PT | Sue You Too

Source:  PT (Brazilian political party)

The national president of the Workers’ Party,  Rui Falcão, announced today (February 11), that the party will sue former Petrobras manager Pedro Brausco, who accused the finance secretary of our party, João Vaccari Neto, of acting as a go-between in illegal fundraising for the party, without presenting any proof of this accusation.

Taiana Bares All | Brazil’s Operation Car Wash

Photo: Autumn Sonnichsen/ Divulgação Playboy

Wearing high heels and covered in dollar bills, the former lover of the currency trader [Youssef] appears on the cover of the January edition of Playboy posing in hotel rooms and private jets. She told the magazine that she was “the first person he messaged after he was arrested.”

As I have noted before, every knock down drag out political scandal has its muse or poster child — a figure, usually an attractive woman who, to coin a phrase, “lays bare the facts” or some such analogy as that.

• Petrobras | Whistleblower? Poster Child?

As Veja and Playboy are both Abril publications, it is not difficult to imagine how Taiana became the Goddess of Truth. Create a poster child with scandalous overtones  Divert attention from other significant  aspects of the case until you can measure the results and decide how — and against whom — to proceed.

Mountains of Money

This meme is a close cousin to the Mountain of Money concept in South American news media, itself a corollary to  the Perp Walk — a standard procedure for Brazilian police.

In Ecuador several years ago in an election won by the leftist Rafael Correa, the viciousness of the smear campaign by the local media was astonishing. Mobilized against Correa,  Ecuadoran TV and radio in general have to be seen to be believed , as is, or was, the case in Venezuela.

A case I remember well was an anti-Chavist talk show host who displayed a parking lot full of colorful HMMVVVs and identified them as constituting bribes to members of the government. A clever researcher was able to pin down the exact location of the photo — a HMMMVV dealership in Southern California. A sign was crudely Photoshopped in an attempt to identify the parking lot as government property in Venezuela. Grotesque.

No More Chrome @ Home, For Now

Joel Lee writes:

After five long years of using Chrome as my main browser, I finally had to bite the bullet and switch over to Firefox due to some glaring issues

In my case, it was the high memory and CPU usage that finally frustrated me to the point of no return.

I have an ongoing process (WIRE) that requires about 30% of memory, and causes Chrome to freeze. The Task Manager provided by developers (above) does not provide a workable solution.

The need to reset the application using

Ctl-Alt-F3
killall chrome

gets tiresome quick.

And so here we are.

Espionage | The John le Carré of Guanabara Bay

Source: TIJOLAÇO.

Today, the Folha de S. Paulo published one of those cheap little spy novels you can get in any book store, new or used, to help you endure a long and arduous bus journey, stuck in traffic all the way.

I am referring to that story about the CIA agent who worked under some sort of cover story at  the Embassy. Once he realize he was being watched, he called the police, asserting diplomatic privilege. And when the local police, ready to lower the boom on those responsible for the espionage, discovered the surveillance was being carried out by the Brazilian secret service, ABIN.

The Folha article, however, had nothing to say other than that it would it make a fine plot for a novel to read on the bus, if it not for the fact … 

The Return of Consciência Humana | Brasil de Fato

The group releases the above LP in 1997, followed by Agonia do Morro (2003)

A seminal human rights-oriented rap crew is back after a decade hiatus. The report is translated from Brasil de Fato.

After ten years without releasing an album, rap group Consciência Humana will appear on a record titled “Strong and Firm,” due for release in the latter half of this year. With the participation of famous guest rappers, the group promises to launch new ideas while maintaing the same principles.

“As long as there is injustice and police violence, people, we are going to be on top of it. On the day that this is accomplished, we will stop speaking out,” says group member WGI.

The rap group Consciência Humana rose to prominence in 1991 with lyrics that focused mainly on violence perpretrated by the State — violence that intensified in the periferal regions of the city after the demise of the civil-military dictatorship of 1964-1985.

It was in this context that the group produced Now is the Time, which portrays murders committed by policemen of ROTA, an elite patrol unit of the state military police.
Listen to a news story with the group’s music as a backdrop.

The song, based on actual facts, mentions the names of military personnel who are quite well known in such outlying neighborhoods as São Mateus (Eastern Zone), the birthplace of the rappers. One of these is Corporal Bruno, who participated in the so-called “Death squad” charged with at least 50 homicides. Paulo Counts Lopes (PTB), the former head of the ROTA a sitting São Paulo city councilman, is also singled out by the record.

Consciência Humana has forged a powerful identification with São Mateus. In the song «Law of the Periphery», the group recites the main problems faced by residents on a daly basis. Group member Preto Aplick said that these songs are important ways to create a sense of belonging to community residents.

“The newspapers have had only negative things to say about São Mateus. Only bad things emerge from the community, as opposed to such postive examples as athletes and performing artists. All of a sudden, here comes a group of performing artists, a rap group calling attention to all our problems. The population of São Mateus trusted our word and this meana so much to us.”

Consciência Humana recently granted an interview to the TV arm of Brazil de Fato … The Brasil de Fato team traveled to the São Paulo neighborhood of Itaquera where the Só Monstros studio, owned by the group, is located. Ten years after its last recorded release, Consciência Humana is readying a new CD, «Firme Forte» — roughly, «Stand Strong and Firm» — that signifies a new era in the group’s career. This year, the group will celebrate 22 years in the business..

Persecutions

With ROTA patroling the streets of the urban peripheries, terror was inevitable. Created in the 1970s with the mission of sustaining the military government in power, the performance of the duties left traumatic souvenirs. The track «Aplick» brings back many powerful memories of that time.
“We lived running away from them. That was when I wrote my first song, «Terror in São Paulo». From then on I was listening to the ideas of people I met in the dark of night. I passed part of my life in the street. Then I ran straight into them. And so we began writing this history. In the middle of recording that song, I met Conte Lopes. He invaded the shanties, he shot my uncle in the mouth. It was from that experience that “The Time has Come” was created.
Conte Lopes counts declares war
After the song made the radio and achieved excellent ratings Consciência HumanaConsciência Human was interviewed by the Popular Notice magazine. The group recounted the persecution and killing carried out by death squads with military police as members.
Popular Notice shone the spotlight on massacres which, according to the residents of São Mateus, were commando by ROTA commanding officer, Counts Lopes. The policeman, however, denied the accusations and at one point threatened the members of group.
In the introduction of another track called «Gray Rat Scumbag», an audio insert appears to be a recording of Conte Lopes, saying «listen here, it is Magnus and Capitan Conte Lopes … this is the Magnão we like to see,” referring to the singers in the group. Aplick says that the persecutions had increased since then.
“In the Popular Notice daily, he asked people to stop singing this song during concerts unless they wanted problems. But people continued singing along with this song. We are not stopping. It was then ROTA started to lean heavily on our shows.. ROTA would arrive at the show and said “You are not going to sing that song.” They took up positions in front of the stage ane were against our performing,” Aplick recalls.
For WGI, another member of Consciência Humana, taking the hard line influenced the political context. . “At the time, Conte Lopes was running for the legislature and we were making sure that he he lost votes among voters in São Mateus.

Michael or Maecenas? | The New Godfathers of Carnaval

Private and principally public patronage of Samba champions 2013

Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in. —Michael Corleone, The Godfather (1972)

Champion of this year’s Rio de Janeiro Special Group, with an environment-friendly agroindustrial-related theme sponsored in part by pesticide manufacturer BASF, the Vila Isabel escola de samba illustrates the fascinating convergence of world and underworld during the annual delirium.

iG, for example, shines a spotlight on a young Carnaval Maecenas from a venerable jogo de bicho — numbers racketeering — family, Little Wilson Alves, whose father, the legendary Moisés Alves, was tried and sentenced for racketeering in 2006.

Moisés is said to be a leader of the “nickel hunter” — one-armed bandit — gambling machines mafia.

For “is said to be” read “has been sentenced to a very long time in prison for being, and is free pending the result of appeals …”

The story as iG reports it turns on what is something of a forced analogy, however.

Isn’t the son, Wilsinho, similar to the character of Michael Corleone in The Godfather?

Not really.

He does not really seem all that bitter about being pulled back in, for example. It might be fair to say that he seeks to legitimize the family business, but more information is needed.

Source: iG
Excerpt and translation: C. Brayton

At 28 years of age, the son of Moisés Alves admits to being called «godfather», but attributes his standing in the community to the hard work that brought the samba school into the special access group and won it two championships.

CAPTION: The youngest Carnaval society president ever to win a championship, Wilsinho celebrates with Carnaval muse Sabrina.

The youngest escola de samba president ever to win a Rio Carnaval championsip, Wilsinho Alves of Vila Isabel acknowleges the respect and the reverence in which he is held by  members of the escola, but denies that he is a Godfather, “like in the movie”.

During the verification of the votes on Wednesday afternoon, as iG reported, Wilsinho was observed giving orders and receiving all manner of affection and respect from leaders and supporters of the escola.  Some bystanders asked the young man — he turned 28 on Saturday before Carnaval — for his “blessing.”

“I am not Don Corleone, «The Godfather» — a great film, by the way — but as it happens they do call me Godfather, or in other words, President … Our people are humble, grateful. The nickname is similar, but it is not like in the movie”, he told iG, laughing at the comparison.

NGOs of the Amazon | Social Irrigation & the Network Effect

A vertex is a good hub, if it points to many good authorities,and it is a good authority, if it is pointed to by many good hubs. —WOUTER DE NOOY, ANDREJ MRVAR & VLADIMIR BATAGELJ, Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek

Source: Thiago Foresti | Carta Capital
Translation: C. Brayton
Network Analysis: C. Brayton

You rarely see social network theory applied to journalism for the lay reader, and so I read with interest Thiago Foresti’s recent progress report on the networking strategies — or lack thereof — of environmental nonprofits in the Brazilian Amazon.

In a nutshell, Thiago’s overview of the complex universe of green NGOs points to an oversupply of “gatekeepers” and a shortage of “hubs.”

I find this interesting: I have my own data from a big Web crawl that allows us to examine the “link ecology” of NGOs enumerated in the article — above, and below.

This makes me happy, because it means the data collected by extensive Web crawling — crawling 100,000 URLs with WIRE, developed by Chilean researchers  — and network analysis — with Pajek, Gephi and yEd — produce lists of concretely linked URLs whose mutual ties tend to be thematically coherent or empirically verifiable.

Above, for example, GTA is positioned as an itinerant broker between two other organizations. Adjusting the sample size and factoring out social networking platforms could present this relation in a different light, however.

Intuitively, however, it comes as no surprise that the the Observátorio do Clima would reference the Grupo de Trabalho Amazônico, for example. This is what countless Web portals in the “observatory” or “watch” genre do for a living.

An analysis of a given site’s «link ecology» can provide us with a roster of networked actors engaged in similar activities.

Bicho + Globo + LIESA = RICO?

Source: O Globo.

RIO — Sunday, as the spotlights fell on the Special Group at the Sambadrome, an operation by state judicial police internal affairs launched 9 days ago found irregularities inside LIESA, the  League of Independent Escolas de Samba.

Entering the office of LIESA president  Jorge Castanheira, police served search and seizure warrants for evidence reflecting the participation of military police officers — among them, majors and colonels — in the provision of internal security for the festivities, contrary to a ruling by the state secretary of public safety.

Among the documents seized during Operation Finger of God II was a spreadsheet listing 37 names of security personnel hired to control access to the passarela in 2012.

At the time, state secretary Beltrame had already issued an order forbidding the involvement of police personnel in this capacity. In defiance of this rule, six colonels, five majors and a captain are listed in the document as security personnel in the employ of  MJC Eventos. The company has a services contract with Liesa and includes reserve colonel Celso Pereira de Oliveira among its partners.

O GLOBO was provided with exclusive access to some of the materials collected from Castanheira’s office. Seized at the location were two laptops, a CPU, a pen drive and a number of documents.

Give My Regards to the Big Turk

The discovery of police personnel moonlighting as Sambadrome security was not the only problem uncovered by the operation.

Among the papers seized was a handwritten letter of two pages, signed by a certain João Luis, which suggests that  the LIESA president is not exclusively busy with organizing the Carnaval parade.

The author says he is involved in a dispute with bicho banker José Caruzzo Escafura, aka Piruinha, and asks Castanheira to intercede on his behalf with bicho banker Antônio Petrus Kalil, aka The Big Turk.

Piurinha and the Rio Police

Piruinha I have heard of only in passing. The federal police union published the following anecdote.

The federal police investigations that resulted in Operation Black Op show that Haylton Carlos Escafura — the son of  José Caruzzo Escafura, a top Rio bicho banker  — relied on the protection of 10 state judicial police patrol cars during a transfer of automobiles belonging to the agency Euro Imported Cars, in Barra de Tijuca, in which he is a partner.

The security scheme was placed at the disposal of the racketeer by a ranking judicial police officer on November 24, 2010, on the eve of the invasion of the Complexo do Alemão. Wiretaps show that  Haylton was afraid that his auto agency would be targeted by rivals in the “nickel-hunter” gambling machine racket.

The intimate ties between Piruinha and state police may explain the fact that Haylton remains at large. He was one of 22 persons ordred arrested by a Federal court in October, when the federals kicked off Black Ops.

GLOBO has had access to excerpts of the wiretaps in which Piruinha’s son discusses the transfer of vehicles with Fábio Dutra Souza, his partner in the business, located on the Avenida Ministro Ivan Lins.

We, The Wise Guys

Returning to the most recent report by O Globo, and the letter leaked to it.

The author of the letter, dated 29 de setembro de 2011, begins by apologizing for pestering the LIESA president, then suggests that  Castanheira is fully aware of the rules imposed by the senior leadership of the bicho rackets of Rio.  “You and the other racketeers, with the exception of José Escafura, who for years now has not respected or enforced the rules of the mafia to which he belongs …”

Bills Were Paid by Bicho Bankers?

This was not the only connection to the bicho racket uncovered by police. During the same operation, police internal affairs, which visited another 13 addresses, discovered seven electricity bills in the name of Castanheira at a bicho operations center belonging to «Captain Guimarães». The discovery suggests that the LIESA president had his bills paid by the Captain.

Sought for comment by GLOBO, Jorge Castanheira denied any involvement with the bicho rackets and said he knows nothing about the letter discovered by police. He also denies that his electricity bills were paid for by “Captain” Guimarães.

— This proceeding is confidential. I have not had access to its content, but the press has. I cannot understand it. I have no ties to the bicho bankers. Today, I am president of LIESA, but for the last 28 years I have worked [as a general assistant]. During those years, I received a degree in economics. I receive hundreds of letters as president of LIESA, but none of them have anything to do with the bicho racket. I have nothing to do with any criminal conspiracy and I don’t know whose electricity bills these are.

Castanheira added that the only electricity bills on which his name appears are related to the offices occupied by LIESA from 1987 to 1995. Regarding the hiring of police to provide security, he said he had asked MJC to give preferential treatment to reserve officers.

Rule Applies to Police Reserves as Well

Despite what Castanheira says, reserve officers of the military police are not exempt from the disciplinary provisions of Decree 6579/83 …  According to this rule, military police must respect the police hierarchy both as current and off-duty or reserve police agents. Thus, Beltrame’s decree applies to retired PMs as well.

The public safety secretary said that it is looking into the irregular provision of services by its personnel during Carnaval. In a note, the department said that since 2008, more than 1,393 state judicial and military police have been expelled by the three internal affairs departments … for various misdeeds.

Finger of God II grew out of an analysis of data obtained during Finger of God I in December 2011. During the second phase, starting on 31 January 2012, the police applied for arrest warrants for bicho bankers Capitão Guimarães and Luiz Pacheco Drumond, aka Luizinho Drumond, both of them former  Liesa presidents.

Their warrant applications were not granted, however.

LIESA, The Untouchable Monopoly

Why not? This is the question that demands an answer when it comes to understanding how for nearly 18 years LIESA has dominated Carnaval in Rio from start to finish, from lighting to ticket sales, from the sound system to every other aspect of the festivities.

Including broadcast rights, which LIESA has ceded to the Globo network despite the best efforts of the state legislature to put an end to its rein.

Bicho + Globo + LIESA = RICO?

I posted a note on that general topic in 2007.

• Rio: “Why Does Globo Monopolize Carnival?”

Historically linked to the bicho numbers racket, LIESA has monopolized the organized Carnaval celebration since 1995. Year in and year out, promises of a competitive public auction have failed to pan out.

Rio mayor Eduardo Paes scheduled such an auction on various occasions and succeeded in conducting one for 2010, but the proposal as passed failed to meet certain requirements of the TCM, the city accounting tribunal.

This year, as I noted recently, TCM justices lost their free access to a Sambadrome sky box on the grounds that the justices should not be benefiting from a contract on which they will eventually have to pronounce judgment.

Unlike what the bicho bankers claimed, the terms as stated were not valid; the auction would have to be redone, but there was not enough time left. Thus did Carnaval 2011 fall back into the hands of LIESA.

Last year, alleging lack of competition in the auction for Carnaval 2009, a Rio court froze the assets of former mayor  Cesar Maia, who hired LIESA R$ 5.3 million.

And therein lies another tale.

«Surviving Progress»

• Surviving Progress (2011)

Start-Up Brasil | Acorns to Oaks

«… solving the problems of an industry or a corporation is not a sexy way to make a living»

Source: Folha de S. Paulo | Brasilianas.Org
By: Reinaldo Chaves
Translation: C. Brayton

The Start-Up Brasil program, launched by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation in November of last year, is an attempt to replicate international success stories in support for start-ups — fledgling companies in the IT sector — based on a joint effort by government and the private sector.

Chile founded a similar program two years ago and has already attended 397 companies and 888 entrepreneurs. The annual budget of Start-Up Chile is US$ 14 million. Israel has invested heavily in start-ups since the 1990s, mostly in the areas of military, energy and aerospace technologies. The University of Jerusalem receives annual funding of more than US$ 1 billion.

The Brazilian program calls for investing R$ 40 million in three years in at least 150 companies. At the outset, six accelerators will be selected to service the selected start-ups.

The accelerators will create incubators and provide research and consulting — see the «Mission Statement», below.