A giant conga-line of athletes snaked around the stadium to the cheers of thousands of fans who danced in the stands to Brazilian funk music.

“The impossible happened. Brazilians never give up,” Carlos Nuzman, the president of the Rio 2016 organizing committee, said in a speech. He wished good luck to Tokyo, who will be the next city to host the games.

The president of the International Paralympic Committee, Philip Craven passed the Paralympic flag to the governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike.

Missing though was Brazil’s interim President Michel Temer, who had been booed at the opening ceremony.

The ceremony also paid tribute with a minute of silence to Iranian cyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad, who died on Saturday from a cardiac arrest during a road race. This was the first tragedy of its kind in Paralympic Games history.

Sir Philip Craven, International Paralympic Committee president, described the Games as “uniquely Brazilian and wondrous” but admitted that Golbarnezhad’s death had cast a shadow over the event.

“Tonight is a celebration of the last 12 days of sport, but it’s also a very somber occasion following Saturday’s extremely tragic events,” said Craven.

“The passing of Bahman Golbarnezhad has affected us all and left the whole Paralympic movement united in grief.”

One of the highlights at the ceremony was Jonathan Bastos, a Brazilian who was born without arms yet is an accomplished musician, playing instruments with his feet.

Carlos Nuzman, President of the Rio Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee, said that the Games had been a success despite the troubled build-up to the event.

With Brazil hit by political turmoil and recession, Mr. Nuzman conceded it had been a “mission of many doubts,” but was happy to declare the event as being “mission accomplished.”

A lack of interest in tickets ahead of the Games had raised fears of failure, but after heavily discounting the prices, officials said they sold 2.1 million, less than in London four years ago but more than in Beijing in 2008.

China topped the medal standings, becoming only the third country to win more than 100 gold medals at a single Paralympic Games.

China ranked first on the final medal tally with 239 medals—107 gold, 81 silver, and 51 bronze. The Great Britain came second with 147 medals in total, followed by Ukraine with 117, United States with 115, and Australia with 81 medals.

The Russian national team did not take part in the games. Russia was suspended from the Rio Paralympics by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in early August for failure to comply with the organization’s anti-doping rules.

Brazil stood 8th in Rio Paralympics with 72 medals—14 gold, 29 silver, and 29 bronze. Before the event, the goal set by the Brazilian Paralympic Committee was for Brazil to be in the top five. The country won more medals in athletics—33 in total. In swimming, the Brazilian athletes received 19 medals.

Despite having won more medals than in London 2012, this year Brazil stood at a worse position, because the country won fewer gold medals. In London, Brazil finished in 7th place with 43 medals—21 gold, 14 silver, and 8 bronze.

The 72 medals won by Brazil in Rio Paralympics improved the country’s position in Paralympics overall medal tables, going from 26th to 23rd place. In total, Brazil won 87 gold medals in the history of Paralympics, ahead of countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, and Finland.

The investigation, entitled, “When Freedom is the Exception” was written by two nongovernmental organizations, Global Justice, and Rio’s State Mechanism for Preventing and Combating Torture, and its findings are based on 20 unscheduled visits to several detention centers in Rio, as well as the observation of 313 detention hearings from mid-2015 to June 2016.

The report concluded that 44 percent, or approximately 22,000 people, were held in jails or prisons without a conviction over that period.

“Beyond determining the number of people in provisional detention, we had the goal of determining the conditions of compliance with provisional arrest in Rio, and what was confirmed is that, in fact, convicted prisoners are (held) together (with) those in provisional detention, which violates the law of criminal enforcement,” Guilherme Pontes, a researcher with Global Justice, told reporters.

“In addition, we also followed the custody hearings and were able to determine that ill-treatment and torture are still flagrantly very present in prisons. We had an emblematic case in which a judge asked, after the accused said that he had been tortured, if he was sure or was just subject to an ‘energetic detention.'”

The report details the legal framework meant to ensure the rights of those accused of crimes is respected but found that the reality of the situation falls far short of what the law outlines.

With more blacks than any other country in the Americas, race plays a role in Brazil’s incarceration crisis. According to government figures, in Brazil, 55 percent of those in detention are younger than 29 and 61.67 percent are black.

The latter figure could in fact be higher but the data is provided by the corrections system and not by detainees themselves who may self-identify as black.

The 80-page report also outlines the policy and legislative revisions, mostly strengthening Brazil’s drug-trafficking laws, that have produced an explosion in Brazil’s prison population since 1988.

The late 1980s coincides with the launch of the United States own war on drugs, which also resulted in an explosion of the prison population, and has been widely criticized as costly, counterproductive, and racially-biased.

“As it turns out, the provisional arrest is, in theory, one exceptional measure in accordance with the rules of Brazilian democratic rule of law. However, what occurs in reality in the selective Brazilian penal system is the mass provisional imprisonment of poor Black youth. For them, provisional detention is the rule and freedom is the exception,” read the report.

A 2014 report by the Ministry of Justice indicated that 28 percent of those convicted were in jail for drug-related offenses, the largest group, followed by theft at 25 percent. A 2010 study by Luciana Boiteux cited in the report found that people imprisoned for drug-related offenses have been steadily increasing over the years.

An analysis of the growth of the prison population from 1990 to 2014 led researchers to conclude that there was “no doubt that the legal framework concerning drugs has been accompanied by an increase in the prison population.”

“It must be noted that in most cases, after months or even years in preventative detention, the defendants are not even sentenced to serve time in prison,” says the report.

Researchers also found that policies implemented during so-called mega events hosted by Brazil in recent years, such as the World Cup, also contributed to the decline of respect for human rights and an increase in incarceration.

“The reason for that is it is believed that to have a safe city (requires) a policy of more incarceration,” Renata Lira said.

The report concludes that as a result of the investigation that an “immediate and radical change in crime and prison policy” is necessary and makes a series of recommendations for both the state and federal governments.

Among their recommendations, the report calls for reforms in drug laws and policies, a reduction in the maximum amount of time someone can be preventative detention, and for suspects to put before a judge within 24 hours after their detention.

Brasil de Fato

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay are still reeling from painful truth and reconciliation commissions to punish officials who participated in regional military dictatorships and Operation Condor. “Sometimes I feel as if… we’re caught in a time warp… going back to the 1950s, gunboat diplomacy, and Yankees, and the Cold War and this and that,” Obama griped during debate.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff didn’t flinch as she attentively listened only one seat away from Obama. Maybe his top Latin American advisor hadn’t warned him that Dilma wasn’t a vague relic of the past but living proof that she, like many other women, had been imprisoned and brutally tortured by the Brazilian military dictatorship that seized power in 1964 and was supported by U.S. foreign policy.

Maybe.

Fast-forward four years to 2016 where we’re greeted by the likelihood of U.S. presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, being defeated by misogynistic Donald Trump. Obama’s emotional and psychological appeal for the average American woman to vote Hillary was made in June when he publicly declared that, despite his grayer hair, he’s what a feminist looks like.

Two months later he penned an essay in Glamour magazine reaffirming that he’s a feminist. These petitions place him squarely in the crossfire of Trump’s fiercely decided, anti-women views. Still, his newfound feminism should also signify that he, no presidential advisor needed, should have sentenced a retroactive condemnation of his snark choice of words professed before Dilma in Cartagena.

Though she’s never spoken publicly about her experiences while imprisoned for three years, it has been documented that women who suffered at the hands of Latin American dictatorships had rats shoved in their vaginas, electric shocks applied to their genitals and breasts, and tortured in other inhumane ways.

To deride their experiences, implying that political figures like Dilma should magically release themselves from being caught in a time warp and blindly realign public policy with Washington’s consensus is a callous remark, much more reflective of The Donald’s fire and brimstone than Obama’s chivalrous debonair.

In August, the same month that Obama took his feminism mainstream in Glamour, Dilma was impeached. Many insist that her ouster was an institutional coup. She had been democratically re-elected in 2014, committed no crime (this is according to a report by Brazil’s Public Prosecutor office that found that Dilma was not guilty of any crime), and wasn’t implicated in the notorious Car Wash investigations that have rocked almost every facet of Brazilian politics over the past few years.

Her removal from office was due, in large part, to a carefully orchestrated, private media smear campaign that occasioned ruins for the democratic process. Their interests, aligned with the interests of an elite political and big business minority frustrated with losing democratic elections for a fourth consecutive time, fostered an atmosphere of dissent and brazen calls for impeachment.

While Dilma’s record in office remains impeccable, the career politician who replaced her, Michel Temer, and the bulk of his administration, are currently under federal investigation for corruption, personal enrichment, and a battery of other crimes.

It can’t be overstated that Dilma is a member of the Worker’s Party. Since 2003, when Lula (Luis Inácio Lula da Silva), also a Worker’s Party member, was first elected president, Brazil has pursued policies based on regional solidarity, advancing MERCOSUL partnerships, strengthening ties with African nations, redistributing wealth in one of the world’s most unequal nations and implementing robust internal social programs.

Another highlight has been the government’s recalibrated relationship with the U.S., no longer abiding by Washington’s directives like a lapdog republic.

But, low and behold, the boys of old are back. In a country where the majority of the populace are black and brown people, old white, criminally implicated men hold all key political posts. They look like Trump. Sound like Trump.

They’re brothers of another mother, like the present-day city of Americana in the state of São Paulo, developed, primarily, by confederates who immigrated to Brazil after the US Civil War. William Hutchinson Norris, a pro-confederate senator from Alabama, was the first politician to arrive in Brazil in 1865.

Not learning an iota from his gaffe in Cartagena or U.S. foreign policy meddling in Latin America’s internal affairs, Obama’s administration declared, shortly after Dilma was impeached, that her removal was constitutionally legal. It tells the 54.5 million voters who democratically re-elected her for a second term in office that their voice doesn’t count.

It has, effectively, told women, and black and brown people, to step aside and let the boys of old take care of biz. It reminds me of a number of men I’ve come across on the streets of Brazil who comment, in deafening voice if one stands too close, that a woman has no damn business being president.

Obama’s embrace of feminism appears to come with a strategic string attached, one that can only be supportive of a particular stripe of woman at a particular point in political time. Whenever his administration became the misogynistic reflection of Trump’s campaign is anybody’s guess-anybody except Dilma.

Maybe her enemies and detractors wanted to hear her wail like a banshee as she stood before a special congressional session that would eventually consecrate her impeachment. But Dilma spoke the words of a valiant, dignified leader, indeed, the first female president of Brazil. It was a reminder of her lifelong struggle of resistance against the forces of inequality.

She said (and I translate and quote):

“Of my shortcomings, disloyalty and cowardliness don’t exist. I don’t betray commitments that I assume, principles I defend, or those who fight beside me. In the struggle against the dictatorship, I received torture marks on my body. For years I gradually succumbed to bitterness by the plight of being imprisoned. I saw comrades being raped and assassinated.

“Back then I was very young. I had much to expect of life. I was afraid of death – of the impact of torture on my body and in my soul. But I didn’t give in. I resisted. I resisted the storm of terror that had started to consume me in the darkness-in the bitter times in this country.

“I never changed sides. Despite receiving the weight of injustice on my shoulders, I continued fighting for democracy. (…) Not now, at almost 70 years of age, after becoming a mother and grandmother, will I abdicate from the principles that have always guided me.”

This article appeared originally in Counterpunch – http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/12/hey-joe-feminism-a-misfit-relationship-between-the-us-and-brazil/

Lula da Silva argued that central banks around the world must adopt new rules, and governments must make certain that their countries’ financial institutions are in compliance with their own regulations in order to prevent another meltdown like the one whipped up by the U.S. financial crisis.

Brazil: Solid Progress

Despite the adverse repercussions flowing from the current state of the U.S. financial system, Brazil’s economy now is stronger, more multi-sectoral and better able to withstand global shocks than it was in the 1990s – even after factoring in the economic ups and downs of its powerful hemispheric neighbor to the north.

“A few years ago, if the United States coughed, Brazil got pneumonia,” Lula said at a recent gathering in the northern city of Mossoró. “Now we have diversified; we don’t depend so much on one or two countries.”

Optimism that Brazil’s economy is strengthening is evident, for example, in booming appliance sales at the retail chain Casas Bahia; in home sales being made by Cyrela Brazil Realty, the nation’s leading residential home builder; and in an expanding entertainment industry that is attracting cable and movie franchises from the United States and Mexico.

Economist Edmar Bacha of Banco Itaú in Rio de Janeiro says that the economy of Brazil is now stronger because it no longer holds significant dollar-denominated debt, as was the case in the 1990s. Two of the largest banks in Brazil, Itaú and Unibanco, just agreed to merge, thus creating Latin America’s biggest bank and one of the largest in the world.

The two banks said that “with this joint venture, Itaú and Unibanco reassure their confidence in the future of Brazil, especially in this moment of important challenges in the economic environment and in the global financial markets.”

Brazilian Secretary of Development Ivan Ramalho remarks that he hopes to enhance trade with other countries in order to diminish Brazil’s over-reliance on the U.S. market. President Lula da Silva argues that U.S. policy in fact keeps developing countries from fully playing an influential role in the world economy. This is but one example of Brazil’s increasing restlessness when it comes to demanding respect and recognition for its regional ranking position.

President Lula can be excused for aspiring to have Brazil to stand out among world powers; in order to assure his country this new position, he must enhance Brazil’s trading potential. Improving the breadth and depth of Brazilian trade with other countries will make it possible to diminish Brazil’s dependence on the U.S. market. Evidence of Brazil’s will for independence is its biofuels policy.

Biofuels Business

Brazil is the world’s second largest producer, and largest exporter, of ethanol. Not only did it fashion the world’s first sustainable biofuels economy, but it also is considered to be the leader in the field. Together, Brazil and the United States dominate the industrial world in global ethanol production, accounting for 70% of the world’s production and nearly 90 percent of the ethanol used for fuel.

Recently, the Brazilian sugar-based ethanol industry pushed to further its development at the expense of the less efficient U.S. model, which is predicated on corn-based production. The Brazilian government wants to show the rest of the world the benefits of its sugar ethanol market. In comparison with corn-based ethanol, sugar-based ethanol is more efficient; it is cheaper to produce and uses less valuable land to produce its crop.

In defense of sugar-based ethanol, President Lula da Silva has argued that the U.S. misguidedly produces corn for its ethanol instead of devoting its acreage to high grade crops, which could be used for human consumption. Meanwhile, Washington keeps subsidies high to benefit multinational U.S. agro-industries.

Lula maintains that this is yet another case of the U.S. keeping developing countries from playing their rightful role in the world economy. This criticism represents a critical aspect of Brazil’s opposition to the U.S. version of an FTAA.

President Lula da Silva, supported by Brazil’s robust economy and his ability to work with political figures across the ideological spectrum, has emerged as South America’s chief power broker and mediator. As a result of his country’s economic prosperity, this has helped him win soaring popularity at home and abroad.

The President seems to be intent on fulfilling Brazil’s long-unrealized economic and political potential, which would allow for the transformation of the South American behemoth into a recognized world power. In a related matter, Julio Burdman, an Argentine political analyst, noted that “since the beginning of his second term, Lula began to compete vigorously to counter [Hugo] Chávez’s aspirations as a regional leader.”

Conservative U.S. policymakers see Lula as a welcomed counter weight to Chávez. Under the Bush administration, Washington was preoccupied with the Middle East which in turn led U.S. influence in Latin America to visibly fade. Meanwhile, some Latin American countries unobtrusively began their swing to the left while others moved to join in the process using various gradations of ideology underlining their political realignment.

Latin American countries, forced by Washington to swallow unfair and often unanticipated austerity measures in the 1980s and 1990s, are now being made anxious by the U.S. failure to police its own markets.

With the results of the U.S. presidential election, the horizon may be changing. One of Barack Obama’s senior advisers on Latin America, Dan Restrepo, acknowledges that his boss is essentially proposing a symbolic shift in style – even considering going as far as appointing a special White House envoy for the Americas.

“Barack doesn’t see the United States as the savior of the Americas, but as a constructive partner,” Restrepo has declared. President-elect Obama also has stated several times that he would pay more attention to Latin American countries by trying to strengthen trade ties in order to reverse some of the more destructive commercial initiatives that were established by the Bush administration.

In the last eight years, priority was often given to dealing with Iraq and Middle Eastern countries, with the result being that little interest was given to engaging in serious policy-making regarding other western hemispheric countries.

What Obama wishes for the future, in his own words, is that “we don’t have the notion that Latin American countries are a junior partner to the United States. That is outmoded. We need to be full partners with those countries, [and] show them the respect that they deserve.”

Lula da Silva previously has said that one of the benefits of the current worldwide economic turmoil could be the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president. Therefore, the relationship between the two countries must be recast in light of Brazil’s new position of hemispheric eminence, and its role on the international scene as a rising world power.

At the same time, the rest of Latin America is going through a process of autonomous development in which the region is pluralizing and diversifying its relations with a whole skein of new hemispheric players.

This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Cristina Militi. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) – www.coha.org – is a think tank established in 1975 to discuss and promote inter-American relationship. Email: coha@coha.org.

I’m getting kind of annoyed by all this whining. I mean, for pity’s sake, people! Just a few years ago, weren’t you all crowing about how wonderful and unstoppable your country is? Wasn’t the prognosis that the American Century would now never end? That you could, as a nation, do absolutely anything you want? Money and political will were no longer a factor for the great Yew Ess of Ay…?

The American economy has taken a big hit, but its fundamentals are still sound and there’s a long way to go before it’s anything near bankrupt. This means that now is the time to INVEST there, which is precisely why the dollar is going up and the Brazilian economy is in crisis. People are getting their affairs in order and seeing where to toss their cash and in that kind of climate, the American economy is still the best deal in town.

Americans seem to be freaked out because, since 2001, they’ve been told by their president and their media that they are by-God the only superpower in the world and they’ve interpreted that to mean that they can do anything they want, fuckscrew world opinion and screw costs.

Well, turns out that they can’t.

Remember back when the war in Iraq was supposedly going to cost the States only 25 billion bucks? And Afghanistan 5? The total cost is closing in a trillion now with no end in sight.

The Bush government was marked by decisions – on practically every level and in every sphere – that a drunken sailor in a whorehouse would have been embarrassed to make.

The current collapse of the U.S. economy is directly related to the U.S. housing boom, which was itself a result of Greenspan’s attempt to head off a recession after 9/11.

Remember all that “spend, spend, spend” rhetoric that was floating about back in those days? Well guess where a good chunk of that unsecured debt we’re talking about today came from?

And politically it was the same thing. With Americans reeling after 9/11, Bush gave them a showy little colonial war in Afghanistan. Though I was against that war, there was at least the chance to turn it into something marginally positive, seeing as how the Taliban were a truly slimy bunch of people and the situation there could hardly get any WORSE.

But then, that little war worked so well in making Bush look like a Commander in Chief, that he went ahead and pushed the CIA to fabricate data painting Iraq as a potential threat. Every pondered voice in Washington D.C. who knew anything at all about Iraq said “Wait a f**king minute. Sure we can tackle Saddam. That was never the question. We HAVEN’T because how the hell are we going to put Humpty back together again after we push him off the wall?”

One of the things that most Americans don’t realize is that the relative tranquility that’s occurred in Iraq has happened not because of the surge, but because the U.S. has frankly bought out the militias by officializing them. IIRC, each militiaman is getting a fair amount of USDA-approved hard cash straight from Unka Sugah every single day. This is supposedly going to kick-start the Iraqi economy and provide security at the same time. What it is, however is a colossal bribe. If and when it stops being paid…

But who cared back in the early Naughty Aughties? If you said “Hold, nay!” back then you were – what were the words? – Anti-American. A terrorist supporter. A traitor (this word was even applied to non-Americans, which just goes to show how high the jingo levels were running).

I think that this situation got started because Bush began his reign unpopular and knew that his government was doomed if people started having to make unpleasant choices which were perceived as his responsibility.

But it was allowed to go on for as long as it did because the American people simply didn’t want to face up to the realities of what it meant to be the last remaining superpower in the 21st century. They felt that such a status should logically mean that Manifest Destiny was finally achieved, that America was to rule the world from here on in and life was going to be one unbroken series of Hallmark greeting card moments.

And, sorry to say, the American media – which should have watch-dogged the whole affair – went right along with the fantasy as the entire country set a course into Never-Never Land, flags flying and bands playing.

The U.S. is going to need time to get out of the hole it’s dug for itself, politically and economically and it’s probably never again going to feel as strong as it felt back in 2003.

But you know what? It really WASN’T as strong as Americans thought back in 2003. Turns out the States CAN’T run the world as if it were an electric train set. The U.S. is a powerful nation, but when it comes right down to it, it is still just a nation – not a force of nature mandated by some higher power to bring goodness and wholesomeness to Planet Earth.

America is not now as weak as some people seem to think it is. It’s got a LOOOOOOONG way to fall before it even comes close to Brazil in terms of real crisis potential.

Take it from a Brazilian who lived through the military dictatorship, 3000% annual inflation and Fernando Collor: you boys don’t even KNOW what a real crisis is yet. Believe me, you don’t want to. Things here are going to get pretty grim if a recession starts up but what does that really mean to most Americans?

They’ll have to trash their SUVs and start driving economy cars again?

They’ll have to have to actually be able to conceivably pay for a house in order to get a loan for one?

They won’t be able to dream the idiot’s dream that they can waltz into another country and put all bad things to right in three months using only the Congressional chump-change fund?

All this current crisis means, folks, is that as a nation the United States is going to have to grow up and learn to live here in the real world with the rest of us. And the real world means real limitations on what one can do.

Americans have spent the last eight years in a fever dream of untrammeled power and wealth. They’ve been dreaming this because, as a nation, they don’t want to recognize the real state of affairs of the world: prosperity in the 21st century will increasingly mean half-measures and compromises with people and choices that you don’t really like.

The world is really NOT a black and white affair, despite what people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh might have you believe. Things are a hell of a lot more complicated than that and are only going to get more so. Sound-bites and Disney imagineering can only take you so far. In spite of the Internet and special effects, reality still exists and it will slap you hard in the face if you ignore it too long.

Now, enjoy your temporary dollar high because my bet is that by this time next year, things will have stabilized back around 2 reais to the dollar, which is where most sane economists think things should be.

Thaddeus Blanchette is an immigrant to Brazil who has been living in and studying the country most of his adult life. He can be reached at poboxthad@yahoo.com.br.

The experience was turned by the Brazilian into the book "Passport Secrets" (Segredos de Passaporte), launched by the Literalis publishing house, based in Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul, last month.

The Brazilian's experience in different countries gave birth to 26 stories for the publication. "They are 26 real stories, and each is independent from the others. I describe my contact with people," he says.

Mendes Netto also discusses his participation in events, such as trade fairs, that resulted in the creation of sales networks for the companies with which he worked abroad.

Although he travelled to dozens of different regions, the book focuses on the United States, Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Italy, Germany and the Emirates.

Netto worked with GE for eight years, Philco Ford for two years, Eberle for 16 years, and Weg for another 16 years. In the latter, he remained until 2002. Currently, at 71 years of age, he owns a company named Conosco do Brasil. By means of his enterprise, he provides consultancy services to other companies interested in international expansion.

"I help companies understand what people in other countries are like," he states. The executive holds a degree in Civil and Electric Engineering and another in Business Management from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Netto was born in Caxias do Sul, a municipality in the state of Rio Grande do Sul that was founded by European colonizers, and is a descendent of Italians and Portuguese. The release of his book took place in Caxias do Sul, in the month of March, and in the cities of Jaraguá do Sul, in Santa Catarina, and Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul, this month.

The author says that he also wants to publish his book outside of Brazil, and is already planning a second work, which should be a sequel to the first.

The Emirates became part of the author's curriculum from the 1990s until 2002, when he put an end to 10 years of travelling to and from the country to put together a local sales and services network for products by Weg, a maker of engines and electric equipment based in the state of Santa Catarina in the South of Brazil.

In the Emirates, Netto would usually travel to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and worked in partnership with local company Aikah, which became the representative for the Santa Catarina-based company in the region.

In the book, the executive recounts his experience with everyday life in the Emirates. "The system there is quite different. Banks open very early, at 8 am, because of the heat, therefore large banking operations take place in the morning," says the executive.

Netto describes the Arabs as pleasant and helpful, but states that with them, one must assume that some waiting will be required. "They are not very punctual. In the beginning, I had problems with that. Over time, I became accustomed and would already expect some delay."

Anba – www.anba.com.br

Currently it is of US$ 0.54 per gallon of 3.78 liters. "Ending the tariff will allow the import of foreign ethanol and this will help us with our costs," said Bush to al local television.

Last year, Brazil exported to the United States about US$ 77 million in ethylic alcohol for industrial purposes. The information is from the communications department at the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture.

Petrobras Profits

The net profit obtained by Brazilian state-owned oil company Petrobras added up to US$ 3.14 billion in the first quarter, which represented an increase in 33% in relation to the same period last year, according to information released by the company.

The main factors for this increase were the company’s operational advances in the areas of exploitation and production and refinery, the high international prices, the appreciation of the real in relation to the dollar and the stability of operational costs.

ABr

The liberation for exports from the two regions was negotiated for three years by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply together with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Up to now only the state of Espí­rito Santo, in the southeast, was allowed to sell the product. The license was made possible because the United States Department of Agriculture accepted the Systems Approach for the fruit fly adopted in the areas of the papaya fruit trees in the extreme south of Bahia and Rio Grande do Norte.

The producers may start exporting after 30 days as of the USDA announcement, made on December 8. The agricultural and livestock federal inspectors from the Ministry of Agriculture will go through training to act in the packing houses to adapt to the procedures of papaya exports to the United States.

The state of Espí­rito Santo exports papaya to the United States since 1996. Since then, the state has already exported more than 33,000 tons to the US.

Anba

Rumors that Lula’s 2002 presidential campaign got money from foreign countries are old news. There was talk in Congress and also from intelligence sources that Libya’s  leader Muammar Gadafi sent help to the PT in 2002, through companies of his country, which were interested in investing in the Brazilian Northeast. There was also talk, about the Colombia’s Farc and Taiwan, in China. No one had mentioned Cuba, however.

“Follow the money”

The devil is that Cubans, Libyans, Colombians and Chinese were all duped and made a serious mistake. They lost their investments if they imagined that by donating millions of dollars they would see a president in opposition to the United States in the Brazilian government. They must all be feeling regretful since Lula turned into neoliberalism’s most faithful follower. Fidel Castro should ask for his money back and then apply it in the industrialization of his own country instead. After all, the island is no consumer’s paradise.

The irony is that the United States, this time,  did not meddle in the Brazilian politics. Neither the CIA nor the American multinationals sent a miserable cent to the PT campaign, in contrast to the millions sent for destabilizing the João Goulart government in the 60s and promoting the military regime.

In 2002, for fear of Lula, Washington saved some good money. And even profited handsomely with the current economic policy, of religious payment of the interests of a debt that has already been paid a thousand times.

History has such contradictions. We have paid a thousand times the USA investment in the establishment of the military governments. Poor Cubans, Libyans, Colombians and Chinese, if they really sent money, they were left in the lurch.

The charges are very serious. If they are substantiated, they might force the ruling Workers Party to close shop through judicial means.  Opposition legislators might also bring back the proposal to impeach the President. Such a move won’t be easy, however, since we seem to have only testimonial evidence.

From what magazine Veja has published, Cuba’s money came in whiskey and rum boxes, imported by the Cuban embassy in Brasília. In so being, the solution is to follow the money, that is, follow the money, if not from its origin at least through its trajectory.

It will have been changed by some doleiro (illegal dollar dealer) or deposited in some account overseas. If it is true, someone will have left traces that cannot be erased. If it is a lie the role of victim will very well fit the President who will try re-election. And if things stay the way they are, that’s our bad luck, because nobody can take this festival of speculations, denials and charges anymore. 

A Fools Country

A long time ago the Lone Ranger was created and became a big hero. He had a friend called Tonto (in Portuguese the word means fool) a legitimate Indian, with a feather on his head and everything else.

Years went by and the Lone Ranger became old and fat. He might even have died although it may always reappear in one of those Hollywood blockbusters. 

The real winner was Tonto who has multiplied and even quit being an Indian. He never fails. Let’s make a comparison: the Lone Ranger is the neoliberalism, the Tontos are all those who attack us while defending neoliberalism. 

The most recent of them just showed up this weekend, in an article in which he wrote that without a strong reduction in public expenditures, in a few years Brazil will become economically unviable. 

Which public expenditures, paleface? The highways have become a pothole field. The railroads that were not wiped out by the State have vanished. The government spends way more in publicity than in basic sanitation. Nobody thinks about building a new hydroelectric, what makes us anticipate another national blackout in a few years.

Our ports have become inadequate to let pass the products for export. Budget curtailments brought back foot and mouth disease to our animals, and tuberculosis, to our men, women and children.

The State has no money to invest in public safety. The Armed Forces are systematically left to die an inglorious death. The favelas (shantytown) grow disproportionately.  Public hospitals were turned into slums and the public schools will soon establish the fifth shift.

All of this means that the government is not investing enough. Plans to cut public expenditures even more might be a dream of Finance Minister Antônio Palocci and company, but such measure very soon will lead us to social disintegration.

In an effort to save the Lone Ranger, who is already dead, they are turning Brazil into a country of Tontos…

Carlos Chagas writes for the Rio’s daily Tribuna da Imprensa and is a representative of the Brazilian Press Association, in Brasília. He welcomes your comments at carloschagas@hotmail.com.

Translated from the Portuguese by Arlindo Silva.

"I’m convinced the peoples of the Americas will bury the proposal", underlined President Chavez in Caracas during an event with Chinese businessmen that will be building a satellite for Venezuela.

Chavez revealed that in the previous meetings of the Summit scheduled to begin Friday, United States is involved in a fierce diplomatic battle in a "desperate attempt to resuscitate FTAA" and include it in the final declaration.

However he underlined that "Venezuela is a free country and will accept no pressures from imperialism."

"We’re in the middle of a battle and we call upon the governments of Latinamerica and the Caribbean to face reality, and beware because the empire immediately begins to put pressure and blackmail governments and countries".

The Venezuelan president said that no matter how the final draft of the Mar del Plata summit declaration works out, "there’s an ongoing, underlying deft battle but I’m certain that the peoples of the Americas will bury FTAA."

Chavez insisted that if FTAA had been effective, Venezuela could not be making business with China such as the building of a satellite because "the intention is that the international trade agreement is above the Constitution and legal system of Venezuela."

Laws and the Constitution would be worthless, he said, "we’d have to declare the Constitution null and void, only the empire’s (US) constitution would be valid."

"In this sense FTAA is against China and any other European country which dares offer technology," highlighted Chavez.

"I’ve spoken about this to the European people…I’ve told (Jacques) Chirac; Rodriguez Zapatero; Vladimir Putin, it’s against them also, because the FTAA purpose is to impede any free cooperation relation with China, with Asia, with Europe. It’s about imposing over our peoples a hegemonic empire for ever", underlined Chavez.

Finally the Venezuelan president said the struggle against FTAA is not only to defend "what we have, which is not much, but to defend all we can have and achieve."

President Bush is also scheduled to travel to Brazil for talks with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva before wrapping up his Latin American tour in Panama, where he is to meet with head of state Martin Torrijos.

Chavez challenges Bush to a FTAA debate

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said in Caracas he is willing to debate, during the coming Americas Summit in Argentina, with US president George Bush on the merits of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, FTAA.

"If Bush comes to the summit with his speech on FTAA he will receive a forceful reply from us and the invitation to debate", said Mr. Chavez.
The Venezuelan president added he would politely request President Bush to outline the reasons behind his "neo-liberal" FTAA project and then he would display his own ideas.

"We’ll see if the occasion crops up although at these events no one really goes with a debating spirit, but I will promote the debate and let’s see what happens".

Mr. Chavez considers the FTAA Project "dead and buried" and defends his proposal for a Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, which in Spanish has the initials ALBA, dawn.

ALBA and FTAA are two opposing concepts, because FTAA from the north is a "neo-liberal" initiative, imperialist, excluding, while Venezuela’s ALBA is a multilateral initiative, sovereign and inclusive, argues the Venezuelan president.

United States and Venezuela have been at loggerheads since Mr. Chavez began promoting "Socialism", criticizing "US imperialism and exploitation" and openly supporting the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro.

President Chavez claims the Bush administration instigated the aborted coup of April 2002 when he was ousted and jailed for 48 hours before been liberated by loyal troops returning triumphantly to office.

The latest dispute involves spares for the US made F16 fighter bombers of the Venezuelan Air Force which Washington is denying delivery.

President Chavez accused US of breaking the spare parts supply contract and suggested that Washington would be less than pleased if military rivals gained access to the advanced planes which were sold to Venezuela in the eighties.

Saying he was "only thinking out", "maybe we will just send them back to them, or perhaps we will send 10 planes to Cuba, or to China, so they can have a look at the technology of these aircraft."

This article appeared originally in Mercopress – www.mercopress.com.