Improving trade can boost Latin American economies to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. For that, states must cut the proliferating rules and red tape.
Tag: brazil
-Op-Ed- SAO PAULO — Two studies published in recent months show how inequality around the world is becoming even more obscene than before. One such study is the UBS report on the rich that focuses on capital. The figures involved are predictably shocking, but one element in particular caught our attention: The wealth owned by […]
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Pineapple Express
In Brazil, you can buy delicious pineapples at roadside stalls pretty much everywhere. And we did.
BEIJING — China’s Prime Minister, Li Keqiang, completed a tour last week of four South American countries — Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Chile — that marks a turning point between the Asian power and the Latin American region. With his arrival in Brazil on the second day, May 19, Li unveiled a major achievement: a […]
The leading Brazilian artist defies our expectations with photographed installations, challenging a society too apt to consume images rather than examine them.
NEW YORK — He spent his youth surfing on the beaches of Leblon, Rio’s most affluent neighborhood. He also had a certain talent for tennis, having been crowned national champion five times, participated in Wimbledon and two Davis Cups. This could have been the accomplishment of a lifetime — but for Jorge Lemann, it was […]
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Muslim And Happy In … Brazil
The world’s largest Catholic country has a long-established and steadily growing Muslim population. With some rare exceptions, Brazil is a model for integration of Islam into a mixed population.
-OpEd- SAO PAULO — The just-concluded Summit of the Americas in Panama was hailed as historic because it was the first time since the gathering began that both Cuba and the United States were present. And yet, there’s plenty of room for disappointment. The gathering of heads of state could have been even more significant […]
It wasn’t the Easter bunny delivering chocolate eggs this past Sunday night. No, that furry creature scaling the walls was a very real cat, in a very serious attempt to smuggle a precious load of cell phones and SIM cards into Brazil’s Romero Nobrega maximum security prison. With adhesive tape and bandages strapping the load […]
Lula da Silva spent liberally when the Brazilian economy was booming, leaving Dilma Rousseff to face the deferred impact of the global recession. His personal popularity aside, the country’s current woes are largely his fault.
Leonardo Boff, a Catholic theologian and key figure of Liberation theology, was condemned for decades by the Vatican. Now, he says, the pope himself is going beyond Liberation teachings.
Brazilians are furious as their personal prosperity slips away amid reports of runaway corrruption. All the while, President Rousseff looks forced to impose new austerity measures. Which way out?
A nationwide protest against left-wing Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff drew at least 1.5 million people across 147 cities in the country Sunday. Shouting “Fora, Dilma!” (“Dilma out!”) and dressed in the national flag’s colors of blue, green and yellow, the protestors marched against the deteriorating state of Brazil’s economy, inflation and corruption, the daily Folha […]
President Rousseff has abandoned big spending projects in favor of currency devaluation to fuel exports. Will it save her presidency? And more importantly, this BRICS nation’s floundering economy?
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Bahia Before Bertrand
In the early 1990s, Salvador began to clean up and restore its historical center Pelourinho. My grandson and partner-in-crime for this series was there last year on his honeymoon, and found it a bit too touristy. But back when I was there as the restoration began, it was nothing more and nothing less than one […]
SALVADOR — There’s nothing quite like a barbecue with friends and beer, lots of it, to go down cool and easy with the sizzling steaks — and of course the photos to brag about the good time. The scene would be nothing remarkable if it wasn’t for its location: Lemos Brito Penitentiary, in Salvador, one […]
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Port-O-Preto
Sure, I could tell you about Ouro Preto’s rich mining past, its baroque churches, its wonderful Mineralogy Museum (that both me and my grandson got to visit, 22 years apart), its failed revolution, its noble colonial architecture … but really: The word pipimóvel (“peepeemobile”) just makes me chuckle.
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Extra! Carnaval Do Brasil
The surreal flight of the Portela, O Globo, Feb. 17, 2015 Carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro are famous for being spectacular, but this year’s parades are special because they coincide with the city’s 450th anniversary. In yesterday’s parades, one of Rio’s most famous samba schools, GRES Portela, stunned the public with its traditional eagle, […]
From Greece and Spain, to Brazil and beyond, people are no longer convinced that politics is working for the greater good.
The fallout from the Petrobras scandal continues to consume Brazil. A former head of the energy giant has alleged that the governing Workers’ Party had received between $150 and $200 million in kickbacks from 90 of the biggest contracts Petrobras signed with major companies from 2003 until 2013, O Globo reports Friday. According to the […]
BRASILIA — Not so many months ago, pollsters were saying she’d be Brazil’s next president. But now, three months after failing to make it to even the second round of the election, former Sen. Marina Silva is nowhere to be seen. The once high-flying candidate seems to have lost more than just a presidential race. […]
For months now the southeastern region of Brazil has been experiencing the most severe drought in living memory. The already crippling water crisis was made worse by a mercilessly scorching summer that saw record high temperatures in São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous city. The suffocating heat has complicated matters further still by prompting people to […]
Revelations of massive corruption at Petrobras come with more than economic consequences. The credibility of the entire state is at stake. All eyes are on President Dilma Rousseff.
What used to be simple outdoor fun is now considered real child therapy in our hyper-connected world.
-OpEd- SÃO PAULO — The ongoing corruption and money laundering scandals at Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras have badly tarnished the image of the company. Once considered as a sort of national treasure, the public firm faces almost daily revelations about kickbacks paid to politicians from oil sales as part of a scheme to buy […]
Poles in the United States, Brazil and Britain recount how they’ve tried to adapt to the season in their new homelands. It can be bittersweet, as Polish traditions for them still hold sway.
BRAGANÇA PAULISTA — Brazilians are very serious about their Christmas trees. And the different fortunes of two unusual ones is proof of just how strict the standards of what is and isn’t acceptable as decoration can be in this festive Catholic country. A few weeks ago, the city of Rio de Janeiro started the holiday […]
RIO DE JANEIRO — The sign outside this modest hair salon in the Rio das Pedras favela, or shantytown, of Rio de Janeiro reads “Belos Fios” (“beautiful hair”). Inside, customers can find Matrix hair color products stacked behind the salon’s two only chairs. This is just one of some 30 small salons, most of them […]
-OpEd- DOURADOS — Large imposing walls and fences have become a compulsory part of construction plans for the luxury gated communities mushrooming all around Brazil. But there is one particularity about the Ecoville Residence in Dourados, in the southwestern state of Mato Grosso do Sul. On the other side of its three-meter electric fence sits […]
SAO PAULO — During my time in the early 1980s as a correspondent for Folha de S. Paulo in Buenos Aires, I covered more demonstrations of the “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” — and then of the “Grandmothers” — than I could count. Brave women, their faces furrowed by time and pain, their heads […]
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In Search Of Unity On Latin America Trade
With the region still divided into different trading blocs, Chile is leading efforts to bring Latin American nations together for a joint policy to expand global trade.
The emblematic U.S. banana firm, a confidante of 20th century Latin American regimes, with a long history of mistreating workers, tried in vain to avoid falling into Brazilian hands.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff edged out reelection, thanks in part to her charismatic predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. What role will he seek in her second term? Is he preparing to run in 2018?
-OpEd- BOGOTA — The crucial question in Brazil’s presidential elections, set for Sunday, is whether or not the country will remain the political and economic third way it has become. Will this “alternative socialism” – distinct from various offerings from both the traditional political Right and Left – keep its standing in the world established […]
Brazil’s future looks bright regardless of who wins the presidential runoff. Why? Because its parties matter more than personalities, argues Argentina’s former ambassador in Brazil.
The news in images from around the world…
What is at stake in Brazil’s Oct. 5 presidential election? If Dilma Rousseff winds up losing, we could see a return to clientelism and realignment with the U.S.
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What Brazil Owes Its Indigenous Aikewara
A Brazilian Justice Ministry committee has officially apologized and offered reparations to the Aikewara, decimated in the early 1970s by army soldiers. But one more step is still needed.
SAO PAULO – Nearly 3,000 years after King Solomon built the first Holy Temple in Jerusalem, Bishop Edir Macedo has inaugurated his own replica in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Drawing on Biblical depictions of the temple and archaeological findings, an extraordinarily elaborate shrine has come to life. It’s $300 million, a 74,000-square-meter building on 40 plots […]