MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
China further opens its market to Brazilian beef, chicken and now pork
China opened its market significantly for Brazilian beef and chicken said Brazil’s Agriculture minister Wagner Rossi on his return from a week long visit to China with a business delegation headed by President Dilma Rousseff. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesWe can produce and export food to China relatively quickly,
Apr 21st, 2011 - 11:56 am - Link - Report abuse 0but to produce ports & harbours, and road, railway and fluvial systems in the same time frame needs quality engineering and re-engineering the likes of which we have never seen in Brasil.
The standard Chinese way of exporting infrastructure in reciprocal trade deals is to export the workforces to make it happen - a million or so at a time.
With Chinese workforces and massive extra funding from the USA for sports stadia, airports and metros we may get it all done for us!
And the Chinese will go home when it is all finished.
“but to produce ports & harbours, and road, railway and fluvial systems in the same time frame needs quality engineering and re-engineering the likes of which we have never seen in Brasil.”
Apr 21st, 2011 - 10:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Said who? The problem might be one of fundings only.
“With Chinese workforces and massive extra funding from the USA for sports stadia, airports and metros we may get it all done for us!”
The US cannot invest in new infrastructure not even in its own country. Deficit spending is already too high - there are even dangers that it may cause a fiscal crisis. Didn't you see anything on a credit agency lowering its perspectives on US debt? As for the Chinese workers, the Brazilian legislation determines that at least 75% of workers in any new project in BR have to be nationals.
As I said before, your knowledge of the issues you try to discuss isn't as great as you seem to believe.
Forgetit,
Apr 22nd, 2011 - 01:24 am - Link - Report abuse 0I don't know if you have ever been to eg. the USA, but if you had you would have seen buildings, water management systems, freeways, ports and airports built to specifications and designs undreamt of by Brasilian construction teams.
Infrastructure planning and legislation is profoundly good, and serves as a model of first-world processes.
No, it's not funding; its a total paradigm shift in expectations, planning and performance.
Obama has recently visited Brasil and has publically underwritten these developments with billions of USDs. Whether Brasil can manage the deployment remains to be seen.
Chinese % of workforce on projects can be varied depending on contract conditions (recent port development) and as Olympic/World Cup deadlines loom, the degree of variation will be relaxed. Having seen it operating in peninsular Malaysia with Government % allocations to Bumiputran Malaysians vis-a-vis Chinese, I am familiar with pragmatic variancing on major projects.
You may like money matters but I have a feeling that your knowledge of the world and the way things operate is not as great as you profess.
I wasn't comparing infrastructure in here as compared to infrastructure in the US. As for Obama's visit, he didn't propose to directly fund infrastructure development in BR. He instead came in representing US engineering enterprises that will have to compete for government contracts like Brazilian and German companies are already doing.
Apr 22nd, 2011 - 02:13 am - Link - Report abuse 0The following excerpt is from an Obama speech made a week ago:
”Brazil is investing billions in new infrastructure and can run half their cars not on high-priced gasoline, but biofuels. And yet, we are presented with a vision that says the United States of America – the greatest (sic)nation on Earth – can’t afford any of that.“
That is, the US government ability to invest in infrastrcuture within its own borders is already hampered, either by deficit spending that is already too high or because of opposition from Republican Congressmen. I can only doubt that he would really lobby to instead invest in BR.
”Chinese % of workforce on projects can be varied (...)“
I see no evidence of that. As far as I'm concerned, that is another item to add to the list of negativistic, misinformed speculation to you're used to make. As I said, THE LAW forbids that more than 25% of the workforce in any given project in BR be foreign. I don't how are things in Malaysia. Do you? Last year, I'm reminded that Lula criticized China, in a trip to Africa, for employing only Chinese persons in its works in China. Rousseff is even more of a China-skeptical than Lula. I see no way she'd be more lenient in this respect than Lula himself was.
”I have a feeling that your knowledge of the world and the way things operate is not as great as you profess.”
I'm not discussing the world but my home country, which I clearly know better than you do. You should go back to Britain. Nobody likes a whiner.
Infrastructure planning and legislation is profoundly good, and serves as a model of first-world processes.
Apr 22nd, 2011 - 05:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Geotward, it seems you haven't visited the US lately at all and truly believe your own kool aid nonsense.
First off all, the discussion in the US today is about fixing crumbling infrastructure that doesn't match at all with other developed nations and what is falling behind developing nations. Second, the reality is now in the face of the American people that they are BROKE. Everyday is the talk about fixing bridges, ports, airports, roads, but one problem, their is no Money. And if you are from Britain, i have bad news for you, it's in the same TITANIC that will hit the iceberg while the people on the deck and the captains refuse to see (because it will hurt their ego, to admit that it's done with them).
I don't have the feeling, but I know by reading that your world view and how things really are is like believing in the easter bunny.
Admittedly I only visit First World countries 2/3 times a year, and not the USA so far this year, and admittedly my knowledge of Brasil is powerfully conditioned by my better knowledge of SP, SP State and the North East States, but I am in a reasonable position to see comparative strengths and weaknesses and to comment accordingly.
Apr 22nd, 2011 - 09:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Sometimes, Forgetit, conversation switches financial and I defer to your comments as I think they make sense; on Brasilian 'politics' we have different points of view and we argue; on international matters sometimes you offer better research, sometimes I do.
But I rarely criticise you - except recently over the matter of acceptance of corruption.
Respect.
(6) Geoff
Apr 23rd, 2011 - 07:24 am - Link - Report abuse 0The day you show same respect for humans as for trade.
The day you show some respect for your adopted Continent.
The day you show any respect for the rights and life of dissimilar thinkers.
That will be the day you will get “Respect” from the likes of Forgetit87.
Until then…. …..........................................
Just sad contempt about your lack of social intelligence, without which, all other intelligences are quite wasted.
Good points, Think.
Apr 23rd, 2011 - 12:55 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Most of the time you respect these rules yourself, and I have found you an intelligent commentator on most subjects.
Similarly with Forgetit, where my comments at #6 apply.
Elaine is willing to engage in interesting social debate and she shows great social intelligence combined with a (probably professional) extensive interaction with the man in the street in many countries across South America and beyond.
;-) Think of me as a little bit of grit in the South American oyster from which pearls may be generated with good debate.
I make no apologies wrt corruption - it is the cancer of societies the world over, my adopted country deserves better than this, and I have no time for apologists, other than to accord them robust debate..
(8) Geoff
Apr 23rd, 2011 - 03:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You may think of your kind as little bits of grit in the South American oyster from which pearls may be generated through robust debate……..
But for me, anybody inciting the toppling of democratically elected governments in South America is a dangerous festering furuncle on our ass that may cause sepsis and death.
For you is kind of an exotic game of words….
For many of us it was, it is and it always will be a matter of life or death…………..
Otherwise, you are surely a nice chap..................
Yup, basically I am - sometimes.
Apr 23rd, 2011 - 09:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0These matters are new and post-colonial for this new-world; they are therefore frequently fought with guns rather than words.
The old-world has fought out these games to exhaustion over many centuries. When words failed the guns consumed whole continents and tens of millions died.
Words are where the future is (unless you subscribe to Malthusian control methods).
However, I have indeed considered the removal of key leaders where they themselves are responsible for the deaths of thousands/millions of their fellow man.
Never a problem in history, when the king presented on the battlefield and lived or died in the process.
But now, take Gadhaffi (please!) ;
self-evidently the Libyan war 'ends' with his death - can democratic society sanction his death *before* thousands more must die?
No.
Due Process is frequently more harmful to the greatest number of people than fast process.
But it is OUR process.
I presented to you this illogicality.
It remains one of the many dilemmas that modern democracy must tackle.
And I leave you with the question 'When is a democratically elected President not a democratically elected President?'
See Ivory Coast for the clues. The using and *warping* of the democratic process to legitimize 'election' is sufficiently undemocratic to allow me the right to propose the removal of a person so acting.
My family have, as recently as today, re-visited this debate; we re-state that democracy is worth taking up arms to defend, and that corrupt 'democracy' is worth 'taking up arms' to attack.
. . . . as did our parents, our parents parents and our parents parents parents - some of them dying in the process.
The pen or the sword? It depends on the situation.
I repeat…….:
Apr 23rd, 2011 - 09:55 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You are inciting for the toppling of democratically elected governments in South America.
Governments rightly elected by the people through internationally supervised, orderly, free and open elections.
So far,………… you have done it against the democratically elected governments of Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina.
Don’t try to excuse yourself by dropping names like Libya, Ivory Coast, Mao, Stalin or the always useful Hitler.
No, Think.
Apr 24th, 2011 - 01:49 am - Link - Report abuse 0I have debated, advocated or supported removal of individuals that have *fundimentally and undemocratically mis-used and abused* the democratic system for their own ends.
This might, in your book, be called
''The Democratic process' and
'the way South American Democracy is peculiarly practised in societies poorly understood by first-world visitors',
but to me, and those with perhaps a wider knowledge of democracy, these practices stink.
You do yourself a disservice by defending these practices - if indeed you do;
and if you don't - let's hear you decry them.
My criticism of activities in specific countries are specific - for instance (and my criticisms are additive as more come to light) :
Honduras: Zelaya attempt to manipulate the constitution
Nicaragua: ?
Venezuela: supression of opposition and media; FARC
Ecuador: State controlled oil fields pollution upper Amazonia
Bolivia: ?
Argentina : blocking & cicumventing Mercosur;
Libya: killing his own people
Ivory Coast: rigging national elections
Mao/Stalin/Pol Pot: Genocide
Hitler: ?
Please fill in the gaps - eg
i. Brasil: institutionalised corruption inc. Mensalão
ii Cuba : Supression & imprisonment of opposition
iii Palestine : Hamas/Hisbollah rocket attacks
iv Israel : self-defense
v UK : war crimes of PM; culpability of CoE/BoE/FSA/bankers
vi Hitler:
vii Nicaragua :
viii Bolivia :
ix
x
You say
Apr 24th, 2011 - 04:15 am - Link - Report abuse 0”.... To me, and those with perhaps a wider knowledge of democracy.....”
I say:
Your ”wider knowledge of democracy” until now has exclusively consisted in calling our people the ”Unwashed and Uneducated” and advocating for the toppling of any of our governments that don’t serve your economical first world order interests…..
Nice Geoff……….
”Wide knowedledge of democracy”……………… indeed.
Think,
Apr 24th, 2011 - 01:58 pm - Link - Report abuse 0why are you are 'playing to an audience'? It is so unnecessary.
Either your memory is poor or you are purposfully twisting and misquoting, both in #11 and #13:
My refutation of your twisting is offered in #12, giving you the opportunity to justify your statements.
Your comment in #13 conflates two words -
one which you know comes from that classic quote of literature meaning ''the common man' - of which I see a lot in the favelas, etc, of Bahia,
and the other from the OECD Education Report on Brazil http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/52/33/46581300.pdf, which I recommended for its insight and balance. . . . and which you really ought to read in full.
Brasil is a country that places a disproportionately small importance on education at all levels compared to India and China, and its rate of development is proportionately constrained. Over 50% of Brasil's spend on Education is spent on (low) salaries and pensions!
Do you think these are issues of 'Democracy'? China doesn't.
They are of critical importance in any social system.
Lula's bundling into a big a Bolsa is one attempt at addressing the matter, but the strength of the linkage with educational development has been lost, and it has generated an turgid culture of entitlement - I see it all around me in the North East.
Also you are fully aware that any country claiming to be a democracy must operate by democratic tenets.
Any democratic illegalities, particularly
(i) those that fleece the people for personal enrichment, and
(ii) those that attempt to manipulate the recurrence of 'offering their services to the people' to attempt perpetuity of personal enrichment,
is the antitheseis of democracy.
[Mugabe is the obvious example, but there are well known south americans also]
THAT is what we fight against.
It seems you have a very peculiar understanding of the nature of democracy and that you, and Forgetit, condone its bastardisation..
Spend a little time addressing my # 12.
(14) Geoff
Apr 24th, 2011 - 03:04 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You say:
“Think, why are you 'playing to an audience'? It is so unnecessary.
Either your memory is poor or you are purposefully twisting and misquoting, both in #11 and #13.”
I say:
Well…….. My memory is working fine and I am not twisting anything.
That’s what you have written, that’s what anybody can verify by checking the MercoPresss archives and that’s the way your message comes across............Loud and clear………........................ ...................
If anybody is “bastardizing democracy” in here it is certainly you, by breaking its most central principle, placing your personal perception over the will of the people and advocating dictatorial corrective measures.
You know that neither you nor I are accused of bastardising democracy.
Apr 24th, 2011 - 11:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I have written that 'it seems that you condone the bastardising of democracy'.
Nor is 'my personal perception placed over the will of the people', but when the will of the people for democratic governance is subverted, then we, the people, have the absolute right to use the democratic process to remove them.
In some democracies this might involve banishment, in others incarceration, in others repayment of stolen assets, in others again - death.
The rule of law is paramount and must be upheld and, in this sense, the Executive is subservient to the Judicary. It must be uncorruptable.
Nobody, especially a President, is above the law.
The larger the corruption - especially the corruption designed to maintain dictators in a 'democratically legitimated dictatorship' - the larger the sanction.
Carefull chosen words…..
Apr 25th, 2011 - 01:49 am - Link - Report abuse 0Except for 1 word (death), I fully agree with the text at post No. (16)
Do you?
I have thought about this a lot.
Apr 25th, 2011 - 11:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0If we all had precognition we could see a leader’s excesses before they happened, and the will of the people would keep them out of office.
But we don’t.
All we have is the post hoc realization when excesses have been committed – the evidences of corruption, disappearances, killings, throwing out of aeroplanes, genocide, whatever.
When our leaders’ excesses, like in these examples, go beyond the rules of society, the sanction should fit the crime.
All but the first of my examples should be sanctioned by death. Death should not be excluded from the sanctions for corruption.
‘Plausible deniability’ should be no acceptable defence; culpability should extend to ‘the highest in the land’.
The Nurenberg defence (only obeying orders) should be unacceptable.
The existence of the death penalty should, in the civil realm, be only via the will of the people, and should only be managed through the judicial arm of government.
Summary executions of civilians by the military or police should be illegal and should carry the death sentence.
Amnesties involving opposing parties should be even-handed and, where accompanied by a Truth AND Reconciliation process, should not be subsequently revisited/overturned.
‘Dr. Iris Henimen’: “Sometimes, in order to see the light, you have to risk the dark.”
‘My father once told me, “We don't choose the things we believe in; they choose us.”’
Well………………….. Then you will have to think a bit more……………..
Apr 25th, 2011 - 12:55 pm - Link - Report abuse 0All, including the first of your “excesses” examples, have been, are and will continue to be commited by the very same people you ally yourself with, when stirring for the toppling of our democratically elected governments.
Honduras current situation is a perfect and fresh example of the above.
Inform yourself……….
You keep trying to equalize the illegal and violent actions of small group of young revolutionary and idealistic people to the enormous viciousness and brutality of our military terror regimes.
In this light, your “fascination” with the South African Truth and Reconciliation process is understandable……..
But……………. Mandela and the ANC could afford the luxury of being pragmatic….They knew that the ”White Problem” would rapidly solve itself.
If emigration rate continues at the actual pace, South Africa will effectively be a “White Free” zone by the year 2050.
South America is choosing a much more civilized and fair path…….
“If you do the crime; you do the time”
Get used to it.
South America is choosing a much more civilized and fair path…….
Apr 25th, 2011 - 01:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“If you do the crime; you do the time”
AGAIN, YOU JOKE, SIR.
A million crimes go unpunished every day of the year, year in and year out.
Why?
Because they are perpetrated with impunity by individuals with paractical immunity; usually *by people voted into office*,
though the same unnacceptible practices pervade the whole of society because immunity and impunity is the observed norm.
Never-ending Appeals are just one of the establishment's route to avoiding sanctions and to keep the corrupt 'on the gravy-train'.
You asked me about the death penalty - I expected a more holistic and philosophical response from you.
But as one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist/international terrorist, I must bring eg FARC into the same discussion as a dictator. The key factor is the perpetration of murders.
You know Honduras is not'a perfect example of the above', as the government was not toppled.
I am at least as up to speed on this matter as you.
Wrt South Africa - BRICS status rapidly disappears if the white flight goes the way you predict.
“If you do the crime; you do the time” - not in South America if you are a politician or a white-collar criminal.
Ufffffffffffffffff....................
Apr 25th, 2011 - 02:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The never-ending story.
I speak about crimes against humanity.
You speak about petty and grand economical corruption.
And then……………… you seem to condone crimes against humanity to eradicate petty and grand economical corruption.
I never “asked” you about the death penalty!
Isn’t a “NO” holistic and philosophical enough for you?
BRICS or no BRICS the whites are storming out of Suid-Afrika.
“If you do the crime; you do the time”
Not quite yet for politicians or white-collar economical criminals.
But certainly for their armed and uniformed servants .
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