Brazil on The Huffington Post

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President, Seeks New Legitimacy In Visit To Brazil (PHOTOS)

2009-11-23T09:18:34Z

(AP) BRASILIA, Brazil; Engaging, not isolating Iran is the way to push for peace and stability in the Middle East, said Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva as he headed into private talks Monday with his increasingly alienated Iranian counterpart.

For Silva, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's first-ever visit to Brazil provides an opportunity to boost the international political clout of South America's largest nation.

For Ahmadinejad, it could provide some sorely needed political legitimacy for his nation as it engages in large-scale war games aimed at protecting its nuclear facilities from attack and refuses to back down from developing a nuclear program.

Oil prices rose above $78 a barrel Monday amid deepening tensions in the Middle East following the start of the war games and boasts by an air force commander that Iran could deter any military strike by Israel.

Silva, who has defended Iran's nuclear program, didn't mention the war games ahead of his meeting with Ahmadinejad but gave him a big bear hug and called for diplomacy to push for peace in the Middle East and ease tensions between Iran, the United States and other nations.

"There's no point in leaving Iran isolated," the Brazilian leader said on his weekly radio program hours before the two met. "It's important that someone sits down with Iran, talks with Iran and tries to establish some balance so that the Middle East can return to a certain sense of normalcy."

Ahmadinejad is the third high-ranking Middle Eastern leader to visit Brazil in recent weeks. Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestine Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas were here shortly before him. During his radio show, Silva proposed a soccer game next March pitting Brazil's national team against a team comprising Israelis and Palestinians.

Silva, a deft negotiator whose skills were honed as a union leader, says a new tact is needed with the Iranians. It may not be as embracing as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, a close ally whom Ahmadinejad will also visit during his South America tour.

But it also shouldn't be as punitive as the U.S. or European approach, Silva said.

"I told President (Barack) Obama, I told President (Nicolas) Sarkozy, I told (German) Chancellor Angela Merkel that we will not get good things out of Iran if we corner them. You need to create space to talk," Silva said last month.

The Iranian leader will next visit allies in Bolivia and Venezuela to shore up more South American support

"With Brazil he gets more bang for his buck in the sense you're getting legitimacy from a more mainstream player," said Daniel Brumberg, an Iran expert at the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace. "One would hope Brazil's diplomacy would be skillful enough to get certain types of messages across to the Iranians and not just give Ahmadinejad the red-carpet treatment."

Ahmadinejad said Sunday that the two countries may discuss cooperation in the nuclear field, where Iran is under intense international pressure to stop uranium enrichment for fear that it is developing atomic weapons.

"We can build partnerships to build nuclear plants," he said in an interview with Brazil's Globo TV News. "Our two countries need nuclear power to generate electricity. Both Brazil and Iran are entitled to benefit from nuclear technology."

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Ahmadinejad said in Sunday's interview that critics are politically motivated and believe only wealthy countries should have the technology.

Several dozen Ahmadinejad supporters and opponents held demonstrations in Brasilia on Monday, a day after about 500 people gathered at Rio de Janeiro's Ipanema Beach to protest his visit.

Groups representing gays, Afro-Brazilian artists, Christians, Jews, and Holocaust survivors carried protest banners and a giant cage Sunday containing white balloons, which they said was a symbol of Iran's "repressed values."

The Iranian leader has called for the destruction of Israel and repeated in Sunday's interview that homosexuality goes against human nature.

Israel is voicing concern about Iran's push in Latin America. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman visited Brazil and Argentina in July and Israeli President Shimon Peres visited the same nations last week the first such high-level visits in decades.

Brazil has the world's seventh-largest uranium reserves and enriches it for its own nuclear energy program. The nation has flatly said it would not sell enriched uranium to Iran, or any other nation.

In addition to encouraging Brazil to press Iran on its uranium enrichment, the U.S. State Department said it hopes Brazil raises the case of three American hikers being held in Iran after they crossed an unmarked border while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan in July. Ahmadinejad didn't mention the hikers during his interview with Globo TV.

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Associated Press Writer Marco Sibaja contributed to this report.

Tracy L. Barnett: Lighting Out For The South

2009-11-23T08:46:00Z

Tomorrow I will follow in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway, Che Guevara and Celia Cruz to the irrepressible rhythm of the Cuban sun - emanating from Cuban human beings, not my CD collection or a cover band in downtown Houston. Far from the Bayou City, I'll savor the sunset breezes on the Malecon, the famous boulevard that stretches the length of the city along the Bay of Havana. As many a tourist has done before me, I'll sit at Hemingway's favorite bar and have a mojito in his memory.

And while I will embrace the cultural magic of this legendary land, my journey goes beyond culture to something more essential, something universal and urgent.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Salopek recently articulated my thinking better than I could have. Salopek won the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award last month from Colby College, and like a modern-day Horace Greeley, he uttered some sage words of advice to young journalists in his acceptance speech.

"I would advise any ambitious young reporter today not to head to Washington or to London to launch a career but to light out for the South, because that's where the global narrative is rapidly taking shape," he said.

Salopek, for those who may not know, is the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent who was captured and held captive in Sudan for a month while reporting a National Geographic cover story on Africa's Sahel region. One can only hope that his words will inspire a fraction of the shift in the national zeitgeist reflected in the famous 1800s phrase attributed to Greeley, "Go West, young man."

I am no longer a young reporter, but lighting out for the South is exactly what I am preparing to do. Over course of the next year, I will be traveling through Latin America, reporting on the important and innovative work of world-changers at the grassroots. Here is where the passion and the color and the sazon of the Latino people finds its nexus with what's been called the most urgent issue of our time: remaking society in a way that will avert an ecological catastrophe.

Citizens of the Global South have too often been portrayed as victims, villains and bit characters in the global narrative playing out around us. We see the images of the distressed and dismayed, buffeted by yet another catastrophe. We hear about the druglords and narcotraffickers, the swine flu outbreaks and the hordes of undocumented immigrants besieging our borders.

What I have seen in my travels in the Global South is a sharp contrast. Yes, there is suffering, but as Salopek also noted, there is great joy. He describes Africa, with all its entrenched poverty, as one of the happiest places he's been. Paradoxical, yes; but paradox is the great crucible of the soul, and therein lies the story I am about to tell.

My Global South is peopled with heroes and heroines, men and women who face down their fears and the formidable challenges that stand in their way to produce meaningful change. It's also peopled with ordinary folks who are tackling the same challenges we are, but from a different angle.

My Global South is working quietly to create a model for a future that is ultimately more sustainable than the one that we here in the overdeveloped world have created, and we have barely noticed.

In the year ahead, as humanity wrestles with what may be the greatest challenge of our times - re-creating a society and a sustainable way of life that is consistent with long-term planetary survival - I will be giving voice to some of these unsung world-changers in the pages of The Esperanza Project, a green bilingual (and ultimately, multilingual) news portal for the Americas.

Esperanza is the Spanish word for hope - a commodity seemingly in short supply these days. With the rapidly approaching Copenhagen conference, climate leadership is hard to find - unless one looks south, where Brazil, the world's fourth-largest carbon producer, is pledging to cut emissions by a third; Cuba, which has turned crisis to opportunity with one of the hemisphere's most sustainable infrastructures; and mega-metropolises like Mexico City and Bogota, with green initiatives that go far beyond what most U.S. cities have attempted.
I've already begun the reporting on this project with an October trip to Mexico, where young professionals in Guadalajara are putting their bodies on the line for a more sustainable city, and in Mexico City where a sprawling, 30,000-person complex is making the conversion to an ecovillage.

In Cuba, I'll witness the creative responses to the crisis that followed the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of its main source of petroleum. The country was forced to rapidly rethink its agricultural, energy, transportation and health care systems with a fraction of its previous oil supply, and in a process borne of necessity, created some of the world's most sustainable cities.

And in January, after packing up my belongings into a storage locker and saying goodbye to my family, I'll be hitting the road on a yearlong southward journey seeking and training collaborators for a new media project.

On this news network, Latin Americans are the protagonists of their own narrative, and one that we here in the North would do well to follow, as there is much to be learned from them. We'll be using all the tools of the digital age to tell their stories: video, photography, the new social media and, yes, the good old-fashioned written word.

Jorge Luis Sierra, an award-winning investigative journalist from Mexico City and a pioneer in online media himself, has signed on as The Esperanza Project's Spanish-language editor, giving the project greater depth and an exciting edge. Patricia Martinez, an environmental journalist from Guadalajara, Alejandro Manrique, an investigative journalist from Colombia, and Tami Brunk, an environmental writer based in New Mexico, are also among our collaborators.

We are looking for contributors from all over, and you can be one of them. You can follow us on Facebook or Twitter, subscribe to our RSS feed or receive updates in your e-mail. You can post relevant stories in the newsfeed, contribute to the discussion in the comment fields or even write stories of your own, if you feel so inspired.

I hope you will join the hemispheric conversation that is about to begin at TheEsperanzaProject.org. Click around the site, share your thoughts, forward it to your friends. This is how a new online media project is born, and you can be a part of it.

Tracy L. Barnett, www.tracybarnettonline.com, is an independent journalist based in Houston. She is a blogger at The Huffington Post and founder of The Esperanza Project.
Paul Salopek's inspiring speech, delivered last month upon receipt of the Elijah Lovejoy Award, is available in podcast here.

Nikolas Kozloff: Blackout in Brazil: Hydropower and Our Climate Conundrum

2009-11-22T23:25:13Z

It's everyone's worst nightmare: being caught in an underground subway in the midst of a power outage. Yet, that is exactly what happened recently when Brazilian commuters in the city of Sao Paulo were trapped inside trains and literally had to be pulled out of subway cars. In addition to sparking problems in public transport, the blackout or apago led to hospital emergencies and the shutting down of several airports. In all the power outage darkened approximately half of the South American nation, affecting sixty million people.

In recent years Brazil has become an economic powerhouse yet the blackout exposed vulnerabilities in the country's infrastructure. In the wake of the power outage, government officials intent on sustaining high economic growth have tried to figure out what might have gone wrong with the country's electrical grid. Initial reports blamed the power outage on the massive Itaipu hydroelectric dam though a spokesperson for the facility said there had been no problem at the plant.

Itaipu, the official stated, was solely responsible for power generation and the failure occurred in the transmission line. Perhaps, the Energy and Mines Minister declared, a chance atmospheric event like a storm could have disconnected Itaipu. While the authorities conduct further investigations into the matter, some are concerned about the scope of the apago and have demanded a more detailed explanation.

In addition to power outages there are other, more profound problems associated with hydropower, problems that now concern us all. Indeed, hydroelectric plants lead to emissions of methane which are formed when vegetation decomposes at the bottom of reservoirs devoid of oxygen. The methane is either released slowly as it bubbles up in the reservoir or rapidly when water passes through turbines.

One Brazilian dam, Balbina, flooded about 920 square miles of rainforest when it was completed and during the first three years of its existence the actual reservoir emitted 23 million tons of carbon dioxide and 140,000 tons of methane. Dr. Philip Fearnside, a scientist who I interviewed for my upcoming book No Rain In the Amazon: How South America's Climate Change Affects The Entire Planet (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2010), has calculated that during this time Balbina's greenhouse gas output was four times that of a coal-fired plant producing the same amount of power.

The news is particularly troubling as methane is twenty times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon. Environmentalists say that methane gas produced by forests inundated by hydroelectric projects accounts for one-fifth of Brazil's greenhouse gas contribution to global warming.

How concerned should we be about dams and their effect on Earth's climate? According to researchers, the world's reservoirs release 20 percent of the total methane from all known sources connected to human activity, including livestock, fossil fuels, and landfills. Experts say that same methane released by dams, meanwhile, accounts for 4 percent of total global warming while reservoirs contribute approximately 4 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions resulting from human activity.

The issue of hydro power has been climbing up the political agenda of the world's leading scientists: in 2006 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) included emissions from artificially flooded regions in its greenhouse gas inventory. That hasn't stopped Brazilian policymakers however from proceeding full throttle with their plans for Amazonian dams and currently the country relies on hydropower for more than 80% of its electricity. In particular, the government has pushed a controversial dam project called Belo Monte. Scientists have raised the alarm bell about the complex, which will cause an increase in greenhouse gas emissions due to the decomposition of organic matter within the stagnant water of the reservoir.

President Lula has said that developing hydro power in the Amazon is essential if the country wants to sustain more than 5 percent growth. The mere fact, however, that Brazil is afflicted by chronic energy problems does not mean that Lula must sacrifice the rainforest to hydro power and thereby intensify climate pressures. Indeed, critics charge that Lula's dam building is merely designed to satisfy big business which gobbles up energy so as to export tropical commodities.

With all of the social drawbacks associated with hydro power, not to mention the implications for climate change, why won't authorities consider meeting Brazil's future energy needs through alternative means? Environmentalists argue that the Lula government should upgrade existing energy systems and push through rapid development of wind, solar, and biomass technologies. If Lula adopted such clean technologies Brazil could meet its electricity needs through 2020 and actually save $15 billion in the process.

Sounds like a proposal worth exploring, but predictably the electrical sector has wasted no time in attacking environmentalists for being utopian and naive. To retrofit older dams and cut transmission losses is simply wishful thinking, the powerful lobbying group has charged. One expert reports that hydroelectric projects die hard in Brazil. "It's like a Dracula movie," he says. "Every 20 years or so, it surges up out of the coffin. You have to drive the stake back through the thing and make it go away again."

Where is all the money coming from for these hydroelectric initiatives you ask? One chief culprit is the Brazilian National Development Bank, the financial arm of the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade. Because of the incestuous relationship between the government and hydropower, it's politically difficult to challenge these boondoggle projects.

But just in case you thought methane-producing dams were a strictly Brazilian affair, consider that the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) is also expected to contribute financially to hydro electric projects despite heavy lobbying from environmental and human rights groups that have been urging the bank to steer clear of such initiatives.

Moving away from hydropower and solving our climate conundrum will require political leadership in Brazil but also significant international cooperation. As we move forward in crucial climate change negotiations, the Global North needs to do much more to invest in truly green technology such as wind, solar, and waves. Instead of sponsoring hydropower, large financial institutions as well as affluent countries should provide clean energy transfers to such nations as Brazil.

Failure to act now could exact a heavy environmental toll and condemn Brazil to a vicious energy-climate trap. Consider the case of an earlier, 2001 apago: in that year, a blackout crippled the country and authorities were forced to decree emergency measures, including a ban on power-hungry floodlights. A special government task force (nicknamed the "Blackout Ministry") called for the switching off of lighting on streets, beaches, and squares. In the midst of the energy crisis some Rio business leaders feared a crime wave and called for the army to be deployed in the event of power cuts.

Meanwhile, panic-stricken citizens stocked up on candles, generators, and flashlights. When the rationing went into effect, cutbacks obliged schools and businesses to close and disrupted transportation, trade, and leisure. As street lighting in most major cities was cut 35 percent, police night shifts were increased and even Brazilians' prized night games of soccer were prohibited.

The connection between hydro power and climate change is becoming all too painfully clear. Consider: the immediate cause of the 2001 energy crisis and blackout was a severe drought--the worst in more than sixty years. When the dry spell hit, water levels at hydroelectric plants fell to less than one-third of capacity.

In the long run hydro power may be caught in a vicious cycle of its own making: as large boondoggle projects such as Belo Monte proliferate, they may emit harmful greenhouse gases and thus contribute to climate change and increasing drought. But if global warming dries up parts of the Amazon, Belo Monte and other dams like it could wind up being white elephants as there won't be much water left to harness.

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of the upcoming No Rain In the Amazon: How South America's Climate Change Affects The Entire Planet (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2010). Visit his website, senorchichero.

Judy Platt: Congress: Protect American Writers and Publishers from Being Sued Overseas

2009-11-18T10:48:31Z

Picture this scenario: you're an American author who's written a well-researched, well-documented book on a topic of broad public interest. Your book's been published in the United States for an American audience. Someone who's mentioned in the book doesn't like what you've written and sues you for libel, but he doesn't sue you here, where the book has been published. He doesn't sue you where you live or where he lives. He sues in England, where the courts have been more than willing to allow foreigners to sue other foreigners over matters that don't involve English interests, and where he won't have to prove that what you've written is false or defamatory. In fact the burden of proof (not to mention the unimaginable financial burden of defending yourself) falls on you. If you think you've fallen down the rabbit hole, welcome to the world of "libel tourism."

A couple of years ago the phrase "libel tourism" would have had little meaning for anyone but a media lawyer. Today, however, there is a growing recognition that the robust public discourse and free speech we take for granted as our First Amendment rights are being seriously threatened by this cynical legal maneuver. The scenario outlined above is not hypothetical. This is exactly what happened to American author Rachel Ehrenfeld soon after her book "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It" was published. In 2004, Dr. Ehrenfeld, a New York-based author and researcher, was sued for libel by Saudi billionaire banker Khalid bin Mahfouz in a London court under England's notoriously plaintiff-friendly libel laws. (Bin Mahfouz made something of a second career as a libel tourist, successfully suing or intimidating more than 40 authors and publishers, including the venerable Cambridge University Press). The fact that Ehrenfeld's book was never published in England, that neither she nor bin Mahfouz resided there, and that a mere 23 copies of Funding Evil were purchased there over the Internet did not stop the English judge from issuing a ruling against her in absentia (she refused to appear), awarding the Saudi substantial monetary damages and court costs, demanding that Ehrenfeld issue a public apology, banning her book in England, and ordering the destruction of all unsold copies.

Ehrenfeld's response was to ask a federal court in New York to declare the ruling unenforceable in the United States as a blatant violation of her First Amendment rights. The New York court's inability to do so because of jurisdictional limitations in state law prompted swift passage by the New York legislature of a statute that allows New York courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over non-residents who obtain foreign libel judgments against New Yorkers, and prohibits New York courts from recognizing foreign judgments that do not conform to Constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press. Three other states, Illinois, Florida, and California, have followed suit with similar statutes. But this not a problem that can be addressed piecemeal on a state-by-state basis. What we need now is a federal law that will give American authors and publishers who have been hit with foreign libel judgments that could never stand up to First Amendment scrutiny a chance to remove the threat of enforcement and to recoup the often crippling expenses they've incurred. Although the U.S. House of Representatives passed a "libel tourism" bill last June, it is toothless and ineffectual. A bill now pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee--S. 449, The Free Speech Protection Act of 2009-- comes much closer to what's needed.

The use of foreign libel laws to "chill" speech in this country reaches far beyond Rachel Ehrenfeld and the English courts. Joe Sharkey is a New Jersey-based freelance business travel writer who frequently writes for the New York Times. In September 2006 Sharkey survived a mid-air collision between a Brazilian commercial airliner and a business jet on which he was traveling. All of those on the Brazilian plane were killed, but Sharkey and his fellow passengers survived an emergency landing in the Amazon jungle. Writing about the crash in the New York Times and on his blog, Sharkey defended the American pilots, whom he felt were being scapegoated by Brazilian authorities, and criticized the Brazilian air traffic control system (criticism later substantiated by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board). In September of this year he was served at his home in New Jersey with papers accusing him of libeling the country of Brazil, in a lawsuit filed by a woman whose husband died in the crash. The plaintiff, who was never mentioned in anything that Sharkey wrote, sued under a bizarre Brazilian law that allows any citizen to claim damages for an alleged insult to the country's honor.

Unless we are given the legal tools to fight back, American authors and publishers will find themselves increasingly in harm's way as a result of Internet book sales and Internet speech. Let's tell that to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy and ask him to get The Free Speech Protection Act moving.

James Boyce: What's Up With the Rainforest: Stopping Rainforest Destruction Can Cut World Emissions By 17%

2009-11-17T13:33:25Z

Around the world rainforests are hurting. The deforestation of vast tracts of these precious lands does more than just ruin local ecosystems. The health and vitality of rainforests help maintain life for everything on the planet. Reason enough for all of us to contribute to ending their destruction and encouraging their growth. This is why, working with The Rainforest Alliance, we helped create The Rainforest and The Rainforest NewsLadder. Every couple of weeks I will check in to see what's buzzing in The Rainforest providing you with the latest news and media surrounding this priority issue.

There was a lot of chatter this week in The Rainforest about the role economics plays in deforestation.

Thomas Friedman, New York Times resident globe trender, recently opined about how we could eliminate 17 percent of all global emissions if we could halt the cutting and burning of tropical forests. In his recent trip down to the Tapajós National Forest in Brazil, Friedman imagined what would happen if you took all the planes, trains, and automobiles out of use. He came to the conclusion that the emission reduction would still be less that if we just stopped cutting down the rainforests. Easier said than done though. How do we get poor, forest-rich nations to stop cutting down trees? Secondly, how do we create markets that reward poor countries for not making the furniture richer countries desire?

Another story gained a lot of attention for the frugality it pinned on Mother Nature. Germany and the European Commission commissioned the 3-year-long study that concluded that protecting the environment and allowing it to regulate life sustaining systems is cheaper than destroying them for profit and trying to concoct man-made solutions to replace them. It's a shame it took 300-pages to come to that conclusion.

How much would it cost for you not to burn that rainforest? That is the question Damian Kahya of the BBC is asking world leaders this week. Answering the question are some of the largest energy companies in the world - BP and American Electric Power. With EU cap and trade already in effect and the US looking for a scheme of its own, companies are looking for a way to keep old polluting habits alive by throwing money at the problem. Deforestation agreements might end up being the only thing agreed upon at Copenhagen.

We came across a really inspiring video about a biologist who used his love for the orangutan to regrow rainforests in Borneo AND provide a stable economy for the native people.

Bottom line is "the bottom line" plays a part in the rainforest conversation. As Willie Smits in Borneo showed us, a sustainable future does not have to come at the costs of a stable economy. What is needed is more thinking and more dialouge. You can get involved immediately by contributing your own ideas into the conversation by visiting The Rainforest or contribute a newsworthy story on The Rainforest NewsLadder.

Leo W. Gerard: Business Council Honors Vale CEO for Clipping Workers, Wacking Towns

2009-11-16T15:09:47Z

A business group is honoring Roger Agnelli, the CEO of Vale, one of the largest mining companies in the world, which, coincidentally, is in the midst of its longest ever labor dispute. The award is for exceptional accomplishments in corporate social responsibility.

The Business Council for International Understanding will give Agnelli the Dwight D. Eisenhower Global Citizenship Award, feting him for his corporate behavior five months after he provoked the strike by more than 3,000 miners, mill workers and smelters in my hometown of Sudbury and neighboring Port Colborne, Canada.

The strikers now include 450 Vale nickel and copper workers from Voisey's Bay, also represented by my union, the United Steelworkers (USW).

Vale is the Brazilian-based corporation that boasted $13.2 billion in profits last year and reported third-quarter, after-tax earnings of $1.7 billion this year, more than double its second quarter haul. Vale is a highly profitable corporation demanding workers take concessions. For example, it wants deep cuts to pay supplements workers get only when nickel prices are high.

Cash flush even during the worldwide recession, Vale has engaged in a buying spree for mines and properties worldwide. In 2008, it announced it would spend $2 billion on electrical projects, mostly coal-fired, and by year end reached agreement to spend $300 million on Colombian coal assets. It got permission from the Brazilian government this year to buy iron ore mines for $750 million. It spent $17.8 billion in 2006 for Inco's nickel mines and smelters in Canada, and as metal prices rose, earned nearly as much from them over the next two years as Inco had in the previous 10. Still, Agnelli insisted the very Canadian workers whose labor helped Vale make that money take cuts to their income -- causing the strike.

Workers and their families have struggled since the strike. The towns in Ontario and Newfoundland have suffered as well because many mining supply and service companies temporarily closed, idling untold additional workers. Kari Cusack, a member of Families Supporting the Strikers, talked about it early in November before a family day on the picket line in Sudbury. She told a local newspaper reporter:

"We see Vale's attack on Local 6500 as an attack on our entire community, and we want to do our part to fight back against corporate greed."

The Business Council for International Understanding chose that corporate social responsibility to reward.

In Brazil, Agnelli has shown off some of that corporate social responsibility as well. In September, the government fined Vale $20 million for failing to comply with an antitrust order. Last year, Agnelli secured a court injunction in an attempt to block protesters from the country's largest social activist group, the Landless Rural Workers Movement, rather than negotiate with those complaining that the company's iron furnaces were polluting their village and that a hydroelectric dam in which Vale is a partner was flooding their homes. Also last year, Brazil's Office of the Environment fined Vale $3 million for illegal sale of wood.

Workers from Canada and Vale Brazil demonstrated together in August in front of the multinational's Rio de Janeiro headquarters. They served pieces of a giant cake commemorating the 30th day of the USW strike in Ontario. There the Canadian workers learned that Agnelli had forced its Brazilian workers to accept a defined contribution pension plan. Now Agnelli is trying to force the Canadians take the same inferior plan.

The International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), the Botswana Power Corporation Workers Union (BCPWU) and others from around the world have written Agnelli expressing outrage about the strike. Bohithetswe Lentswe, BCPWU General Secretary, wrote:

"We have every reason to believe that Vale is trying to destroy its strongest collective bargaining agreement for the purpose of setting a precedent to weaken other collective bargaining agreements throughout the world. Vale is also attempting to export its anti-worker, anti-union practices in Brazil to the rest of the world."

Of course. That's what great CEOs do, as the Business Council for International Understanding will proclaim at its Dec. 3 dinner in the Waldorf-Astoria, New York City. With the cheapest tickets going for $1,000, it's likely none of those $29-an-hour Vale workers will get a seat. But Agnelli, who is one of six Vale executives who together pulled down $33 million last year, could effortlessly drop $100,000 for an "underwriting level" table of 10 at his award dinner.

Perhaps there the Business Council for International Understanding will detail its reasons for selecting Agnelli for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Global Citizenship Award. It only profiles Vale and Agnelli on its web page, without, for example, providing the kind of insight into Agnelli's personality that Antonio Regalado did for the Wall Street Journal in 2008 in a story:

"Current and former Vale executives say Mr. Agnelli can be hard on subordinates. Some of them cite what they say is an autocratic style and a table-pounding temper. . . . In internal company surveys, employees complain frequently that they are under too much pressure . . . Marco Dalpozzo, Vale's head of human resources, doesn't deny that Mr. Agnelli can be rough on people, "He's a tough guy," he says."

Again: of course. That's what business groups prize -- executives with table-pounding tempers.

The Business Council is, however, a group that claims it was started by the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower and named its prize for him. It's not clear, though, that the business values of the current council and Agnelli resemble those of President Eisenhower. For example, here's what the President wrote in November 1954:

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt. . ., a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

To let the Business Council know the ways in which you think this award for Agnelli will increase its goal of international understanding, call 212-490-0460 in New York, 202-595-2668 in Washington or 44-207-225-3561 in London.

LabourStart has created a web page so you can easily write a personal note directly to Agnelli. It's here. It enables you to quickly drop Agnelli a little note telling him just how much you think he deserves this honor.

Chris McGowan: Brazil's Big Blackout of 2009

2009-11-11T17:17:46Z

Brazil's Big Blackout of 2009 hit us a little after 10pm last night in Rio de Janeiro. I was online, talking on Skype with my friend Barry in Florida, when the power went off and on, off and on, and then out completely. Our home was plunged into darkness, as was our street, our block, the city, the state, indeed all of Rio and São Paulo, much of eighteen states in Brazil, and Paraguay. An estimated sixty million people were without power for three hours or more. A friend of mine who lives in the northern suburbs reported that his house was without electricity for six hours.

We lit some candles, located the flashlights in the house, and unplugged the appliances and electronics. Our twin infants were already soundly asleep, so no problem there. It was an unpleasantly hot and sticky night, and I wanted to flick on the AC and read a book by lamplight. Instead, I lay sweating in the semi-darkness, reading with the help of a tiny book light. Of course, we didn't have it bad at all. We weren't stranded in an elevator or a subway car, and we weren't caught driving through suddenly dark streets. We also weren't in the daunting position of staff and patients who found themselves in suddenly blacked-out hospitals.

Apparently, a storm knocked out transmission lines leading out of giant Itaipu Dam, which shut down as a safety measure. Itaipu is located on the border between Brazil and Paraguay, along the Paraná River. The dam, which started producing power in 1984, has a capacity of 14,000 megawatts and is the source of about twenty percent of Brazil's electricity. The outage is one of the biggest in history, perhaps surpassing the blackout of August, 2003 that impacted 55 million people in the northeastern United States.

In some news reports, energy experts suggested that the blackout is evidence of vulnerability in Brazil's energy system. I don't know about that. The country may need to upgrade its electrical grid, as does the U.S., but in Rio the power seems fairly reliable. This was the first major electrical outage that I have experienced in nearly four years of living here full-time, and I saw far more brief blackouts on average while residing in Southern California.

A little after 1 a.m., our power was back on. We had it easy. For most, the Big Brazilian Blackout lasted only a little longer than a soccer match between archrivals Flamengo and Fluminense.

Brazil Looks For Answers After Huge Blackout

2009-11-11T13:42:16Z

RIO DE JANEIRO — Heavy rain, lightning and strong winds caused blackouts that left nearly a third of Brazilians – 60 million people – in the dark, officials said Wednesday as they scrambled to restore confidence in the country's infrastructure before soccer's 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

The weather made transformers on a vital high-voltage transmission line short-circuit, Brazil's energy minister said. Two other transmission lines also went down as part of an automatic safety mechanism.

Brazil Blackout: Two Largest Cities Hit By Massive Power Outages

2009-11-10T21:45:45Z

RIO DE JANEIRO — A massive power failure blacked out Brazil's two largest cities and other parts of Latin America's biggest nation for more than two hours late Tuesday, leaving millions of people in the dark after a huge hydroelectric dam suddenly went offline. All of neighboring Paraguay also lost power, but for only about 20 minutes.

The huge Itaipu dam straddling the two nations' border stopped producing 17,000 megawatts of power, resulting in outages in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and at least several other big Brazilian cities, Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said. He said outages hit nine of the 27 states in a country of more than 190 million people.

Jim Luce: El Museo del Barrio: Fifth Avenue on Fire

2009-11-10T10:54:51Z

Forty years ago, El Museo del Barrio was a dream contained in
a single classroom so far north that “sophisticated” Manhattanites would not
visit there after dark.

It was founded in 1969
by artist and educator Raphael Montañez Ortiz and a coalition of parents,
educators, artists, and activists who noted that mainstream museums largely
ignored Latino artists.

Last week, on a cold,
windy night, over 1,600 New Yorkers arrived to welcome the opening of the
Museum after more than a year of renovations.
The place was so alive, so hot – so on fire.

It was the
invitation-only inaugural preview and members’ reception of two shows, Voces y Visiones,
and Nexus
New York: Latin/American Artists in the Modern Metropolis.

I focus in this piece on Nexus New York, and in the Daily
Kos on the second show Voces y
Visiones.

In celebration of El
Museo’s reopening, the Empire State Building was illuminated with the museum’s
signature mango-yellow color.

“El Museo del Barrio is
at the junction of Museum Mile on Fifth Avenue and the gateway to El Barrio, a
neighborhood rich in Latino traditions,” says Julián Zugazagoitia, El Museo’s
Director and CEO.

“Our holdings and
programs span from our Puerto Rican roots to a wide range of Latino, Caribbean
and Latin American cultures,” Julián said.

I was delighted to meet
and chat with the curator of Nexus New
York, Deborah Cullen, who gave me a detailed understanding of her new
exhibition.

I was delighted to meet and chat with the exhibition’s curator, Deborah
Cullen.

“Nexus New York covers new ground for most viewers,” Deborah told me.
“The connections brought to life in our
galleries have never been concretely explored before – by bringing the actual
artworks from the times together, we are allowing them to speak for themselves
and the vibrant dialogues occurring from early in the 20th century.”

“The longstanding
intertwinement of Latin American artists in what has been thought of as
“American” modernism, their presence and impact, is very enduring, rich, and
multi-faceted,” she explained.

This landmark exhibition
examines pioneering Caribbean and Latin American artists who lived in New York
City before World War II and shaped the American avant-garde.

El Museo has unveiled a new visual
identity that reflects the vitality of its offerings and

programs. The new visual identity is the work of Miguel Sal, executed by Elvira
Moran

Between 1900 and 1942,
New York City was the site of extraordinary creative exchange where artists
could share ideas in a global context.

Nexus: New York is the first exhibition to explore the profound way
these artistic exchanges between Latino and non-Latino artists deeply impacted
art and art movements in this city and numerous countries for years to come.

Chief among them were Frida
Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Miguel Covarrubias – familiar to me from trips to the
museums of Mexico City. Works from each
of the artists’ are on show in el Museo’s Nexus
New York.

Salvador Dali, Robert
Motherwell, Wilfredo Lam, and Marcel Duchamp are also represented in the show.

The exhibition is also
deeply representative of El Museo’s mission to produce new scholarship on the
significant yet sometimes overlooked contributions made by Latino, Caribbean,
and Latin American artists.

More than 200 important
works by artists from Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic,
Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, as well as by artists working in
the United States, are presented together for the first time.

Chatting with El Museo del Barrio staff Michelle
de Leon and Mariana Salem.

The swiftly-changing
urban landscape before and between the World Wars inspired the erosion of
artistic boundaries and fostered a new climate of modernist experimentation.

Frida Kahlo’s haunting
work memorializing socialite Dorothy Hale’s 1938 suicide in New York is
included in the exhibition.

Frida Kahlo. The Suicide of
Dorothy Hale (El suicidio de Dorothy Hale). 1939.

Nexus New York focuses on key artists from the Caribbean and Latin
America who entered into dynamic cultural and social dialogues with the
American-based avant-garde and participated in the development of a new modern
discourse.

The exhibit features for
the first time ever, a fresco panel from Diego Rivera’s New Workers’ School
Cycle, completed in late 1933 after his ill-fated Rockefeller Center mural, one
of the most significant art world controversies ever to take place on U.S.
soil.

This scandal involved
Rivera’s 1933 mural Man at the Crossroads, which was destroyed in 1934 before
completion due to Rivera’s sympathetic depiction of Lenin.

Frustrated Rivera utilized
his large Rockefeller family fee to carry out the Union Square mural cycle that
clearly depicted his political ideologies, once the other project was abruptly
destroyed.

Before this controversy,
Rivera, who spent 1930 to 1934 in the United States, was honored with a solo
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1931.

Diego Rivera. Opponent of Fascism (Adversario del
fascismo). 1933.
Photo courtesy Collection Michael Fuchs, New
York. Photo: Jason Mandella.
© 2009 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust,
Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

An illustrated,
bilingual scholarly catalogue, distributed by Yale University Press, will
accompany the exhibition, with essays that focus on specific environments,
exchanges, or centers, and which detail the various artists’ New York milieus
and artistic development.

The renovated museum
features a new glass façade, a redesigned courtyard, modernized galleries, as
well as a new café/programming space and an expanded shop.

The design by Gruzen
Samton Architects received an award for Excellence in Design presented by Mayor
Michael Bloomberg on behalf of the Art Commission of the City of New York.

Major support for the
exhibition was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art, Agnes Gund,
and the Henry Luce Foundation. The lead
corporate sponsor is MetLife.

Miguel Covarrubias. Comedian (Humorista). 1927.
Photo courtesy of El Museo del Barrio, New
York City.
Photo: Jason Mandella. © María Elena Rico Covarrubias.

A dynamic artistic,
cultural, and community gathering place, El Museo is a center of cultural pride
on New York’s Museum Mile.

Since its inception, El
Museo has been committed to celebrating and promoting Latino culture, thus becoming
a cornerstone of El Barrio, and a valuable resource for New York City.

El Museo’s varied
permanent collection of over 6,500 objects spanning more than 800 years of
Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino art includes pre-Columbian Taíno
artifacts, traditional arts, twentieth-century drawings, paintings, sculptures
and installations, as well as prints, photography, documentary films and video.

El Museo del Barrio is
located at 1230 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street, across from Central Park and one
block above the Museum of the City of New York.
It is situated between the Upper East Side and East Harlem – “El Barrio.”

Photos of reception attendees by John Lee.

Geisy Arruda Incident: Brazilian University Backs Down Over Mini-Dress Expulsion

2009-11-09T16:12:49Z

SAO PAULO — A Brazilian woman whose short, pink dress caused a near riot at a private college led to her expulsion and transformed her into an Internet sensation now has permission to return to class.

Bandeirante University backed down Monday on its decision to expel 20-year-old Geisy Arruda following a flood of negative reaction in a nation where skimpy attire is common. Videos of students ridiculing her and making catcalls Oct. 22 turned up on the Web and drew attention to the event around the world.

Cyber Attacks Caused Brazil Power Outages

2009-11-07T12:51:56Z

(CBS) -- A series of power outages affecting millions of people in Brazil in 2005 and 2007 were the result of cyber attacks, "60 Minutes" has learned. The two-day event in Espirito Santo State affecting more than three million people in 2007 and another, smaller event in three cities north of Rio de Janeiro in January 2005 were perpetrated by hackers manipulating control systems.

Jim Luce: Sweden's Queen on "Fire Souls" -- Leaders in Child Protection

2009-11-07T09:32:48Z

Ten years ago, Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden reached the point where she could no longer witness the appalling conditions of children around the world – especially child victims of sexual abuse and exploitation.

She took action and founded the World Childhood Foundation, known often as simply “Childhood.”

Today, the foundation has supported over 500 projects in 15 countries, including Brazil, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Ukraine, and the U.S.

Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden, Founder of the World Childhood Foundation
(Photo: John Lee).

I heard Queen Silvia speak at the United Nations last week, was able to join a press conference with her, and then speak to her in person. What an incredible human being.

The symposium was co-sponsored by the United Nations Office for Partnerships and included an emotional and powerful keynote address by Ann Veneman, Executive Director for UNICEF.

The Childhood Anniversary Symposium was built on the theme of the Articles of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which forms the basis for Childhood’s work. This year, UNCRC celebrates 20 years of enormous impact.

Her Majesty Queen Silvia believes strongly in both the Rights of the Child and the Swedish notion, “Fire Souls.” People whose passion to better the world burns within them.

The World Childhood Foundation has two primary functions: to act as a Silicon Valley-like incubator for small NGOs helping disadvantaged children to grow large and connect with better established organizations, and to serve as a royal magnet to attract additional funding to support them.

The Queen is particularly interested in Fire Souls, who– through their passion – have devoted their lives to helping children.

Mats Agurén, secretary general of Childhood, Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden, and
Charlotte Brandin, executive director, Childhood USA at United Nations press conference.

In her Opening Remarks in the ECOSOC Chamber, Queen Silvia said (excerpts):

Ten years ago I had a vision, a dream to reach out to the world’s most vulnerable children. To give them a real childhood. I had seen them during my travels, I had met them in the favelas, I had read the shocking statistics on the sexual abuse of millions of children around the world.

I knew that there was a need, an urgent need, but I had not yet formulated a plan on what could be done. Together, with those who became my co-founders, we were able to make my vision a reality.

Today I am proud to say that we together have built a solid structure working intensively to identify the most competent organizations with which to collaborate as well as the best practices to combat abuse and violence of children.

And I also take pride in what Childhood has achieved in the past ten years. I know that we have made a difference for children around the world. Our efforts, projects and results will be explored during this symposium.

Our project partners are what we call “fire souls” -- people who burn with passion and commitment -- people who have a strong belief in how to help and how to change the lives of street children, of children in institutions and of young mothers and sexually abused children.

In all these different areas we identified committed partners who are compassionate and who with Childhood’s support and collaboration make a difference as they reach out to the most vulnerable children. Childhood is proud to provide that support.

We often see the problems, the children who suffer, or statistics on children who have been exploited. At Childhood we see this as well.

But we also try to see the positive aspects – that we are able to help and that there, in the past ten years, have been positive changes in attitudes about children’s rights.

The sexual abuse of children or trafficking of children are crimes that today are well defined and governments cooperate in identifying the perpetrators as well as supporting initiatives to prevent child abuse.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is now high on the global agenda and there are few countries which have not ratified the convention.

However, we must continue talking, because raising the awareness of the rights of the child is the most important challenge we face.

For the child to be seen, we adults need to see them, and we need to hear them.

Let us therefore commemorate the upcoming anniversary of the Convention of the Rights of the Child on November 20th by ensuring that everyone we work with is aware of the Convention and its contents. This can be done in many ways.

In Childhood, we have chosen to highlight some of the articles of the Convention through very tangible, hands-on projects.

We want to be close to the children and through our work show concrete examples and best practices.

Many of our projects are run by small organizations that through their passion and dedication create models and methods – but which need support in illustrating and possibly replicating.

Most of all, our work is about prevention. We need to ensure that the child is not at risk, that a child is not used as a product in the trafficking market and that the child always has access to trusted adults.

In short we need to ensure that children have the right to a childhood in which they are allowed to grow in a natural way both physically and emotionally.

We must also recognize the critical role of the private sector in our work. It has only been possible to achieve my vision to launch Childhood because of the commitment of private companies and family foundations.

Without their compassion, their ability to see the need and their willingness to help fund our work, my vision could not have become a reality.

It is also the collaboration between the private sector and our “fire souls” – that has enabled Childhood to reach out to the most vulnerable children of our world.

H.M. Queen Silvia of Sweden with a little girl at a Childhood project in Russia
(Photo: Jens Rötzsch).

A panel discussion with Childhood project and corporate partners – along with other representatives working with children at risk – focused on prevention and intervention approaches on how to spread public awareness about child sexual abuse and exploitation.

The panel discussed how existing as well as new stakeholders can provide sustainable intervention strategies for the well-being and protection of children who are victims of this kind of abuse.

Some of the speakers are Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Chairman, Carlson Co., Jenny Bowen, founder of Half the Sky in China, Natasha Jackson, GSMA Mobile Alliance, and Mats Agurén, Secretary General of World Childhood Foundation.

Childhood has a generous group co-founders, each of whom contribute $1 million dollars.

These include The Axel Johnson Group, The Barbro E. Heinz Family, The Charles B. Wang Foundation, The Curtis L. Carlson Family Foundation, The DaimlerChrysler Corporation Fund, Heimbold Foundation, The Oriflame-af Jochnick Foundation, SAP AG, and Skandia

Childhood has a focus on corporate responsibility and has over the last decade engaged a long list of corporate sponsors who have contributed not only through direct monetary donations, but through integrating Childhood into their advertising and branding strategies.

Major partner companies have each signed a three year cooperation contract with the foundation, working with Childhood in its cause-related issues. The Major Partners include Volvo.

Meeting Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden, Founder of the World Childhood Foundation
(Photo: John Lee).

During the press conference I addressed Her Majesty by stating that I wear two hats: I build orphanages and family care models around the world through Orphans International Worldwide, begun with the proceeds of my mother’s estate, and I write on Thought Leaders and Global Citizens, both of which epitomize the Queen.

She responded, “I can see your mother was a Fire Soul, and I see that you take after her.”

“We cannot do it alone, for the needs of children are a global issue. It is a global question of how best to respond. All of us – individuals, NGOs, governments – need to work together,” she told me.

H.S.H. Prince Albert of Monaco serves on the Global Advisory Board of Orphans International Worldwide, Duke Frantz of Bavaria has contributed to exploring the possibility of OI working in Romania, and I have met Princess Margarita in Bucharest to discuss the needs of Romanian orphans.

The Queen, and her youngest daughter, Royal Highness Princess Madeleine, are part of the pantheon of royalty who care so much for humanity. Prince Albert. Princess Diana. The Aga Khan.

No Fire Soul that I have met burns more brightly than the Queen of Sweden.

The United Nations Office for Partnerships serves as a gateway for public-private partnerships with the United Nations system, in furtherance of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

UNOP provides Partnership Advisory Services and Outreach to a variety of entities, including academic institutions, companies, foundations, government agencies, and civil society organizations.

The Office encourages investment in high-impact initiatives by assisting in the design of programs and projects; helping establish and manage networks; advocating the use of the MDGs as a framework for action; and advising on UN procedures and best practices.

Furthermore, the Office manages the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships, established by the Secretary-General in 1998 to serve as the interface for the partnership between the U.N. system and the U.N. Foundation.

This is the public charity responsible for administering Ted Turner’s $1 billion contribution in support of U.N. causes.

Remote Amazonian Villagers Obsessed With TV, Soaps And Soccer

2009-11-05T14:32:47Z

By Seth Kugel

PRIMAVERA, Amazonas state, Brazil -- This riverfront fishing and manioc-farming community, four hours by motor-powered canoe from the nearest major city, has two kinds of evenings: those when there is fuel for the community generator, and those when there isn't.

Last Tuesday there was, and as soon as the motor roared into action around 7 p.m., power coursed along the jury-rigged miniature utility poles that line the row of a dozen wooden houses, bare light bulbs came to life and most of the 58 residents -- who until that moment had been chatting by the side of the river, playing dominoes by gas lamp or cooking dinner -- scurried to one of the four houses with a television.

If the Nielsen Company were trying to measure the ratings in Primavera, there would be no need for sampling: 100 percent of televisions were on, and 50 percent of them were dedicated to soccer, the other 50 percent to soap operas.

In a region that is very different, and far less densely populated, than most of Brazil, the exercise of nation-building that has taken place over the last half-century is in full evidence. Nothing is more stereotypically Brazilian than soccer and soap operas, and the Globo network, which provides plenty of each, is often credited (or vilified) for creating modern Brazilian tastes and obsessions.

Rice and beans now supplement the traditional diet of fish and manioc flour, even though they are not typically raised here. The only things that seem not to have made it here are beds (hammocks criss-cross in crowded bedrooms), sofas (seating varies from stools and benches to gorgeous Amazonian hardwood floors that seem out of place amid such poverty) and samba (the locals prefer accordion-based forro).

The generator, which arrived about eight years ago, was a revelation in town. "It made life better," said Milton Astrogildo Carvalho, who at 58 has always lived in the community, since it was just his family. (It still seems that way, most households have a "Carvalho" somewhere among their multiple last names.) "Before, there was just radio. I go to my son's house to watch." But he is more a news man, staying away from the soaps.

There is something vaguely unsettling -- even vaguely American -- about stepping into the living room in the house of Nair das Gracas Carvalho and her husband Onezimo Camilo Cardoso. The hardwood floor and two wooden benches were covered with their children and grandchildren, 22 in all at one point, mesmerized by the gorgeous white faces of "Viver a Vida," a soap opera based thousands of miles away in Rio de Janeiro.

Quite soon -- at 7:24, for the Nielsen folks -- they would switch to the pre-game show before watching two soccer clubs, Flamengo and Barueri, battle it out at a faraway stadium in Sao Paulo state.

Nair herself stayed away from the TV, tending to the tucunare -- a white-fleshed fish among the easiest to catch in the Aripuana River. She fried it in a free-standing clay stove called a fugareiro, on the back porch-turned-kitchen. Onezimo, who has a wizened face but a shockingly full head of suspiciously black hair, stepped in to watch. "Soccer and novelas, we like it all here," he said.

A few doors down in Dona Maria's house -- all houses are in a straight line along the steep slope that dips down to the river -- 10 people were still tuned to the novela.

Toward the far end of the community, the third TV had attracted a smaller audience. Ivaneti Saraiva Rodrigues was plopped on the floor watching the soap with her husband Milton, their 5-year-old son Andre and 8-year-old daughter Graziele.

Ivaneti was thoroughly enjoying the new soap more than the one that preceded it, "Caminho das Indias," which took place largely in India. "I find this one better," she said. "The other one was really unattractive." All were mesmerized, but there was some evidence that Andre would have liked to change the channel: He had his arm around a soccer ball.

The fourth TV had one lone viewer: Cleude Braga Paola, one of the community leaders. He had arrived a bit late ("I was over there, chatting with my buddies," he said), and had flipped on the soccer game, as, like Milton and many of the men, he was not a fan of the soaps. "My daughters like them," he said. "They go to another house to watch."

They'd be home soon. In just a few hours, the generator whirred to a halt, the lights went out, and with roosters slated to start crowing at first light, it was time for bed. Make that, time for hammock.

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Exposed: The Worldwide Efforts Of The Global Energy Lobby To Kill Progress On Climate Change

2009-11-05T00:05:33Z

The Center For Public Integrity just released a blockbuster investigative report that details the intense corporate pressure to block an effective global treaty from being reached at the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen in December, and to halt efforts in individual countries to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition to fierce lobbying behind closed doors, some of the most aggressive tactics deployed by resource giants such as Exxon Mobil, Peabody Coal and other energy and agriculture interests are often the most public: spreading fear and misinformation about the true impact of emissions regulations.

Some examples from the report:

In the poor, but mineral-rich mountains of the eastern United States known as Appalachia, coal millionaire Don Blankenship hosts a rally for "Friends of America" to hear country music and "learn how environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your jobs"...

Around the world the story is the much same. Wherever nations have taken the first modest steps to stave off a looming environmental calamity for future generations, they've triggered a backlash from powers rooted in the economy of the past. Opponents of climate action may have different methods as they pressure different capitals, but the message is consistent: Be afraid that a cherished way of life may be lost. Be afraid that a better standard of living will never be had.

Here's a summary of the full extent of the center's investigation:

Starting in July 2009, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists fielded an eight-country team of reporters to uncover the special interests attempting to influence negotiations on a global climate change treaty. Relying on more than 200 interviews, lobbying and campaign contribution records in a half-dozen countries, and on-the-ground reporting from Beijing to Brussels, our team pieced together the story of a far-reaching, multinational backlash by fossil fuel industries and other heavy carbon emitters aimed at slowing progress on control of greenhouse gas emissions. Employing thousands of lobbyists, millions in political contributions, and widespread fear tactics, entrenched interests worldwide are thwarting the steps that scientists say are needed to stave off a looming environmental calamity, the investigation found.

The tactics employed have changed over time -- before the Kyoto climate talks, industry lobbyists fervently denied the science behind global warming. Now they generally acknowledge that climate change is real, but attempt to stall and water down any progress in limiting emissions.

The map below breaks down how much each of several major world regions contribute in global emissions. Click on the map for the interactive version on the Center for Public Integrity's website.

Some other fascinating findings from the report:

A commonly repeated mantra in the media is that tensions surrounding the climate talks center on developed countries not wanting to give up certain standards of living, while developing countries fear that regulations will stifle economic growth. In contrast, this study found that "both developed and developing countries are under heavy pressure by fossil fuel industries and other carbon-intensive businesses to slow progress on negotiations and weaken government commitments. The clash cannot simply be framed as one between richer and poorer nations."

The report also highlighted the astronomical amount of money and effort the energy lobby has poured into attempts to stall any meaningful advancement of climate legislation, particularly in the US. "There are now about 2,810 climate lobbyists -- five lobbyists for every member of Congress -- a 400 percent jump from six years earlier."

To read the whole article from the Center for Public Integrity, CLICK HERE.

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Brazilian Ademir Jorge Goncalves Shows Up At Own Funeral -- Alive

2009-11-04T14:56:47Z

RIO DE JANEIRO — A Brazilian bricklayer reportedly killed in a car crash shocked his mourning family by showing up alive at his funeral.

Relatives of Ademir Jorge Goncalves, 59, had identified him as the victim of a Sunday night car crash in Parana state in southern Brazil, police said.

Investors Wild For Brazil (PHOTOS)

2009-10-29T15:33:18Z

Latin America's leading country escaped the financial crisis relatively unscathed and is reporting economic figures America can only dream of.

Robert Amsterdam: Lula's Red Carpet Welcome for Ahmadinejad

2009-10-29T14:16:52Z

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, affectionately nicknamed Lula, comes as close to being a global rock star as a politician can get. But like any towering celebrity, there are some troubling developments behind all the glamour.

With less than a year to go before finishing his second term in office, Lula is riding a wave of popularity that is virtually unprecedented in Latin American history (75-80% approval ratings). The Brazilian economy, with the swagger of its BRIC status, has swelled over the past decade and survived the crisis, championed by many investors to be the top emerging market for growth over the short term (5% GDP growth speculated for this year). The President himself has been beatified to almost-sainthood in several films, including the latest high-budget biopic entitled "Lula, Son of Brazil," which has many guessing that he's aiming to become Secretary General of the United Nations. All that, plus he just got them the Olympics and the World Cup.

Why then, with so much going for him and his country, should he make such controversial choices in his friends? Lula's increasingly warm embrace of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, including an official state visit to Brazil Nov. 23-26, is causing many of his fawning admirers to rub their eyes in disbelief.

For those of us who enthusiastically support Brazil and its people, culture, and economy, the logic of the relationship with Iran is perplexing. There is no overlap in values, for example. This week Iran executed five people (including women), while another 135 juvenile offenders are on death row. Second only to China in capital punishment, Iran has also issued death sentences to five people now accused of fomenting unrest during the post-elections protests - a number which is likely to grow. Brazil, on the other hand, has proudly outlawed capital punishment since 1889, the second country of Latin America to adopt such a law.

The low level of trade between the two countries fails to provide an explanation either. Iran doesn't figure among the top 20 trade partners either for purchasing Brazilian exports or sending imports, and although Ahmadinejad has excitedly said that relations with Brazil have "no limits," even oil minister Azizollah Ramezani has stated that it is too far away to be a potential market for hydrocarbons (though oil and gas technical expertise is an area of interest).

The professed area of mutual interests is in the nuclear sphere. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki describes Brazil as holding a "common position" on rights to nuclear energy, while on Brazil's behalf Lula has repeatedly voiced his opposition to sanctions.

However, the true motivations behind the Brazil-Iranian relationship have very little to do with these statements. For Brazil, the elephant in the room is Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, whose own jovial relations with Iran and the purchase of $6 billion in Russian arms are prompting his neighbors to take action toward containment. What better way to procure information on what Iran is doing with its new "factories" in remote parts of Venezuela than strike up a competing relationship - which could also be the logic of Brazil hijacking the Honduran situation from Chávez's control by housing ousted President Mel Zelaya in their embassy.

During a visit this month to Brasilia, I was repeatedly told that the government believes that Chávez can be most influenced by keeping him close. Hence the hasty vote today to confirm Venezuelan ascension to Mercosur despite their failing to meet conditions set forth in the Treaty of Asunción. Many would call Brazil's decision to incorporate Chávez into Mercosur as naïve, but at the time of this writing President Lula was already boarding a plane for a coincidental visit to Caracas to celebrate Venezuela's entry at a presidential dinner.

Though there are other explanations for Lula to pursue his Iran policy (his South-South agenda, generalized anti-American goals, or bolstering Brazil's diplomatic clout in the UN), the balancing strategy with Venezuela is the most convincing. He feels that he has to create these alliances as measures of security to catch up with Chávez, which demonstrates once again that the Venezuela's activities cannot just be dismissed as harmless mischief-making by Washington. Testifying before Congress this week, Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, underscored this threat and commented that Brazil is "playing with fire" in bringing Iran into the region.

Venezuela is not only having an impact on foreign policies of neighboring states (Ecuador's Rafael Correa is in Moscow today), but also in the arms race Chávez has kicked off. Lula recently commented, "Everyone knows Brazil is a peaceful nation, but we need to be able to show our teeth if anyone wants to mess with us."

As for Iran's interest in Latin America, their thinking goes that the further they are able to penetrate into Washington's backyard, the safer they become. By increasing the costs of intervention, the Latin American strategy provides a staging ground for a real or imagined threat to the United States, which aims to have a dissuasive impact on the push for sanctions and diplomatic pressure. To boot, after a questioned election, it is always good to receive the congratulations of the global leader of the responsible left.

At the moment it is hard to say whether Lula, despite his celebrity and admirable achievements, is in over his head with Iran. Brazil is an impressive growing power, and one that has changed dramatically in the recent past, so it is understandable that its assertion of international leadership is fraught with challenges and inconsistencies. Soon the country's influence will be too big to simply shrug off issues of human rights and democracy without costs to its reputation.

This may already be happening. The most callous and frightening thing Lula has said with regard to Iran came shortly after the June elections, when demonstrations erupted and the police truncheons came down violently on the heads of protesting students. Quoted in the Brazilian media, Lula described these events as nothing more than the tears of poor "losers." That is not a hopeful message for those brave young men and women who now face show trials and execution for having attempted to change their country. Coinciding with the sports analogy, Fabio Barretto, the director of the latest glowing Lula biopic, was recently quoted saying, "In Brazil, there are no losers ... only people who keep trying until they succeed."

It would be nice if Lula's own story could mean something more outside of Brazil.

Derek Beres: Global Beat Fusion: From Africa to Brazil, By Way of Colombia

2009-10-27T12:50:28Z

Bebel Gilberto slipped into the American imagination with Tanto Tempo in 2000 and has refused to leave. The efforts that followed -- Bebel Gilberto and Momento -- felt like extensions of that North American debut; beautiful in their own right, and never without taste, yet safely embedded within the same paradigm. It's not surprising, given that she is the musical and genetic progeny of two great Brazilian singers. I wouldn't say that All In One, her Verve debut, points in a completely new direction, but it certainly surprises.

Her music has always reached for the romantic in her listeners, a nuance continual in the global understanding of Brazilian sounds. This is quite a paradox considering the social and economic strife inherent in many of the country's urban areas. From the Brazilian musicians I've talked to over the years, it seems that the music is not only an "escape," which is what bossa nova has come to represent in certain circumstances; it is also a social and artistic balm that glues people together. This is a worldwide truism in music; it's just that certain artists really grab hold of their creative faculties, pushing past the bounds of the everyday into a dream-like state -- the visionary, the daydreamer. There is really no other way of describing Giblerto's sound, crediting equally her producers as her voice.

The expectable Bebel tracks are present: airy odes like "Far From the Sea" and "Port Antonio." She tackles her father's domain with cuts like "Bim Bom" and "Chica Chica Boom Chic," songs that take you back forty years, before Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil slid electric guitars and political messages into the music. Things get more interesting when she tackles two giants and succeeds on both: Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder. Flipping "Sun Is Shining" into Portuguese and back into English was a smart move, adding a layer of sensuality to the bass-heavy mid-tempo track. Bob is sacred territory to many; previous accolades have meant death to a singer. Bebel handles it perfectly. Ditto "The Real Thing," with guest producer Mark Ronson and a musical performance by Brooklyn soul outfit the Menahan Street Band, who Jay-Z previously borrowed from and spit over. Stevie himself would certainly bounce along, if he'd stop his silly efforts with Rod Stewart and move on.

Over a year ago I was turned onto another Brazilian singer, Vanessa da Mata, by way of a track she wrote with Ben Harper, "Boa Sorte/Good Luck." Since then this song has been an obsession of mine. When Sony finally decided to release the album, Sim, in America, I was thrilled. After trying her hand at modeling and professional basketball (woman is tall), she wrote hits for Brazilian royalty: Veloso, Daniela Mercury, Chico Cesar, Maria Bethania. She backed up other artists until striking out on her own in 2002.

Sim does something rather common these days: infect samba and bossa nova with reggae. The result can be a disaster or a blessing, depending on, as previously noted in regards to Bebel Gilberto, the vocalist and the producer. Like Gilberto, da Mata nails it. The laid-back skank of "Vermelho" leaves one in a meditative trance. Her balladry, as on "Amado," is heartbreaking. Every aspect of this album is spot on, save one: for the US release, probably at the request of Sony, three English versions of songs, including "Boa Sorte" (Harper always sung in English; da Mata, on the original, in Portuguese), were redone for the "market." I'm not sure when (or if) labels will stop forcing translations they think will "sell" onto artists. The sooner they come to that realization, the better. The songs are not bad, they just pale in comparison to the originals, and can be seen for what they are: a marketing move, not a musical one. When da Mata reaches the audience she deserves, she can leave the dumbing down to the dummies, for that she is not.

While these two women are relative newcomers to the musical world, we find two classics reemerging. Cape Verdean legend Cesaria Evora returns with Nha Sentimento (Lusafrica). One thing that's constant in Evora's career is the stability of her albums -- always dependable, yet often linear. A good linear, mind you, but straight through nonetheless. Perhaps heading to the African mainland helped her forge something new. Recording in Cairo, the Egyptian flutes and strings on "Sentimento" add a new tone underneath Evora's saudade. Fathy Salama helped Evora with a few arrangements, harking back to his days conducting the Cairo Orchestra. His work adds a fanciful sway underneath the endearing strains of guitar and percussion. Another beautiful moment in Evora's illustrious career.

What Evora is to Cape Verde, Toto La Momposina is to Colombia. The styles couldn't be further apart. I remember Evora performing, stopping mid-song to light a cigarette and sit on a chair, smoking and gazing out into the crowd, a drink of brandy or rum in her hand, a queen and rightfully so. La Momposina is a firecracker. She runs out to stage a cappella and stops the hearts of everyone. Her musicians appear, she weaves between them, half hyper child, half humble diva, fully engaging. Everyone in the room sits dumbstruck, enamored, in love with woman and music.

The bump of the bass on her latest, La Bodega (Astar Artes), is the most pleasant aspect of a cultural music whose flutes usually dominate. Colombian folk can be piercing, to put it mildly. Rhythmic as hell, but the melodies drown that out. Not here. The guitar strumming is brilliant, percussion perfectly mixed, and her vocals, inspired. This album has juice, plenty of it, and she's high on octane throughout, a true shamanista whose medicine is music. La Momposina invites all the aspects of her country -- good, bad, otherwise -- and makes a party of them, not without knowledge, not without understanding. She sees it all; she just chooses to dance in spite of tragedy, a beautiful message to people of all places and times.

9 Signs Of America In Decline: Bad News For Jobs, Education, Happiness

2009-10-26T15:30:27Z

The sky isn't falling, exactly. America isn't on a fast track to irrelevance. Even in a state of total neglect, we could probably shamble along as a disheveled superpower for a few more decades.

But all empires end, and the warning signs of American decline seem to be blinking more consistently. In the latest annual "prosperity index" published by the Legatum Institute, a London-based research firm, the United States ranks as the ninth most prosperous country in the world. That's five notches lower than last year...

Jamie Starr: Cease and Desist: David, Goliath and Social Media (David's Sword)

2009-10-26T15:28:11Z

It would be an understatement to say that intellectual property (IP) -- legally defined property resulting from creative thought -- is an important element of our society as it currently exists. Theoretically, in the capitalistic framework, copyrights, trademarks, patents, and the like protect existing good ideas, incentivize additional good ideas, and result in higher caliber goods and services available to the citizenry, thus increasing the quality of life. But those virtues only exist when there is a balance between protecting and sharing, and I'm afraid the scales have tipped dangerously toward 'protecting,' at the expense of discouraging important co-innovators.

The protect/share debate is not a new one. For centuries, scholars have pondered the IP 'balancing' issue. Thomas Jefferson, in an 1813 correspondence with Isaac McPherson, clearly doubted the virtues of purely exclusive intellectual property:

"Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

So -- at least according to the Jeffersonian school of thought -- attempts by entities to strictly and exclusively guard their IP is at odds with nature. How are we (as a society, as a global community) to progress when all 'good' ideas are held in confidence?

Today, in the U.S., the concentration of power (read: economic leverage) continues to reside with a proportionate few, and the trend has become: powerful entity, defining its IP rights in the strictest possible manner, pursues weak(er) entity who poses no real threat to the former (and in many cases, is actually adding important value to the subject industry).

Two recent examples immediately come to mind:

(1) Small Denver based ski film company Level 1 Productions sued by big, conglomerate-owned Warren Miller Entertainment (WME) for trademark infringement for a voice cameo by Warren Miller himself in Level 1's recent film Refresh. Warren Miller (the person) happily participated in Refresh, but allegedly ran afoul of various agreements between he and WME which date back the 1988 sale of his name and biz to a predecessor of WME. Refresh is a fan-favorite among ski films to be released this fall -- at least partly owing to it's creative (albeit limited) inclusion of Warren Miller's narration as a link between old and new school skiing. [I wrote about this dispute a few weeks ago in my column, and recent developments can be accessed here.]

(2) Morrisville, Vermont's Rock Art Brewery sent cease and desist letter from Hansen Beverage Co. (the owner of Monster Energy Drink) alleging trademark infringement for naming one of its craft beers "Vermonster." The parties quickly settled the dispute after a contingent of supporters -- using traditional and social media outlets as leverage -- put some real pressure on Hansen. Some stores in Vermont, New York, Maine and Connecticut even yanked Monster Energy Drink from their shelves to protest Hansen's agression. As part of the settlement, Rock Art Brewery agreed to stay out of the energy drink business -- a sort of laughable concession given that it had never intended to enter that sector of the beverage industry. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., summed the whole ordeal up quite nicely I thought, stating: "Any person who would get confused by the two different products and names should probably slow down a bit, and lay off energy drinks ... The American people are getting tired of the greed and recklessness of large corporations, which use their size and power to push individuals and small businesses around." [link to AP article]

If, after reading the above two synopses, you're thinking that each situation is a little ridiculous, finicky, overbearing, an abuse of power, you're not alone. In each instance, after the initial alarm was sounded, hoards of supporters, armed with Twitter and Facebook, took to the interwebs to contribute to what amounts to a social veto of these corporate actions. In each case, the negative PR caused by the social media backlash at least made the aggressors question their aggressive legal actions. In the case of "Vermonster," it drove Hansen to an expeditious settlement whereby Rock Art Brewery didn't even have to concede anything meaningful.

The long term effects on a brand of these sorts of negative PR hiccups are difficult to measure, but it's clear they have cast these two brands in a negative light as far as consumers are concerned. I believe that these corporate follies, stacked on top of each other over time -- with the help of social media -- will lead to one of two outcomes: either (1) the brand is forced to act reasonably, or (2) the brand will be forced out of the market by a brand who is willing to act in-line with the people.

What's clear in all of this is that social media outlets are acting as a sort of gatekeeper -- a check on corporate actions that people in general view as unreasonable / excessive. These new conduits through which the public voice has found considerable traction is -- albeit subtly and gradually -- forcing the big actors in our economy to reconsider their elderly strategies.

The cooperative, 'sharing' paradigm does exist in this world, believe it or not, and it's proving to be a successful model for maximizing aggregate societal value. I was relatively unaware of how the model was being implemented internationally until I saw RiP! A Remix Manifesto, a brilliant documentary about the past, present, and future state of IP in the U.S. [you can stream it on Hulu]. In Brazil, when the government considered how to best fight HIV/AIDS, it determined that free, universal access to medicine was the way forward. To attain its goal, Brazil broke multiple U.S. IP laws and international patents so that it could produce the medicine at a lower cost. As the documentary points out, "The drug industry saw this as an act of war; Brazil saw this as an act of Life." Either way, more people have access to medicine in Brazil. That's a good thing, right?

The fourth and final prong of the 'Remixer's Manifesto' (See, RiP! A Remix Manifesto documentary) is that "to build free societies, you must limit the control of the past." Reading that made me think: social media is allowing people to be in the moment -- to interact, communicate, participate, and leverage their collective will in real time. The past doesn't really have a place in our new communication framework. And the best part is: this realignment is happening organically -- without the need for government intervention as a catalyst.

Brazil, Newest Olympic City, Rattled By Violence

2009-10-21T09:04:13Z

RIO DE JANEIRO Just over two weeks ago, this striking city landed the 2016 Olympic Games, the first ever in South America, setting off a sweaty, impromptu beach party that lasted most of the weekend. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil sobbed with happiness. Rio's residents glowed with pride.

Obama Chicago Olympics Defense: President Mocks Critics Of His Push For 2016 Olympics

2009-10-20T23:23:07Z

NEW YORK — President Barack Obama is having some fun at the expense of those who criticized him for trying to help his Chicago hometown land the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

Addressing donors at a Democratic Party fundraiser Tuesday night in New York City, Obama said he believes in a strong opposition but doesn't like it when some folks root for him to fail on health care or ... on getting the Olympics.

Steve Parker: Is Harley-Davidson the Next Casualty?

2009-10-20T03:00:12Z

Question: Can Harley-Davidson survive the world economic disaster?

The company itself paints a bleak picture of its present and future. To quote from an October 15 corporate press release:

Worldwide retail sales of new Harley-Davidson motorcycles declined 21.3 percent in the third quarter compared to last year's third quarter, an improvement from the 30.1 percent decline in this year's second quarter. An 84.1 percent decline in net income and an 84.5 percent decline in diluted earnings per share from the year-ago quarter reflected lower motorcycle shipments and the effects of the economy on retail and wholesale loan performance at Harley-Davidson Financial Services.

Hummer, which became an iconic brand in just a few years, has been sold to a Chinese industrial manufacturing company. Now H-D, which is for many a Hummer-like example of housing bubble-fueled consumer product overkill, seems in danger of going down a similar road.

This past week H-D shut down the East Troy, Wisconsin, factory where their Buell sport bikes are built, putting about 180 people out of work, and announced they're looking for a buyer for their MV Agusta brand (which also builds Cagiva bikes), based in Italy.

Harley bought Agusta in 2008 for $109 million, just before the Bush Depression hit the world economy.

A 1907 Harley-Davidson track racer

In 1993, Harley-Davidson bought a minority interest in Erik Buell's bike-making company, which used H-D XL 883 and 1200 engines in sportier, racier chassis. In '98, H-D bought the remaining 49% of Buell.

And Buell just last month won the American Motorcyclist Association's SportBike championship -- the first for an American motorcycle maker since 1986. MV Agusta is perhaps the world's most-storied name in two-wheel racing, with a history of one world championship title after another in road racing.

H-D itself laid-off 1,100 factory workers this past January.

And in another instance of what would turn-out to be bad timing, Harley opened their 130,000 sq ft museum in downtown Milwaukee in July, 2008; the next few years would not prove to be the best time to say "Welcome!" to tourists.

Until the downturn, H-D had been enjoying the best years of their long, long existence. Their Harley Owners Group (known as HOG) remains the biggest motorcycle club in the world and the machines were sought-after everywhere, especially popular in Japan during that nation's awash-in-cash housing bubble in the 1980s and '90s.

2008 MV Agusta "750 America"

Japanese bike enthusiasts considered Harleys acceptable symbols of American high technology and they represented a very different lifestyle from what one would experience in Tokyo or Osaka.

Harley-Davidsons, like Hummers, are overpriced, overweight and overwrought. Buyers who wanted a Harley would accept nothing less, though, similar to Hummer buyers, and with fast and easy cash pouring through the economy starting in the 1980s and continuing through the end of 2008, the bikes sold in record numbers.

The company even established a modern image while still considered ruffian and gangster-like, something H-D does little to downplay in its advertising or even on its website.

Many recent owners probably would never have bought a H-D if "bigger is better" vehicles didn't become a symbol of success in those phony mortgage-backed security years.

Is a Harley-Davidson nothing but a two-wheel Hummer? And is that necessarily a bad thing?

Doctors, lawyers and celebrities of all sorts were financing new Harleys, earning these buyers the derisive nickname Rubbies, short for "rich, urban bikers," considered by "real bikers" as mere poseurs who didn't really understand what made a Harley a Harley (which, after years of study, I consider to be the bone-rattling noise they produce; in fact, that sound has been trademarked by the company).

And Jay Leno, who posed with his Harley in front of the Hollywood sign for an article I wrote about him and his bike collection for Popular Mechanics magazine in 1986, saw his growing popularity encourage more sales of these loud, boisterous and often chrome-laden machines.

But in the past 18 months, since the economy began its tanking maneuver, Harleys, like Hummers, became representative of obnoxious excess to more and more Americans.

And this past week there was yet another "sign o' the times" when it comes to the economy and involving Harley-Davidson.

Seen in Jay Leno's garage -- along with mere motorcycles, here's an over-$1 million McLaren

The Love Ride, an annual biker extravaganza in southern California staged and sponsored by Glendale Harley-Davidson, was to celebrate its 26th anniversary this year. Started in 1984 with 600 riders as a fundraising event for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, it now benefits more than a dozen children's charities and raises over $1 million a year.

The event morphed over the years into one of the largest single-day motorcycle events in the world, attracting 20,000 riders including celebrities like Jay Leno (there he is again!), Peter Fonda, Lorenzo Lamas (well, they can't all be big-time), Robert Patrick (of "Terminator" fame) and Willie G. Davidson, grandson of company co-founder Arthur Davidson (those celebrity-watchers wanting to catch Guvernator Schwarzenegger on his H-D should stake-out San Vicente Boulevard in Santa Monica, CA, on a nice, warm weekend afternoon).

Last year, ZZ Top and Foo Fighters entertained the Love Ride-rs at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona, about a 40 mile ride from the Glendale Harley store. This thing is a big deal (and all motorcycles are welcome, not just H-D machines).

But this year, the Love Ride was canceled, due not only to a dearth of bikers willing (or able) to pay the $70 minimum entry fee, but also because local businesses, which normally pick-up some of the tab for the festival, bowed out, ending their sponsorships and support.

Many of the Love Ride participants (and I've been one several times) are some of the most highly-visible Rubbies/Harley owners in the Los Angeles area; if $70 is a big hit for them, then what's the possibility of their buying a new $20,000 motorcycle anytime soon?

Of the hundreds, more likely thousands of motorcycle companies which have existed in the US in the past 110-or-so years, only Harley-Davidson, that icon of Milwaukee, biker gangs and those Rubbies, has been an ongoing success.

This is what many people see in their mind's eye when someone says, "Hey! Check-out that Harley!"

H-D has been a dominating presence on race tracks made of wood, concrete and dirt since the company's inception up until right now. While it also innovated and perfected many bike powerplant and chassis features which have become standard throughout the industry, the company's motorcycles were never able to really overcome a reputation for poor reliability.

Until 2001, that is, when the VRSCA V-Rod was introduced for the 2002 model year. Designed with help from Porsche Engineering, the V-Rod was Harley's first bike to combine fuel injection, overhead cams and liquid cooling, and delivers 115 horsepower. Plus, it was a great-looking machine and quickly became known for its dependability.

Harley's VRSCAW V-Rod has changed the image of the company, with help from the folks at Porsche when it came to engineering and design

H-D started selling bikes in 1903, two years after William Harley, then age 21, designed the machine to be a track racer. Arthur Davidson was his partner and in 1904 the first H-D dealership opened in Chicago, selling one of the first three H-D bikes ever produced.

1909 saw the six-year-old company introduce what would become its signature "look," its first V-twin motorcycle, with a displacement of 49.5 cubic inches. Two cylinders in a 45-degree configuration would fast become one of the most enduring icons of Harley-Davidson (and world motorcycling) history. Also available this year for the first time from H-D were spare parts for motorcycles.

Seeing both success and tough times through the years, H-D produced machines for the war efforts in both WWI and WWII and became part of the American psyche. Biker gangs like the Hells Angels and Mongols admitted new members only if they rode Harleys, and the bikes became representative of a "Buy America" feeling among motorcycle purists as reliable Japanese motorcycles began pouring into the US in the 1960s, hurting H-D sales and supplanting Euro-made machines for most buyers, too.

Ford sells a pricey "Harley-Davidson"-themed version of their Super Duty F-series truck ... and it's damn popular

It was also in the '60s that H-D formed a single-cylinder, small-displacement bike-building division in Europe (Aermacchi Harley-Davidson), bought 60 percent of the stock in the Tomahawk Boat Manufacturing Company and, in 1969, became part of AMF, American Machine and Foundry Company, a longtime producer of leisure products. H-D eventually would make everything from small off-road motorcycles to snowmobiles, diluting the company's image and whatever engineering prowess the company could claim.

In 1981, the company's senior executives began the buy-back of Harley-Davidson from AMF. By mid-June, the deal was official and H-D was once again in-charge of its own destiny.

And almost instantly, corporately-speaking, in 1983, Harley-Davidson successfully got an import tariff tacked on all imported Japanese motorcycles 700cc or larger. This tax on American buyers was to last five years.

The tariff worked, "encouraging" Americans to buy H-D bikes, and by 1987, the company was doing well enough to ask for the tariff to be ended a year early. By this time, H-D had opened a new assembly plant in York, Pennsylvania along with new R&D and engineering facilities in their Milwaukee HQ and various other warehouses, R&D, manufacturing and assembly facilities in the US and, in 1998, even in Brazil.

H-D was listed on the American Stock Exchange in 1986. Many, though, questioned the company's choice to further diversify its holdings, purchasing Holiday Rambler Corporation, a motor home manufacturer. A decade later, the motorcycle maker sold Holiday Rambler to Monaco Coach Corp., a manufacturer of luxury Class A motor homes near Eugene, Oregon.

But as it has for Hummer and other American motoring products including Plymouth and Saturn, the economy seems ready to come down on Harley-Davidson.

Harley's first competition venue was in board track racing ... yes, the tracks were made out of wooden boards, and the first one in the country was in Playa del Rey, CA; falling down resulted in splinters the size of, well, boards

Has Harley made deadly mistakes by too often diversifying in what appears to be to some a wild attempt to build a gigantic, world-dominating multi-faceted "leisure products" company?

Which image, the biker gang or the Rubbie, should H-D cultivate as it tries to pull out of its sales spiral? (But don't expect an H-D version of the famous "You meet the nicest people on a Honda" ad campaign which established that company's two-wheelers in this country).

Has Harley-Davidson established their credentials as a dependable, reliable and common-sense machine which appeals to a wide-range of buyers, or would that be anathema to the company's heritage?

What must H-D do now to stem the bleeding of red ink?

Brazilian Drug Gangs Shoot Down Police Helicopter (VIDEO)

2009-10-18T08:44:33Z

***SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO***

By FLORA CHARNER, Associated Press Writer

RIO DE JANEIRO - A police helicopter flying over a clash between drug gangs was hit by gunfire and crashed Saturday, police said. Two officers were killed.

Bullets from the Morro dos Macacos slum in northern Rio de Janeiro hit the helicopter pilot in the leg, causing him to lose control and crash in a nearby football field, a police spokesman said.

The official -- speaking on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to discuss the event -- earlier said all four people in the helicopter had escaped alive, but later said two of those aboard had died.

The pilot and another surviving officer aboard suffered burns.

Television images showed the blackened wreckage of the chopper in the middle of the football field.

Police were not able to say if this was the first time one of their helicopters had been shot down.

The helicopter crashed about five miles (eight kilometers) southwest of one of Rio's 2016 Olympic zones will be located. The city won the Olympic bid earlier this month despite concerns about security.

Intense fire fights between rival drug gangs broke out shortly after midnight in the Macacos slum as one gang tried to seize a rival's territory.

Police moved into the area in the early morning, though gunfire continued s.

The spokesman said three bodies were found in a vehicle in the slum, though it was not clear if they were involved in the shootouts.

Violence also broke out Saturday in the Jacarezinho neighborhood, where a commuter bus was set on fire. Police did not have details of that event, though gangs sometimes set buses aflame to protest police operations.

Despite increased policing efforts, Rio remains one of the world's most dangerous cities. The violence generally is contained within slum areas, though it sometimes spills into richer neighborhoods nearby.