Brazil

April 21, 2012

SouthAmerica: I agree 100 percent with President Dilma Rousseff that interest rates should be reduced to be compatible with the global standards. And she should continue to defend the country's industrial sector.

By early 2013 the Selic rate in Brazil should be around 7 percent.

If you have been reading my articles and postings for many years, then you would know that I have suggesting a devaluation of the real vs. the US dollar to compensate for the game that the United States and China have been playing for many years.

The Federal Reserve policy regarding interest rate and the currency games that the U.S. has been playing against the rest of the world – it is just part of a global economic and financial war that has been going on for many years.


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Brazilian president calls for interest rates closer to global standards - Xinhua | April 21, 2012
http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabi...nterest-rates-closer-to-global-standards.aspx

President Dilma Rousseff said on Friday that Brazil must seek interest rates more compatible with the global standards.

"Technically it is hard for Brazil to justify such elevated spreads, given what is happening in the world. I believe this will be a process of maturing in which we will go toward interest rates more compatible with our reality as well," she said.

Brazil is on the path to higher growth rates, and the interest rates must reflect this new reality.

Also on Friday, Rousseff told an audience of newly-graduated diplomats that she will do whatever within her reach to defend the country's industrial sector.

"This country, which has the pre-salt oil reserves and is a power in the food sector, won't let its industry be damaged by currency depreciation or trade wars, whose methods are, I'd say, not very ethical," she said.

Brazil's annual basic interest rate Selic has already suffered three cuts this year, and is currently at nine percent. After the second reduction in the Selic rate, the government announced cuts in the interest rates practiced by Development Bank BNDES, as well as an increase in the available credit for the industrial sector.

Government-owned banks Caixa and Banco do Brasil also cut back their interest rates, and the government has begun to pressure private banks to do the same. This week, the country's largest private banks gave in and announced the cuts.

After the third cut in the Selic rate on Wednesday, Caixa and Banco do Brasil announced more interest rate cuts, but it remains unknown whether private banks will follow suit.


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MercoPress – April 21, 2012

“Brazil will continue to intervene in support of industry and depressing its currency”
http://en.mercopress.com/2012/04/21...ss&utm_content=latin-america&utm_campaign=rss

Brazilian Finance minister Guido Mantega said on Friday that IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde makes a mistake in recommending emerging countries not to intervene in the money exchange markets to counter the strong devaluation of currencies from the rich countries.

Ms Lagarde is committing ‘a mistake’ and the government of President Dilma Rousseff has a very clear position on the matter and in “our case (intervening in the foreign exchange) is absolutely necessary and we shall continue to do so”, said Mantega in the framework of the IMF/World Bank spring meetings in Washington.

President Rousseff has campaigned openly in international forums arguing that the emerging economies are faced with a “monetary tsunami” because of the artificial “cheapening” of the US dollar and other (formerly) ‘strong currencies’.

However IMF managing director Lagarde has repeatedly considered inappropriate to adopt “interventionist policies”.

“Brazil is one of the countries which most suffers from the appreciation in value of the Real (local currency), our industry has lost competitiveness partly because of the weakening of value from the countries of other countries”, argued Mantega.

Furthermore “we are proving with facts that making precise spaced interventions in the foreign exchange market, a strategy used by other countries, we can reduce the disadvantages to our industries”, added Mantega.

As a result of this government intervention policy in the foreign exchange market this week the US dollar in Brazil climbed for five days running reaching 1.88 Real, a measure openly supported by the Sao Paulo Federation of Industries, FIESP.

However FIESP director Roberto Gianetti da Fonseca said that the increase was insufficient and advocated a US dollar in the range of 2.2 Real to really boost the competitiveness of Brazilian manufacturing and industries, according to Sao Paulo reports.

The US dollar in Brazil has dropped as low as 1.51 Real, but given the difficulties for the domestic industry and the flood of ‘cheap’ imports the government of President Rousseff has established a ‘non written’ floor of 1.80 Real to the greenback.

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Folha de Sao Paulo – 26 de Abril de 2012

Dilma diz que Petrobras e OGX, de Eike, podem ganhar com parcerias
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercad...-ogx-de-eike-podem-ganhar-com-parcerias.shtml

A presidente Dilma Rousseff disse nesta quinta-feira que a OGX, empresa de petróleo e gás do empresário Eike Batista, e a Petrobras podem ganhar com parcerias.

"Ambas podem ganhar muito com uma parceira entre elas. Estou certa que a OGX tem uma grande contribuição na produção de petróleo 'offshore' [alto-mar] no Brasil", afirmou a presidente em discurso durante evento que marcou simbolicamente a extração do primeiro óleo da OGX, efetivada no início do ano.

"A Petrobras já provou isso ao abrir os caminhos do pré-sal. Nós temos hoje a possibilidade, pela quantidade de recursos que temos nessa área, de contar com a participação tanto da OGX como de empresas privadas internacionais", disse a presidente.

"Espero que as parcerias feitas pela EBX e a OGX e os diferente segmentos do país sejam as mais produtivas possíveis", acrescentou.

Para o empresário, Petrobras e OGX se aproximaram desde a posse da nova presidente da estatal, Maria das Graças Foster, amiga pessoal de Dilma.

"É natural que dois grandes [Petrobras e OGX] se ajudem. Já devia ser assim e será assim a partir de hoje. Depois da posse da Graça, houve uma mudança dramática nesse convívio, mais harmônico.

Nós podemos nos ajudar, por que não?", disse Eike a jornalistas, após a cerimônia.

Ele afirmou que uma das parcerias em análise entre as duas companhias seria uma troca de gás natural. A OGX possui reservas na bacia de Santos, mas precisa utilizar o insumo em seu complexo industrial de Açu, que fica no nordeste do Rio de Janeiro.

"Nós receberíamos gás da Petrobras aqui, via Cabiúnas, e entregaríamos gás em Santos, economizando gasodutos", declarou ele.

Eike disse também que uma parceria com a Petrobras na área de refino poderá ser estudada, mas declarou que não há nada definido sobre a questão.

O ministro de Minas e Energia, Edison Lobão, avaliou mais cedo nesta quinta-feira em evento no Rio que seria possível a Petrobras fechar parceria com empresas do conglomerado EBX, de Eike, inclusive para a expansão do parque de refino da estatal no país.

"Essa parceria é perfeitamente possível não apenas com ele, com empresários brasileiros ou com empresários internacionais. Não temos nada contra o capital", afirmou ele ao ser questionado sobre o assunto.

AUMENTO DE PRODUÇÃO

Eike afirmou, ao lado do ministro Lobão, que a OGX terá capacidade instalada de produzir 400 mil barris por dia em 2015.

Esse volume representaria um crescimento de dez vezes em relação à produção esperada para o final deste ano, de pelo menos 40 mil barris.

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Rio de Janeiro - April 2012

Eduardo Paes is the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, a sprawling, complicated, beautiful city of 6.5 million. He shares four big ideas about leading Rio -- and all cities -- into the future, including bold (and do-able) infrastructure upgrades and how to make a city "smarter."
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Stephen Roach deconstructs the BRICs

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Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley Asia and Yale School of Management considers whether Brazil and Russia should be counted among the major emerging economies in this video from The Economist's Buttonwood Gathering on October 26-27th 2011 in New York City.


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This is taking "eating the rich" too far.

Brazil cult members arrested for cannibalism

Brazilian police announced Friday that they had arrested a man and two women on suspicion of having murdered and cannibalized at least two women in what was described as a purification ritual.

The three defendants formed a sect called "Cartel" that seeks to purify the world and reduce the population, police spokesman Democrito Honorato from the northeastern Brazilian town of Guaranhuns told AFP.

The three defendants, Jorge and Elizabeth Pires da Silveira, both 51, and Bruna da Silva, 25, intended to kill three women per year, police said.

"The details of the actions of the trio, with drawings and explanations of cannibalism, were found in a 50-page book written by Da Silveira, a man with a diploma in education and a black belt in karate," Honorato said.

The book, entitled "The relationships of a schizophrenic," hints at acts of cannibalism.

"The three ate the flesh of their victims to purify their souls," said the police spokesman.

Two bodies were found in the garden of the house occupied by the three defendants, which police believe were those of two women who disappeared recently: Alexandra Falcao, 20, and Gisele da Silva, 30. Both had been seen in the vicinity.

The house of the three suspects was set on fire Thursday by neighbors.

One of the suspects confessed she knew the name of a woman the group killed in 2008, Jessica Pereira, in the nearby city of Olinda.

A five-year-old girl found with the trio is believed to be the daughter of the victim, police said. She was placed under the protection of a juvenile judge to find her a new family.

The group attracted victims "by offering them well-paid babysitting jobs," Honorato said, and they chose victims when "a spirit warned them they were bad people."

Welsey Ferandes, the police official in charge of the case, told reporters the suspects planned to kill another woman in the neighboring town of Lagoa de Ouro. Police did not rule out the possibility there had been other victims.

After families of the victims reported their relatives missing, police were drawn to the suspects when a credit card bill arrived at the home of one of the victims after her death. Security cameras at the shops where the credit card purchases were made showed images of the suspects doing the transactions.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/brazil-cult-members-arrested-cannibalism-201543757.html
 
May 19, 2012

SouthAmerica: Nice website!!!!!


Bella Batel in Curitiba, Parana - Brazil
http://www.bellabatel.com.br/flash/index_bellabatel.html



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Forbes magazine – May 18, 2012
“Key Ingredient to Tech Success in Brazil Is In The Silicon Valley”

Brazil is being described as the “next hot tech market” and several VCs are getting aggressive in “the country of the future.” Recently, The New York Times announced that Redpoint and BV Capital have begun a new venture capital firm called Redpoint eVentures based in São Paulo, Brazil. The Samwer brothers, through Rocket Internet, are also raising the stakes and their main local success is Dafiti, Brazil’s largest multi-label Fashion e-Commerce.

However, many Brazilian entrepreneurs believe that to make it big time, they first need to spend some time in the Silicon Valley. Gustavo Lemos, IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year competition winner, said in a Pando daily interview, “I want to help Brazil, but Brazil cannot help me now.” In fact, some of the best Brazilian entrepreneurs in Brazil are the ones who “learned some skills in Brazil, went to the US, learned new tools and brought everything back to Brazil.”

The recipe “Brazil – Silicon Valley – Brazil” worked well for one of the most successful Brazilian entrepreneurs, Julio Vasconcellos. Julio was born in Brazil, educated in the US: he is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford Business School, and went back to Brazil to found Brazil's hottest startup in 2011, Peixe Urbano.

If like Gustavo Lemos, CEO of Brazilian-based analytics solutions provider IDXP, you agree with the recipe “Brazil-Silicon Valley-Brazil” you will be very interested in Startup Dream Team, who is reserving an entire hostel in San Francisco to serve as headquarters for 30 entrepreneurs wanna-be students from all over the world. The 30 students will live together in the Startup House San Francisco from June 18th to August 12th, do a lot of teamwork and get a deep and quick integration in Silicon Valley as they will attend and organize talks of entrepreneurs, gurus, and startup experts like Robert Scoble, Hiten Shah, and Aaron Levie.

Pierre-Simon Ntiruhungwa, co-founder of Silicon Students, who came up with the idea of Startup Dream Team while he was an intern at Ifeelgoods in Silicon Valley last summer and will run the program along with Edouard Foussier and Nicolas Grenie, says the main goal of the adventure is to “make young entrepreneurs really understand the fundamental importance of teams in startups by having them working with as many fellows of the program as possible.” As the group will be international, the participants will also have a better understanding of how aspiring entrepreneurs think in other countries and in Silicon Valley.

Many entrepreneurs don’t find the right team-members, end up launching their business anyway and fail because of that. The concept behind Startup Dream Team is to first find your team, then work on your idea to launch your startup. They work on the assumption that if you try to convey this message to young aspiring entrepreneurs who don’t have a startup idea yet, you are more likely to be heard._Many entrepreneurs know how important is the team, but they are so obsessed with their idea that they may think that they don’t have time to find the perfect team before launching their startup.

If you had already thought about going to the Silicon Valley, Startup Dream Team will provide you a perfect environment for team creation, a network of minded like people and an enhanced experience of Silicon Valley. You have until May 20th to apply on Startup Dream Team website. Pierre-Simon adds that application from Brazil will get special treatment, “we are looking forward to getting applications from Brazil. I heard a lot about how hands-on Brazilians are, I want to experience if the “jeitinho” is really helpful in doing business.”


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Brazil's Congress approves changes to environmental law; activists fear it threatens Amazon

BRASILIA, Brazil - Brazil's lower house of Congress on Wednesday approved a bill that weakens the nation's benchmark environmental law protecting the Amazon and other areas, a move that some fear will lead to a spike in deforestation.

The agriculture lobby waged a 10-year battle in Brazil's Congress to make changes to the law, known as the Forest Code. The measure now goes to President Dilma Rousseff, who is expected to sign it but may use her line-item veto power to strike out portions of the bill.

Deputies approved the main text of the measure in a 247-184 vote. Two lawmakers abstained. The Senate in December passed a version of the bill and the House itself had passed a version earlier last year. Some amendments to the bill were still being debated late Wednesday, but the core text passed.

The bill allows smaller farmers and ranchers to work land closer to riverbanks and on hilltops, which environmental activists say will lead to increased deforestation.

"This vote is a big setback," said environmental lawyer Raul do Valle with the watchdog group Instituto Socioambiental. "What Brazil built for decades, legislation that protected its forests, is being nullified."

Those who support the bill, however, said it is giving long-needed help to Brazilian farmers forced off the land by the strong environmental restrictions on how they can work.

"We intended to create a text that would not expel a single producer nor a single worker from the Brazilian countryside," said Deputy Paulo Piau, who introduced the version of bill passed by the lower House.

Backers of the bill also say recent drops in deforestation indicate pragmatic changes to the law can be made without leading to new destruction, by more effectively enforcing environmental protections that until somewhat recently were virtually ignored by Brazil's government.

About 20 per cent of Brazil's Amazon rainforest has been destroyed already. But beginning in 2008, the government stepped up enforcement, using satellite images to track the destruction and sending environmental police into areas where deforestation was happening at its quickest pace.

Amazon deforestation slowed and hit its lowest recorded level from August 2010 through July 2011, when just 2,410 square miles (6,240 square kilometres) were felled.

Opponents of the bill argue that while government enforcement did help slow deforestation, temporary economic factors also played a role — that demand for the cattle, soy, timber and iron ore produced in the Amazon fell in the United States and Europe as the global financial crisis took hold. It's feared the appetite for those goods will increase and lead to a resumption in destruction once the world economy recovers.

The most contentious part of the new bill is that it scraps most protections for riverbanks that were in the Senate's version, including maintaining strips of forest 30 yards (meters) to 100 yards (meters) deep along waterways. The House version, which overrides that of the Senate, mandates only that small rivers maintain 15 yards (meters) of forest along their banks.

The legislation gives individual states the power to determine how much area along larger rivers must be preserved as standing forest. Environmentalists say that would be disastrous since many states in the Amazon are dominated by big agriculture and would likely allow farmers and ranchers to work land right up to a river's edge.

Riverbanks are sensitive to erosion if deforested, leading to degraded land, silty waters and harmed wildlife.

The overhaul also provides an amnesty from harsh fines on farms and ranches of any size that cleared more tree cover than legally allowed, but only for cutting before July 2008. These fines can reach more than $1 million for a single, moderate size ranch of 2,000 acres (800 hectares).

While they would be freed from penalties already levied, bigger landholders would still have to replant most of the land they cleared beyond legal limits or buy and preserve the same amount of forested land elsewhere to make up for what they cut.

Brazil's agriculture lobby insists the new bill would help ease what they call an unfair burden placed on farmers and ranchers who were once pushed by the government itself to clear the rainforest. Beginning in the 1960s, land was given away as long as 50 per cent of a plot was cleared. Other incentives didn't end until the 1990s.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/brazils-co...al-law-activists-fear-043715607--finance.html
 
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