Dilma: General Elito Is Not Glad Not to Meet You

Elito in Haito: basking in the glow of democracy restored.

Ricardo Noblat of O Globo underscores that one odd thing about Brazil that makes it so much less like home: it used to be run by generalissimos funded by your tax dollars.

Before it is exactly what  Dilma Rousseff means to do with the Agência Brasileira de Inteligência, or ABIN, the so-called “intelligence community,” she is already headed for a showdown with General José Elito, head of the presidential security office, or GSI.

Since its creration in 1999, Abin has been an office of the GSI. The straw that broke the camel’s back was Gen. Elito’s insistence on reading all intelligence product before its release.

The general’s decision to do away with the Counterterrorism Department, created in 2008 when Paulo Lacerda [briefly] led the agency, he has broadened the institutional crisis already surrounding the GSI and the association of intelligence officers, AOFI.

The association of officers requested a meeting for  27 January and were received by three employees of the President’s Office, further irritating Gen.. Giles Azevedo, head of the President’s Office, who was not even present.

In a letter to the president, the “intelligence community” asks that Abin not be subordinated either to military or to police authority. In a pun on the title of the hit film, the Abin men called themselves the “Elito Squad”.

AOFI asks that the agency answer directly to the federal chief executive.

Like our glorious CIA.

“We asked that Abin answer to civil authority, given that we are career public servants of a civilian agency,” said an AOFI spokesperson. He asked that the name ABIN be retained to honor its record of service.

The Earliest Possible Bird Edition

It is only because I wandered last night wan and weary that you are the first to know about the discussions between German Muslims and the Egyptian vice-president — in Catalán, of all things.

I have tested a lot of newsreaders — I hate reading from an electronic screen, in any event — but for some reason am liking Calibre the best, despite some of its cheesy visual design features.

The local Estado de S. Paulo deserves kudos for withdrawing its reporters as chaos closed in on the capital, Cairo. Not all Brazilian news organizations adhere to News Safety Standards.

As far as I am concerned, the blood of Tim Lopes is on Globo’s head. They sent him into a dangerous area to film a salacious infotainment report that they had cause to believe would anger the drug traffickers he was dealing with. Similar liability — and I mean in the legal sense — out to attach to whoever sent those O Dia reporters to infiltrate a militia-dominated community, leading to their capture and torture.

I am sure we are all saddened by the death, at 81, of editor and librarian Brother Jaume Badia of Montserrat — a figure straight out of Umberto Eco.

Panorama arrives next — a publication often cited by certain journalists here about Telecom Italia’s dealings with certain Brazilian interests. Some of the slop from the meltdown of the Tronchetti Proveras — a garish wiretapping scandal almost loud enough to drown out the tapped conversations emerging from the boardroom of Hewlett-Packard.

It leads with a heart-render about a poor gypsy woman made homeless along the Via Appia after recent bad weather.

Ominously, the Yemeni Times fails to arrive, but La Stampa soon takes its place with the gripping sage of Sílvio Berlusconi — a scenario so eerily similar to the one predicted with Hugo Chávez that, that you are not sure what to do.

You ask a Roman. He shrugs. Okay, when in Rome …

Singapore — so often cited as a model separatist city-state by some Sambodians I know — canes a man for rioting.

Then again, these people thing Abu Dhabi is a sustainable urban development project.

And what news hear we from our beloved Relatório Reservado today?

Processing …

Wind power is turning out well for GE Wind and ContourGlobal, according to the daily dish. Contour could find attractive strategic reasons for wooing Renova Energia from RR Participações — that’s local lingo for a holding company.

The new minister of transportation may want to harness the old state-owned firm RRFSA, to Valec to keep the federal hand heavy in the complex railroad business. Is ALL not that it is ALL cracked up to be? Dumb joke. Actually — skip this stupid Flash intro — just announced unaudited results. How did they do?

Well, under suitable conditions for shipping grain to Argentina, with volume growth in the 27% range.

For the year to come, ALL foresees a harvest similar to last year’s, with an increase in exports to 53.7 million tonnes. Industrial growth of 5% is predicted. The company is renegotiating with shippers and expects that take-or-pay contracts will make up 70% of its business.