Mainardi: Fresh Pounds of Flesh From The Vanity Press

The telecomitalia.pdf file on DivShare, which Mainardi says he posted: Still live. Uploaded February 14, 2008. Click to zoom.

Diogo Mainardi issuing the following podcast on July 15, on the Web site of Veja magazine (Editoral Abril, Brazil), about the leaked federal police report in the Daniel Dantas case.

He then issued a column in this week’s print edition (cover date July 28, 2008).

Luis Nassif — the “banana” referred to here — replies.

I translate as I get time.

Podcast Veja (July 15)

O site Consultor Jurídico publicou o relatório da PF contra Daniel Dantas. Como um bom egomaníaco, ignorei todas as referências a Gilberto Carvalho, a Dilma Rousseff, a Luiz Eduardo Greenhalgh e fui imediatamente procurar meu nome. Onde eu estou? Onde? Onde?

The Web site Consultor Jurídico (“legal counsel”) published the federal police report against Daniel Dantas. Like a good egomaniac, I ignored all the references to Gilberto Carvalho, Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Eduardo Greenhalgh and went immediately to search for my name. Where am I? Where? Where?

Page 198 of 218, for example.

The warrant application, leaked to Consultor Jurídico (by whom?) was some 220 pages.

The final report is said to be some 7,000 pages — including an appendix in a file called

Análise_de_Dados MIDIA.doc

Looking forward to reading that one. Until we can, this whole debate is a matter of the blind man deducing the nature of the elephant from whatever fragment of the beast lies to hand.

Mainardi continues:

Foi muito frustrante. A certa altura, na página 152, uns desconhecidos – Cristina Caetano, Camila Arruda, Eric Brenner – citam de passagem uma de minhas colunas sobre a Telecom Italia. A coluna trata especificamente de um documento da magistratura italiana, que eu disponibilizei na internet. Os empregados de Daniel Dantas decidiram descarregá-lo e traduzi-lo.

It was very frustrating. At a certain point, on page 152, some persons unknown [to me?] — Cristina Caetano, Camila Arruda, Eric Brenner — cite in passing one of my columns on Telecom Italia. The column deals specifically with a document from the Italian courts that I made available on the Internet. Dantas’ employees decided to download and translate it.

Por meses e meses, uns bananas repetiram sem parar uma mentira descabida: eu teria recebido esse documento de Daniel Dantas. Eu estava quase acreditando neles. Eu estava quase me entregando ao heróico delegado Protógenes Queirós.

For months and months, certain nobodies (“bananas”) have been repeating an out and out lie: That I supposedly got this document from Daniel Dantas. I almost started believing them myselves. I almost turned myself in to the heroic federal investigator, Protógenes Queirós [sic].

On which see also

• Dantas’ Inferno: “Crooked Journos Caught on Candid Camera?”
• “Luis Nassif Is a Nazi Banana”
• Rashomon in the Redação: What Did Frias Tell Mainardi Re: Nassif?

“Veja Can Easily Afford to Libel You”

Nassif interviewed on Rede Mídia, with bad subtitling by me.

A reader of the blog of Luis Nassif (erroneously, as it turns out) notes today:

No último balanço da Abril, advogados independentes estimaram em mais de R$ 50 milhões a necessidade de provisão para enfrentar processos de crimes praticados contra a honra de terceiros.

On Abril’s last balance sheet, independent attorneys [sic] estimated at more than R$50 million the provisions required to be set aside for criminal libel prosecutions.

I think they probably mean “independent auditors estimate …” And as to whether the provision is for civil, or criminal, liability — or both — well, it seems like this is a factoid that could use a quick double-check.

I was actually looking at the English-language translation of Abril’s latest balance sheet, as a case study in financial translation, recently. See

• Proofreading Money: How to Massively Misstate a Material Factoid!

Now, let’s see, where did I put that file?

“Anglo Delays MMX Payment Over Police Investigation”

“Brazil’s biggest billionaire is born: Eike Batista is anointed by the stock exchange ...": Veja, mid-June. Forbes ranks Batista as the No. 3 Brazillionaire.

Anglo aguarda fim da operação da PF para pagar a MMX: Anglo American agreed back on March 31 to acquire a controlling share of the assets of the mining conglomerate MMX here in Brazil.

But then the federal police executed search warrants at the offices of MMX’s parent company, and at the home of group CEO Eike Batista. Something about irregularities in the awarding of a railway concession in the far northern state of Amapá. I believe I read that the concession has not been finalized yet. Let me check that.

Now there seems to be something of a PR war going on in the press over whether or not the federal investigation poses a real risk to the deal’s going through.

See

• “Anglo-MMX M&A Is (Is Not) a Done Deal”
• Eike Batista: Legal Scare for the Ur-Brazillionaire?
• Veja: The Autohagiography by Proxy of Eike Batista

I do not claim to have a single clue, or any insight at all, into the risk management issue here. But I will clip and translate an excerpt the coverage from the Estado de S. Paulo today to see if whether it actually helps me with this question.

It does have the advantage of actually quoting a primary source, although not exactly on the record. A similar report by the rival Folha last week was not quite so well sourced, I thought, but neither is giving me the “Company X spokesman [rank, file and serial number] says for the record that …”

Part of the Sousaphone’s ongoing project to boil the Brazilian press until it is fit for human consumption.

A mineradora britânica Anglo American informou ontem que vai esperar a definição dos rumos da operação Toque de Midas, da Polícia Federal, para efetuar o pagamento dos US$ 5,5 bilhões pelas participações que comprou na mineradora MMX, do empresário Eike Batista. A operação Toque de Midas apura denúncias de irregularidades em licitações vencidas pelo grupo de Eike no Amapá.

The British mining firm Anglo American reported yesterday (Friday) that it will await the outcome of Operation Midas Touch, a federal police investigation, before making the US$5.5 billion payment for the assets it agreed to buy from Eike Batista’s MMX. Midas Touch is probing irregularities in the bidding on public concessions awarded to the Batista group in Amapá.

Anglo American PLC is a South African concern, is it not? I could be wrong. Its business address:

Lost in Translation: The New York Times and New World Lusophony

Dear iG: Perhaps I can be of some service? You will have to book me in advance, though.

The ombudsman of the iG portal (Brazil) notes the hazards of getting your foreign news in syndicated translation.

Prosseguem os desagradáveis problemas de tradução nos textos do “The New York Times” publicados pelo iG. Uma tradução publicada hoje com destaque na página de Mundo inverte a informação presente no original.

Our disagreeable problems with translating articles from the New York Times, which are then published on iG, continue. A translation published today and placed prominently on the World page makes a statement that contradicts the information in the original report.

A reportagem original de Jim Rotenburg afirma que existem preocupações entre os partidários do republicano John McCain de que os veículos jornalísticos dos EUA estejam beneficiando o democrata Barack Obama, ou seja, de que a cobertura não esteja sendo equilibrada e equidistante.

The original report by Jim Rotenburg [sic] states that supporters of John McCain are concerned that American news organizations are favoring Democratic candidate Obama. That is to say, that the coverage is not fair and balanced.

The man’s name is Jim Rutenberg, by the way. With a U, as in “unfair.” Perhaps the ombudsman had Larry Rohter on the brain.

Pois o texto do iG afirma que os republicanos (favoráveis a McCain) “acreditam que a mídia está sendo imparcial na cobertura dos candidatos”. O texto do original em inglês, retirado do site do NYT, é o seguinte: “But the coverage also feeds into concerns in Mr. McCain’s campaign, and among Republicans in general, that the news media are imbalanced in their coverage of the candidates”. Ou seja, o iG publicou exatemente o inverso do que afirma o original.

The text published on iG, on the other hand, says that McCain supporters “believe that the media IS being impartial in its coverage of the candidates.”

Oops. In local journalistic jargon, this is known as a barriga, which I tend to translate (a little whimsically) as “brain fart.”

Switching the polarity of a logical operator — from A to NOT A, or vice versa — is actually a very, very easy mistake to make when you are under deadline pressure.

Bovespa Ins and Outs: Volume and Volatility

The New Bourse formed by the merger of the BM&F and the Bovespa: Intercontinental ballistic synergistic ambitions?

Bovespa tem saída de R$ 11 bi em capital externo no ano: Exame magazine reproduces part of a story by Fabiana Holtz of the Agência Estado — is it really going to be bought up by the Organizações Capivara Globo? — on influxes and outflows of foreign capital in the Stock Exchange of the State of São Paulo, the Bovespa.

A aversão ao risco no mercado financeiro, diante das incertezas sobre a saúde da economia mundial, continua afastando os investidores estrangeiros da Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo (Bovespa), que, em 2008, já acumula uma saída recorde de R$ 11,275 bilhões em capital externo. Os dados são até a última terça-feira (dia 15 de julho).

Risk aversion in the financial markets in the face of uncertainties about the health of the global economy continues to drive foreign investors away from the Bovespa. In 2008, the Bovespa has already accumulated record outflows of R$11.28 billion in foreign capital. The figures are current as of July 15.