NY’s Giuliani to help make Rio safer for World Cup and Olympics

Known for his ‘zero’ tolerance for violence, Rudolph Giuliani has been asked to do consulting work for the city of Rio de Janeiro. The state’s governor, Sergio Cabral invited Giuliani to come to Rio this week to talk about how the former NY mayor could help prepare Rio de Janeiro to host the 2014 World Soccer Cup and 2016 Olympics games.

According to Cabral, Giuliani has accepted the ‘challenge’ of making Rio de Janeiro a safe place for these two world events, and will send a team of advisors down to Rio to work with the state’s public security office.

Looking at the latest occurrences in Rio, Cabral will need all the help he can get. Facing an uphill battle to end the war being waged between drug traffickers in Rio’s slums, city police yesterday found that drug lords are now using children and the elderly from these poorer communities to transport arms and drugs. A 15-year girl wearing a school uniform was arrested Thursday at a bus stop in one of Copacabana’s busiest streets carrying a rifle and 19 rounds of ammunition. She was being ‘escorted’ by two men believed to be part of a drug gang working out of a Copacabana slum.

Brazilian Senate decides to allow more foreign capital in aviation

A Brazilian Senate Commission approved a bill on Wednesday that will allow for an increase of foreign capital in Brazilian airline companies. The Commission on Constitution and Justice (CCJ) decided to allow an increase from 20% to 49% of foreign capital in Brazilian airlines. The decision, however, will have to be approved by the Chamber of Deputies.

According to senators the change would allow Brazilian airlines facing financial woes to obtain much-needed financing abroad. The bill, in Congress since 2004, became a priority this year, after a sharp decline in the industry’s results, due to the effects of the global financial crisis. Brazilian airlines are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with foreign companies, which usually have lower tariffs.

For some time, Brazilian airlines had been lobbying hard for the increase in foreign participation, while foreign investors impatiently waited on the sidelines for a chance to be part of the Brazilian segment. Tired of waiting David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue, took action. Son of a foreign correspondent, Neeleman was born in Brazil, making him eligible to open up his own airline in the country, Azul. The company, born in 2008,  is today the country’s third largest airline, losing only to TAM and Gol.

The visit of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Brazil

The Brazilian government will face today (Monday) another uncomfortable diplomatic situation as it welcomes Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his official visit to the country. President Lula is expected to try to convince the Iranian leader to accept the Vienna accord on nuclear armament. The agreement calls for the Middle East country to send the majority of its uranium abroad to be processed. President Lula and the Brazilian government are taking an enormous risk, since the chances of Ahmadinejad changing his mind, here in Brazil, are extremely low, leaving Lula in an embarrassing position,  in front of the international community, of having to be host to such a controversial figure.

President Lula is expected to reiterate the idea that Brazil recognizes Iran’s right to develop its nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The issue of nuclear technology is of much interest here in Brazil. Specialists on the issue say the government fears that if the major nuclear powers are able to stop Iran from developing its nuclear technology, the next step may be to halt the development in other countries, such as Brazil.

Among the issues to be discussed by the two leaders are the possibilities of cooperation in biotechnology, agriculture and energy segments as well as cultural exchanges between the two nations. One issue that may dampen the entire visit is the rumour that Brazilian oil giant, Petrobras, plans to leave Iran. The state-owned company is now focusing on the sub-salt exploration area within Brazil, closing down less-profitable operations in several places around the globe.

 But if the Brazilian government is doing everything it can to make Ahmadinejad welcome, the same can not be said for the Brazilian society. Under extreme heat hundreds took to the streets on Sunday in Rio de Janeiro to protest the visit. The march against the Iranian leader was able to unite Jews, Catholics, homosexuals, gypsies, women’s groups and the Afro-Brazilian movement towards one cause. According to daily newspaper Estado de S. Paulo, even a representative of the Islamic Society in Rio, participated in the march. There were also protests in Florianopolis and Curitiba (located in the Southern region of Brazil).

 In an editorial op-ed,  Sao Paulo Governor, Jose Serra, said it was ‘uncomfortable to receive a leader from a dictatorial and repressive regime’, since in the not-so-distant past Brazilians fought hard against a dictatorship. Serra asks why the country which tried to offer security and consolation to those victims of the Holocaust is now honouring one who now ‘trivializes the absolute evil’.

BRICs studying substitution of US dollar as currency of trade?

The four largest developing economies which make up the acronym BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are studying the possibility of substituting the US dollar in trade operations, according to Brazil’ Central Bank Chairman, Henrique Meirelles.

According to Meirelles, the implementation of trade operation payments in a currency other than the US dollar is already underway between Argentina and Brazil. Exporters from both countries are able to liquidate their operations either in Brazilian reais or Argentine pesos. A similar implementation process is also being finalized between Brazil and Uruguay.

 “Brazil and China’s central banks are working to ease trade (between the two countries) through local currencies. We’re doing something similar with the central banks from Russia and India”, Meirelles was quoted telling daily newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

According to the local media, Meirelles said he was told by President Lula da Silva to begin talks with Chinese authorities regarding the use of the Real and the Yuan in bilateral trade transactions.

CNBB partners up with Health Ministry to encourage HIV testing

Brazil’s National Bishop’s Conference (CNBB) announced on Thursday an unusual partnership with the country’s Health Ministry: an awareness campaign for HIV testing. With the slogan ‘Declare your Love to Yourself’, organizers will distribute pamphlets in Catholic Churches and dioceses as well as community centers and health clinics. The government hopes that the influence of the Catholic Church in the community will increase awareness of the importance of HIV testing for the general population and syphilis tests among pregnant women. The campaign will begin as an experiment in six capitals: Manaus, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Porto Alegre, João Pessoa and Rio de Janeiro. According to the CNBB what made this partnership possible was the concern, by both the Church and the government, over the health of the population. Bishop Eugene Rixen, president of the AIDS/STD Pastoral, said that the partnership will allow the government to reach those it would normally not have access to. ‘We reach the sub-world of the poorest and excluded,’ he said. As for the obvious divergences between the Church and the Brazilian government on issue of contraceptives, Friar José Bernardi, OFM Cap, executive secretary for the Pastoral, said that the focus of the campaign is not to promote an ideology, but to look for points in common between the Church and the government. According to Friar Bernardi more than 350 thousand agents from the Children, Health and AIDS/STD Pastorals will working in the campaign. Data from the Ministry of Health estimates that nearly 630 thousand persons are HIV positive in Brazil, and of those 225 thousand do not know of their conditions. The Ministry also revealed that in the case of pregnant women with syphilis 40% of the cases where there is transmission of the virus from the mother to the baby miscarriages and stillborn deliveries occur.

PhDs lining up to pick up garbage

According to local papers, the city of Rio de Janeiro started a selection process to hire 1,400 garbage collectors to work for the city. Candidates will have to pass a test to be hired. The pay: R$ 486.10/month (approximately US$ 278).  The registration list is already at 45,000. Among the candidates  45 hold PhDs, 22 hold Masters and over one thousand have a university degree.

Not that it is not a noble profession, that of the garbage collector, but it makes you wonder about statements made by the government and economists that the economic downturn in Brazil has been surpassed.  Most of the ‘higher-education’ candidates said they had been looking for a job for awhile now and wanted a steady income and the benefits of being a public employee.

Brazil losing battle to save animals from extinction

Brazil’s Environment Minister seems to be trying to put out one fire after another. First were reports that one of the government’s agencies (INCRA – Agrarian Reform Agency) was at the top of the list as Brazil’s leading deforestation agent. Now a survey conducted in 2004, but released this week, shows that the number of endangered species grew by three-fold in the last 20 years. The report, dubbed the “Red Book”, found that while in 1989 there were 218 animals at the risk of being extinct, in 2004 ,the total of animals threatened with extinction was whooping 627 especies.  The report states that although 79 animals were taken off the endangered list, another 489 were added to the list.

The 900-page book states that, contrary to popular belief , Brazil’s most endangered eco-systems today is not the Amazon, but the Mata Atlantica (coastal rainforest) and Cerrado (tropical savanna) regions. The list is said to include 10% of all mammals which live in the country.

The sad part  is that no plans to reduce the number of endangered animals is currently being discussed by officials. It seems that Environment Minister Carlos Minc is as inoperative as Marina Silva was during her stint in the Ministry. Both, fierce defenders of the environment, seemed to do much more and be more publicly engaged in the fight to save the environment when they were common folks, with no ties to the federal government.

Brazil, along with Indonesia, is said to have the largest biodiversity system in the world. The country today has catalogued only approximately 10% of the nearly 1.8 million species of animals living within its borders. Unfortunately if the government continues to look the other way, we may not get the chance to discover many more especies.

Merger creates largest bank in Southern Hemisphere

Analysts spent the day today trying to digest Monday’s announcement of the merger of two of Brazil’s largest banks: Itau and Unibanco. The merger, if approved by Brazil’s anti-trust agency (CADE), will create the 17th largest financial institution in the world, with R$ 575.1 billion in assets, the largest bank in the Southern Hemisphere and the 4th largest company in Latin America (in terms of market value). All during the day on Monday, reporters ran around trying to get quotes from leading economic analysts as to whether or not this was positive or negative news. Only a few spoke, fearing saying something foolish before details of the negotiations were released. Rumors that Unibanco was in trouble were vehemently denied by bank officials and some analysts, although one has to wonder what made these two institutions decide on a deal in the midst of a global financial turmoil. Local media reports that negotiations had been going on for the past 15 months (therefore, long before the financial crisis hit). Two things, however, most analysts agree on: (1) the banking sector in Brazil just got smaller, with fewer commercial banks for the population to turn to, and therefore, more concentration in the segment and (2) the once number 2 bank, Bradesco, is likely to start looking for smaller banks to purchase, both domestically and abroad. Investors seemed to approve the merger, both Itau and Unibanco stocks went up both Monday and Tuesday, now we have to wait to see if Cade will be as enthusiastic as the market has been about the deal.

This blog will start November 1st!