Double darn! I can't believe this thread is still going on. Brazil is still on fire-- how funny 12% growth now... what an amazing time to be living in Brazil. Rewarded by natures minerals and God's oil. I have been reading good things about PBR and their safety measures please stay on them about this for obvious reasons. I own Vale. And since a lot of cars get stolen in Brazil I am close to owning Iturin which has 50% of the Lojacky market in Brazil... GPS devices to track stolen cars... I have used Gafista in the past and there is a lovely etf that caters to the Brazil internal consumption economy I think the symbol is BRF. I've always wanted to visit the northern I believe sections of Brazil, you need to change plains to get there Playa something a lot of fashions starlets go there... I used to film models a bit-- never got that trip though.... I don't like crowds so I doubt I'll ever do Rio... and switching planes is a drag unless it's into a sea plane so I doubt I'll get into the North either. I heard they dance till dawn on ecstasy there so I might be a bit old for this area anyway. I'll probably end up seeing Chile or Puru before Brazil. And now with this law I know I won't be buying a little hut in Brazil either! I've always envied these folks with houses far abroad so far An island of Africa who's name I've forgotten looked the most interesting... Nevis in the Caribbean would be a top choice; Majorca! very nice, villa's available, Canaries, maybe Portugal for sure, Sintra is such a lovely town! ~stoney
. August 4, 2010 SouthAmerica: Today a Folha de Sao Paulo has a frontpage article about the ongoing war against the narcotraffic in Mexico. In the last 18 days Mexico had 3,174 assassinations in relation to the narcotraffic â the equivalent of about 176 deaths per day. We are seeing just the preview in Mexico of a war against the narcotraffic â wait until this war reaches Brazil in full force. The military in Brazil is just waiting for the right time to start taking action â and what is happening in Mexico will look like nothing compared with what is in store for Brazil. ********* April 13, 2010 SouthAmerica: Here is the link to my latest article about Brazil, which was published on Brazzil magazine. The Brazilian Formula for Success - Dictatorship Written by Ricardo C. Amaral Brazzil magazine - Tuesday, 13 April 2010 http://www.brazzil.com/component/co...ctatorship.html ⦠The Brazilian formula for success includes periods of dictatorship, and Brazil had three periods in its history when Brazil benefited from being under a certain form of a government: benevolent dictatorial regime. ********* Folha de Sao Paulo â 4 Agosto de 2010 âEm menos de 20 dias, México registra mais de 3.000 homicÃdiosâ DA ANSA, NA CIDADE DO MÃXICO DAS AGÃNCIAS DE NOTÃCIAS O México registrou nos últimos 18 dias um total de 3.174 assassinatos relacionados ao narcotráfico --o equivalente a 176 por dia-- ou 13% a mais que a última contagem oficial, informou nesta terça-feira fontes do governo. Guillermo Valdés, diretor do Centro de Investigação e Segurança Nacional (Cisen), órgão de inteligência do México, admitiu perante o presidente, Felipe Calderón, que nas últimas semanas ocorreram diariamente confrontos armados entre narcotraficantes e tropas federais. Segundo ele, cerca de 84 mil armas foram confiscadas no perÃodo, além de US$ 411 milhões [cerca de R$ 722 milhões] e 26 milhões de pesos [R$ 3,6 milhões] em espécie. Os números foram divulgados durante encontro entre Calderón e representantes de grupos civis e empresariais. Os participantes discutiam maneiras de melhorar a estratégia anti-drogas do México. "A violência ligada à s drogas continua a crescer no México", disse Valdés. Desde o inÃcio da gestão do atual mandatário, de acordo com o Cisen, a guerra contra a criminalidade deixou 28 mil mortos. Em 16 de julho, a Procuradoria Geral havia relatado que o número de mortos nos enfrentamentos chegava a 24.826. No mês de abril, informes oficiais indicaram que a cifra de assassinatos relacionados ao narcotráfico era de 22.700. Apenas em 2009 foram registradas 9.635 mortes. Desde dezembro de 2006, quando Calderón assumiu a Presidência e declarou guerra aos cartéis do narcotráfico, foram mobilizados 100 mil efetivos do Exército e da Marinha, além de policiais federais e estaduais. Agora, o governo planeja destacar mais 40 mil agentes. .
The guys in the favelas dont look very worried to me . Actually the joke is that if someone attacks Brazil, forget the military, the Rio drug lords will defend the country.
Sell Sell Sell Sell. Brazil top in already. Every day now since May 25, 2010 you've been getting a 2nd chance to take profit, close shop and transfer money out of the country. Brazil is about to have her period! Man who fondle girl having period, get caught red handed
August 27, 2010 SouthAmerica: Translation: âLula authorizes new law that gives police powers to the Armed Forcesâ *** 25/08/2010 - 16h33 âLula sanciona lei que dá poder de polÃcia à s Forças Armadasâ DE BRASÃLIA Folha de Sao Paulo O presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sancionou na tarde desta quarta-feira (25) a lei que cria o Estado Maior das Forças Armadas. Enviado pelo Poder Executivo no final do ano passado ao Congresso Nacional, o texto recebeu sanção presidencial sem vetos. Durante esforço concentrado do Senado Federal, no inÃcio do mês, o plenário da Casa aprovou o PLC (Projeto de Lei Complementar) e encaminhou o texto para o presidente. Durante a solenidade, Lula agradeceu os parlamentares pela rapidez da tramitação. Uma das principais mudanças da lei é a que que autoriza as Forças Armadas a revistar pessoas e veÃculos, fazer patrulhamento e "prisões em flagrante delito" nas faixas de fronteiras do paÃs. O Exército já tinha esse poder, agora ampliado para Marinha e Aeronáutica. A nova lei ainda reforça o poder do ministro da Defesa ao dar a ele o poder de indicação dos comandantes das Forças Armadas, hoje sob responsabilidade do presidente da República. "Antes, ele [o ministro] era ouvido", ressaltou o titular da Defesa, Nelson Jobim, durante solenidade no Palácio do Planalto. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/...e-da-poder-de-policia-as-forcas-armadas.shtml .
Lula's Dance With the Despots The president of Brazil is preserving his country's unfortunate image as a resentful, Third-World ankle-biter. It probably wasn't long after we all got kicked out of the garden that Brazil began dreaming about becoming a serious country and a player on the world stage. Now, just as it seemed like the eternal Brazilian dream was about to come true, President Lula da Silva is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Brazil may be gaining some respect on the economic and monetary front but when it comes to geopolitical leadership, Mr. da Silva is working overtime to preserve the country's image as a resentful, Third-World ankle-biter. The latest example of how Brazil is not yet ready for prime time in international circles came last week when it voted against sanctions on Iran at the United Nations Security Council. Turkey was Brazil's lone partner in this embarrassing exercise. But Turkey at least can blame the complexity of its Muslim roots. Lula is driving Brazil's reputation into the sand for his own political gratification. Brazil defended its U.N. vote on the grounds that the "sanctions will most probably lead to the suffering of the people of Iran and will play into the hands of those, on all sides, that do not want dialogue to prevail." Unpack that statement and there's nothing inside. The sanctions are directed, not at civilians, but at Iranian nuclear and missile proliferation ambitions. As to "dialogue," it should be obvious by now that what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad needs is a little less conversation. If Brazil considered its vote a principled stand in defense of the righteous, it sure gave in fast. After making a stink about the sanctions, it quickly announced it would honor them. This suggests that it may have some appreciation for the diminishing returns of its lunatic foreign policies. Lula's Worker's Party is hard left, but no one should mistake him for a committed bolshevik. He is merely a clever politician who came up from the streets and loves power and limousines. As Brazil's first Workers' Party president he has had to balance the useful things he has learned about markets and monetary restraint against the ideology of his base. His answer to this quandary has been to use his foreign ministryâwhere a genetically left-leaning foreign service bureaucracy is headed by the notoriously anti-American, anticapitalist intellectual Celso Amorimâto burnish his leftist credentials. With his friendship with the "nonaligned" providing a shield, he has been able to keep the collectivist ideologues out of the economy. But Brazil's reputation as a leader among emerging economies has suffered greatly. To satisfy the left, Lula has been asked to defend and elevate its heroes, who are some of the most egregious human rights violators on the planet. A review of his two-term presidency reveals a trend toward defending despots and dissing democrats. The repressive Iranian government is only the latest example. There is also Lula's unconditional support for Cuba's dictatorship and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. In February, Cuba allowed political dissident Orlando Zapata to starve to death the same week Lula arrived on the island slave plantation to hobnob with the Castro brothers. When asked by the press about Zapata, Lula dismissed his death as one of many by hunger-strikers in history that the world ignored. He obviously never heard of the Irish militant Bobby Sands. Lula also has stuck by Mr. Chávez as he has destroyed democratic institutions in his country and collaborated with the drug-trafficking Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). A grown-up Brazil would have used its influence to lead a push back against this state-sponsored terrorism. But under Lula's political cost-benefit analysis, the victims of FARC violence don't count. Hondurans have not fared any better during Lula's power trip. Brazil spent a good part of last year trying to force their country to reinstate deposed president Manuel Zelaya, even though he had been removed by the civilian government for violating the constitution. Brazil's actions, including harboring Mr. Zelaya at the Brazilian Embassy for months, created immense economic hardship for Hondurans. Last week U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for letting Honduras back into the Organization of American States (OAS), noting that the country has held an election and returned to normalcy. Brazil objected. "Honduras's return to the OAS must be linked to specific means for ensuring re-democratization and the establishment of fundamental rights," Brazil's deputy foreign minister, Antonio de Aguiar Patriota said. Note to Brazil: Don't you mean Cuba? Brazil will hold a presidential election in October and though Lula will leave office popular, the Workers' Party candidate is not guaranteed to ride his coattails. So he is now feeding red meat to the party base by holding hands with Mr. Ahmadinejad and voting against Uncle Sam. Will it work? A lot will depend on whether those Brazilians who view him as squandering the nation's emerging prominence outnumber those backing his dance with the despots. As former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso has warned, Lula's policy has Brazil "switching sides" but it's far from clear that Brazilians are in agreement. http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748703509404575300694085699092.html
. August 30, 2010 SouthAmerica: Reply to Tom B Tom I know that you are part of the Jewish Lobby. Your first posting on the ET Forum was an effort to defend Israel. I donât give a shit about Israel. Israel means nothing to me. As far as I am concerned Israel is nothing more than a little country located in the Middle East that creates a lot trouble for the United States. I am Agnostic, and it makes no difference to me if you are Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, or any other religion. When you take religion from the equation Israel is nothing more than a small piece of desert with an economy that depends on the âGravy Trainâ provided by the United States. Let me tell you a little secret: I stopped reading the Wall Street Journal many years ago. I canât remember the last time I read that newspaper. I have no use for The Wall Street Journal, and I find it to be an inferior newspaper in every sense when compared with the Financial Times (UK) - a newspaper that I read every day. For me The Wall Street Journal it is just a second rate newspaper and I donât care about what they say on that newspaper. Quoting from the WSJ article: âThe latest example of how Brazil is not yet ready for prime time in international circles came last week when it voted against sanctions on Iran at the United Nations Security Council. Turkey was Brazil's lone partner in this embarrassing exercise.â Translation to plain English: âSour Grapesâ â Meaning: Acting meanly after a disappointment. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/sour-grapes.html That Wall Street Journal article is an article that reflects how irrelevant the United States is becoming for that area of the world â and the article is saying: they donât love us and they are bad, bad people. ***** The vote at the United Nations Security Council was 13 to 2 â the only embarrassing part of that exercise in wasting time was that 12 other countries of the UN Security Council voted the way the United States told them to vote. This voting also reflects the lost of clout and prestige of the United States in South America. The United Nations Security Council is composed of five permanent members: China France Russian Federation United Kingdom United States and ten non-permament members: Austria Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Gabon Japan Lebanon Mexico Nigeria Turkey Uganda ************** The WSJ article said: âThe latest example of how Brazil is not yet ready for prime time in international circles came last week when it voted against sanctions on Iran at the United Nations Security Council.â Now, that implies that the United States is ready for prime time in international circles and here is a prime example of US diplomacy in action going nowhere fast for many decades: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diploma...et-meeting-before-direct-talks-begin-1.311023 Yitzhak Molcho, aide to Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's chief negotiator, is due to depart for the United States to discuss opening remarks at trilateral peace summit â¦Israel's chief negotiator Yitzhak Molcho was due to depart for the United States later Monday in order to hold preparatory talks ahead of Wednesday's trilateral summit between U.S. President Barack Obama, Netanyahu, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas. ************ The Wall Street Journal should write an article about how the United States diplomacy is ready for prime time in international circles, and as a major example just put the spotlight at the Israel crisis in the Middle East that US diplomacy and expertise has accomplished nothing in 50 years. And here we go again: another exercise in wasting time, and one more example showing that US diplomacy is nothing to write home about it. You donât need to be a rocket scientist to know in advance that these meetings are nothing more than an exercise in wasting time and going nowhere fast. If anything itâs laughable that these guys still are able to go through the motions and make a fool of themselves one more time. Hah, hah, hahâ¦â¦â¦â¦ What a bunch of fools. And the world is supposed to play along, and take these fools seriously. ********* PS: I can see next week article on the Wall Street Journal saying: Last Wednesday's trilateral summit between U.S. President Barack Obama, Netanyahu, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas, as usual it was a complete fiasco, but this time around the United States has found a new scapegoats for its constant diplomatic failure, and the US is blaming the current diplomatic fiasco on Brazil and Turkey because⦠.
Your ignorance is amazing. I am not Jewish, or part of the "Jewish lobby". Brazil is, and will always be a banana republic as long as they elect leaders like Lula. Brazil's term on the security council will end next year. Brazil will NEVER become a permanent member of the security council. Lula kisses Ahmadinejad's ass, and then cries in public about the proposed stoning of a woman in Iran. Lula is a moron. He should know that Iran is a barbaric terrorist nation. Iran commits these type of acts on a regular basis. The Wall Street Journal is a highly respected paper in the US and around the world. The fact that you do not read shows your myopic view of the world. I would not want to live in a banana republic like Brazil, and judging by your actions, you would not either.
+1 You could have stopped there. About SAs only redeeming quality, is that most of his words are spelled correctly. Everything else belies a hopeless jumble of lunacy, foolishness, and a general lack of intelligence. But he proudly wears his ignorance well...
Well, I accidentally ran into this long term prediction, so let's see how it went?: Sugar futures: At the time of post: $ 19 Summer of 2007: $ 9 2010 February: $ 30 2010 Summer: $ 15 So I guess he was right, just 15 months EARLY...