil, with stats on deaths so far. The second, on Canadian efforts or lack of, to bother - just send body bags.




Brazil registers 899 swine flu deaths: official

Sep 16, 2009
AFP

Brazil has registered 899 deaths from swine flu, maintaining its status as the country worst-hit by the pandemic, according to the health ministry in South America's largest nation.

In announcing the data, the ministry also said that the number of serious cases in the country "fell for the fifth straight week," indicating a reduction of the spread of the A(H1N1) virus.

Brazil became the country with the highest death toll in late August when it surpassed the United States, which now has 593 swine-flu-related fatalities. Brazil's neighbor Argentina has 512 deaths.

In its latest bulletin, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that as of September 6 the virus has killed at least 3,205 people worldwide after being discovered in March this year in Mexico.

Southeastern Sao Paulo state has been the worst hit, with 327 deaths, followed by Parana in the south with 222. Rio de Janeiro has recorded 84 deaths.

On Tuesday, the WHO warned swine flu will have a "devastating effect" on poor countries where lives will be lost due to ill-equipped health care facilities.

"The pandemic will test the world on the issue of fairness in a substantial way," WHO chief Margaret Chan said in a speech in Copenhagen.

She noted that swine flu will cause "manageable disruption" in affluent countries.

But it will "almost certainly have a devastating impact in countries with few health facilities and staff, no regular supplies of essential medicines, little diagnostic and laboratory capacities, and vast populations with no access to safe water and sanitation," she said.

US drug regulators Tuesday approved a swine flu vaccine, keeping officials on track to begin a mass vaccination campaign by next month.

The US government has purchased 195 million doses of swine flu vaccine and will make shots against the influenza A(H1N1) virus available free of charge starting next month, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said.

"The large-scale 2009 H1N1 vaccine program will begin mid-October with small amounts of vaccine becoming available the first week of October," she said.


*****************************************


Body bags disrupt Canada's flu-readiness message

Wed Sep 16, 2009 5:41pm EDT

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - The Canadian government sent body bags to some remote Indian reserves as it prepared for the winter flu season, sending a jarring message at odds with its promise that it's ready for the H1N1 flu.

The body bags went to some reserves in Manitoba, the western province in which some remote Indian communities were hard-hit by the flu in the spring, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said on Wednesday.

"It is very disturbing," Aglukkaq told reporters on a conference call. "It's a serious issue and it's very concerning to me."

Aglukkaq said she didn't have details of the body-bag shipments and has ordered officials to investigate.

At least four Manitoba reserves received body bags from Canada's health department in shipments that also included supplies like masks and hand sanitizer, the Winnipeg Free Press said.

"This says to me they've given up," the newspaper quoted Chief David Harper of Northern Manitoba's Garden Hill reserve, which received some of the body bags, as saying.

Sending body bags is "a totally unnecessary thing," said chief public health officer Dr. David Butler-Jones.

Canada, a country of 33.6 million people, has ordered 50.4 million doses of vaccine and plans to begin immunizations in November. If Canada doesn't need all its order, it will leave some vaccines available for other countries, Butler-Jones said.






vaccine.

George Soros and Barack Obama

Opinion: Obama commits to off-shore drilling


Aug 20, 2009
Larry Clifton
Digital Journal



While this may seem like a good thing considering the immense and rising percentage of crude the U.S. is forced to float across the oceans in foreign-flagged ships from the Middle East through pirate-infested regions, there is a problem.


Turns out Obama is going to lend billions of taxpayer’s deficit dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro.


Sweet deal, you say? Not really. Should one estimate the tens of millions spent by Soros on behalf of Obama and the Democratic Party, Soros is only asking the Democrats for what is due him. The problem is that Obama and the Democrats are using your money to pay Soros, and if you happen not to support off-shore drilling for crude or (God forbid) you are Republican or a conservative, you still have to pay Mr. Soros, courtesy of Barack Obama.


George Soros indirectly underwrote much of Obama’s campaign, not to mention spending tens of millions to help get Democratic Party candidates elected since 2000. Unfortunately, since Obama is using taxpayer dollars to fund the Brazilian off-shore drilling project – we all must financially support the Democratic Party. What a country!


Billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund's largest holding. Now, had George W. Bush concocted this off-shore drilling arrangement with, say, anyone, The Pelosi-led House would be screaming for an investigation after she had convicted him of sins against the planet and our nation during several press conferences. Now you know that’s right.


According to an article in the Bloomberg Press dated August 15, as of June 30, the stake in Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based oil producer is known, made up 22 percent of the $3.68 billion of stocks and American depositary receipts held by Soros Fund Management LLC, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Petrobras has since slumped 28 percent.

In a Wall Street Journal editorial article dated August 18, the editor laments, “If President Obama has embraced offshore drilling in Brazil, why not in the old U.S.A.? The land of the sorta free and the home of the heavily indebted has enormous offshore oil deposits, and last year ahead of the November elections, with gasoline at $4 a gallon, Congress let a ban on offshore drilling expire . . .”

Seven months into his term, Barack Obama’s administration seems to be running out of gas when it comes to driving home credible records on his pledge to reduce deficit spending and his promise of ethical governance.

Perhaps this Soros payback (with billions of taxpayer dollars being gifted to Soros to drill for off-shore oil) is just another clunker compared to his world-record first-year deficit of more than $1.5 trillion. Even so, taxpayers need to understand that they are now financing the Democratic Party and Obama with their children’s money.


















Obama

Air France: Terror Suspects ?

Two passengers on doomed Air France jet had names linked to Islamic terror groups

By Peter Allen
10th June 2009
Daily Mail Online


Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on board the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it emerged today.

French secret servicemen established the connection while working through the list of those who boarded the doomed Airbus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 31.

It has also emerged that the laptop and boarding pass of British oil executive Arthur Coakley have been found in the wreckage of the jet.

Flight AF447 crashed in mid-Atlantic en route to Paris during a violent storm.

While it is certain that there were computer malfunctions, terrorism has not been ruled out.
Soon after news of the fatal crash broke, agents working for the DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure), the French equivalent of MI6, were dispatched to Brazil.

It was there that they established that two names on the passenger list are also on highly-classified documents listing the names of radical Muslims considered a threat to the French Republic.

A source working for the French security services told highly-repected Paris weekly L’Express that the link was ‘highly significant’.

There is a possibility that the name similarities are simply a ‘macabre coincidence’, the source added, but the revelation is still being ‘taken very seriously’.

France has received numerous threats from Islamic terrorist groups in recent months, especially since French troops were sent to fight in Afghanistan.

Security chiefs have been particularly worried about airborne suicide attacks, similarly to the ones on the U.S. on September 11th 2001.

French investigators today confirmed that that terrorism has not been ruled out, with an Air France spokesman adding that ‘all the indications’ are that the Airbus suffered some kind of catastrophic equipment failure.

A total of 41 bodies have so far been recovered from the zone 700 miles off Brazil's north-east coast where the plane came down.

Brazilian and French officials are using DNA samples from relatives and dental records to identify the remains.

On Monday, a Brazilian crew recovered the tail fin from the plane - considered significant because it could narrow the area underwater where the black boxes are.

The cause of the disaster is not known, but initial suspicions are focusing on the plane's airspeed sensors which were giving faulty readings, according to automatic data alerts sent by the plane in its final minutes in the air.

A French nuclear submarine, the Emeraude, and a naval vessel containing robot submarines should reach the crash site within the next day or so.

But a large amount of material has already been recovered, including possessions belonging to Briton Mr Coakley.

His wife Patricia said a local police liaison officer called at the family home in Sandsend, near Whitby, North Yorks, to say her husband's laptop and boarding pass had been found.

'I just want to remember him smiling and laughing. He was a wonderful man,' she said.

'We are just in limbo and still waiting for the phone call we will get from the authorities, but don't want.

'We cannot plan anything at this time until we get more news. But I don't want to fly out to Brazil.'

Mrs Coakley had spoken to her husband by phone shortly before he boarded the plane.

He had planned to take an earlier flight, but it was fully booked. He should have been in Brazil for two weeks on business and home on May 19, but was delayed.

She has been married to her husband for 34 years and the couple have three children Dominic, 31, Patrick, 29 and Mise, 25.

Mr Coakley, 61, was a structural design engineer and partner in the PD&MS firm based at Aberdeen.

He had many working contacts on Teesside and was also a director at Wilton Engineering Services based in Middlesbrough.









airplane

BRAZIL: On the Verge?

ANALYSIS-Brazil scandals corrode democracy, growth

Apr 23, 2009 13:22 EST

* Majority of Brazilians wants Congress closed
* Corrupt, inefficient Congress hamstrings economy
* Pressure mounts for sweeping political reform

By Raymond Colitt

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Political scandals are so common in Brazil that many Brazilians have grown not to expect much from lawmakers.

But the petty scams uncovered in Congress in recent weeks have been met with a public uproar, resurrecting calls for electoral reforms while also exposing latent political risks that hold back Latin America's largest economy.

Scores of legislators admitted to using taxpayer money to bankroll air fares for relatives, pay phantom employees and even household servants. One senator's daughter spent 14,000 reais ($6,306) using his official cell phone while on vacation.

Some congressmen sold their quota of congressional postal services and airline tickets, one of which was unknowingly bought by the head of the supreme court.

The shenanigans are the latest in a long laundry list of shady behavior by public officials in Brazil and struck a chord with an electorate increasingly fed up with a Congress that appears detached from reality.

They also highlighted the challenges that Brazil faces to forge a more transparent political culture, a task that has eluded President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose government has been dogged by a series of corruption scandals.

"Brazilian society is stupefied by the discovery that its representatives in the National Congress have lost all sense of moral sensibility," the O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper said in a recent editorial.

Polls show less than 1 percent of Brazilians trust Congress and more than half favor closing either or both of its houses, posing a threat to the country's relatively young democracy.

"One of the pillar's of Brazil's democracy is cracked," said Gil Castello Branco, of the anti-corruption group Contas Abertas, or Open Accounts, in the capital Brasilia.

"This is worrying in a country with a long authoritarian past," he added, referring to Brazil's 1964-85 military rule.

POLITICAL RISK

Compared to some of its neighbors, where nationalization and social unrest are prevalent, Brazil looks like a beacon of stability. It won an investment-grade credit rating in 2008 and its economy has grown by around 5 percent annually in recent years.

But Brazil's corruption-plagued legislature is slow and inefficient. Its governing coalition is fragile. Much-needed reforms of costly pension benefits as well as unwieldy tax and labor laws have been stuck for years.

"This reform is not a technical but a political problem," Jorge Gerdau Johannpeter, chairman of Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau, said in reference to a stalled bill that would simplify taxes.

"Regarding labor rights, Brazil is out of touch with the global reality," Gerdau told the Senate last week, adding that Brazil's inefficiencies resurfaced during the global crisis.

In 2005, Lula was pushed to the brink of an impeachment process because his party admitted to illegally raising funds for its own campaigns and that of allied legislators. The opposition claims it was buying votes.

Lula, like his four predecessors since democracy was restored, failed to advance a sweeping political reform he pledged during his 2006 re-election campaign to tighten lax campaign financing rules, increase party discipline, and make elections more representative.

"Pushing Congress on these issues would carry a huge political cost," said political consultant Jose Luciano Dias. "So, he's hostage to that mess in Congress."

Under Brazil's complex electoral laws, voters have little direct representation in Congress, meaning legislators have no specific constituencies that hold them responsible.

A lack of clear campaign financing rules means that legislators frequently bend the rules to pay for campaigns.

"Shadow employees, expenses, perks -- much of that pays back campaigners that got congressmen elected," said Dias.

The latest round of corruption allegations was triggered by disputes between governing parties over lucrative leadership posts, underscoring how fragile Lula's 11-party coalition is.

Under public pressure to get tough on fraud, Congress said Wednesday that spouses, children and designated advisors would no longer be entitled to free airline tickets.

But even legislators say they must go much further to gain the public's confidence and repair Congress' reputation.

"We need to overhaul not only our air travel policy but the whole of politics in our country," said Senator Pedro Simon of the centrist PMDB party, the largest in Lula's coalition.

"Brazil cannot be the land of impunity, where only chicken thieves go to prison."


(Editing by Todd Benson and Vicki Allen)






Brazil

Brazilian Nuts

Brazil president blames white people for crisis
By Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo and agencies

March 27 2009

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday blamed the global economic crisis on “white people with blue eyes” and said it was wrong that black and indigenous people should pay for white people’s mistakes.

Speaking in Brasília at a joint press conference with Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, Mr Lula da Silva told reporters: “This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing.”





lula