Exclusive – Brazil’s Rousseff sides with farmers in Indian land fight

Brian Winters, Caroline Stauffer – Reuters, 05/14/2013

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has ordered her government to stop confiscating farmland to create new Indian reservations, government officials say, a policy reversal with major implications for one of the world’s top agricultural producers.

Brazil has in recent decades set aside about 13 percent of its territory for indigenous tribes. Vast additional areas, including prime territory for the production of soy, beef, sugar and other commodities, are under consideration for possible transfer.

That policy has been hailed as one of the world’s most progressive but had caused mounting clashes in recent months as thousands of farmers were evicted from land they had been cultivating, in some cases for decades.

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President Gauck praises Brazil ties in Rousseff meeting

DW/AFP, 05/14/2013

German President Joachim Gauck is in Brazil seeking to strengthen trade ties with a key German partner; he and President Dilma Rousseff have officially opened a special Germany-themed year in Brazil.

German President Joachim Gauck and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff started Brazil’s “Deutschland-Jahr” year-long schedule that incorporates as many as 400 cultural, economic and scientific appointments in the coming months.

Gauck and Rousseff appeared at the opening of a German-Brazilian trade conference in Sao Paolo late on Monday.

The German president praised long-standing and stable bilateral trade ties. Gauck said that Volkswagen’s partnership with Brazil had proved so successful over the years that many in Brazil considered VW a “domestic legacy brand.” He also lamented that too few Germans knew that author Thomas Mann should dedicate “his artistic streak to his mother who was born in Brazil.”

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Brazil’s Rousseff takes nuanced approach to foreign policy

Vincent Bevins – Los Angeles Times,  04/25/2013

Shortly before Venezuela’spresidential election, former Brazilian PresidentLuiz Inacio Lula da Silva recorded a video supporting Nicolas Maduro, saying he had “stood out brilliantly in the struggle” for a more democratic Latin America.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who was endorsed by Lula in 2010, kept silent on the ultimately victorious candidacy of Maduro, the hand-chosen heir of the late leftist Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez.

The difference in demeanor between the two Brazilian presidents was not surprising to Rousseff watchers. Since assuming office at the start of 2011, she has taken a much more muted approach to foreign policy than Lula, avoiding the type of activism that often annoyed the United States.

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Brazil’s Rousseff takes nuanced approach to foreign policy

Vincent Bevins – Los Angeles Times, 04/25/2013

Shortly before Venezuela’s presidential election, former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recorded a video supporting Nicolas Maduro, saying he had “stood out brilliantly in the struggle” for a more democratic Latin America.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who was endorsed by Lula in 2010, kept silent on the ultimately victorious candidacy of Maduro, the hand-chosen heir of the late leftist Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez.

The difference in demeanor between the two Brazilian presidents was not surprising to Rousseff watchers. Since assuming office at the start of 2011, she has taken a much more muted approach to foreign policy than Lula, avoiding the type of activism that often annoyed the United States.

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Featured Q&A from the Latin America Advisor

Inter-American Dialogue, 04/22/2013

Director of the Brazil Institute, Paulo Sotero, was interviewed by the Latin America Advisor on the mensalao trial.

Q: Prosecutors in Brazil announced April 5 that they have opened an investigation of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in connection with the so-called “mensalão” vote-buying scheme. The scandal has already led to several convictions, including that of Lula’s former chief of staff, José Dirceu. Have the prosecutions dealt a significant blow to corruption in Brazil? How is the scandal, and now the probe involving Lula, affecting the country’s politics ahead of next year’s presidential election?

A: Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: “Politically, the mensalão episode is over. Brazil’s electoral politics will be governed this year and next by the effects of an underperforming economy on inflation and jobs. If the economy deteriorates in ways that reverses President Dilma Rousseff’s very high approval ratings, it could open political space for the opposition to revive corruption as an electoral issue, particularly if the current federal investigation of mensalão-related charges against President Lula lead to an indictment. In an unfavorable economic scenario, that improbable outcome could complicate Rousseff’s re-election campaign and Lula’s re-emergence as an alternative presidential candidate, which was an unlikely development even before the Supreme Court returned verdicts with prison sentences against 12 of the 25 people who were found guilty in the mensalão trial. That said, the historic mensalão trial resulted from pressure from a changing society fed up with Brazil’s tradition of high-level impunity. It represented progress in the fight against corruption, even if the sentences are ultimately reduced in the ongoing final stage of judicial review. The trial, broadcast live, was a teachable moment for Brazil’s expanding middle class and a younger generation of political leaders now emerging. Whether they learned from it remains an open question. Nothing, however, will change the fact that 37 people with special connections to power, including key advisors to the most popular president in Brazil’s history, were brought to justice and two-thirds of them were found guilty by a majority of judges nominated to the Supreme Court by that very president and by his handpicked successor, who felt compelled to declare that she does ‘not tolerate corruption.’ ”

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Brazil inflation: surging tomato prices create political headache

Luis Barrucho – BBC News, 04/17/2013

The city of Sao Paulo has a large Italian population and is proud of its Italian restaurants. So it came as a shock when some of them announced that any dish with a tomato base would be dropped from the menu.

This startling change to such a traditional offering came after tomato prices soared over the past 12 months in Brazil, at one point recording an increase of around 150%, according to the IBGE, Brazil’s statistics agency.

And the impact went far beyond restaurant tables as pressure grew on the government to curb rising inflation, an issue that is deeply sensitive in South America’s largest country.

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Exclusive: Brazil’s Rousseff to make rare state visit to U.S.

Brian Winter – Reuters, 04/11/2013

President Dilma Rousseff will make the first formal state visit by a Brazilian leader to the United States in nearly two decades, a diplomatic breakthrough for an emerging power that has clashed with Washington but is hungry for closer ties and recognition of its growing prestige.

The trip will occur later this year, likely in October, officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity because the White House has not yet announced the visit. A White House spokeswoman declined comment.

A state visit, which includes formalities such as a black-tie dinner and a military ceremony upon arrival, is usually reserved for Washington’s closest strategic partners.

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Trattoria dumps tomatoes to protest Rousseff’s inflation stance

Joshua Goodman & Denyse Godoy – Bloomberg, 0/09/2013

One of Sao Paulo’s most traditional Italian restaurants is urging its clients to forgo the tomato to protest what it considers President Dilma Rousseff’s policy of promoting growth at the expense of higher inflation.

Augusto Mello, owner Nello’s Cantina, last month began curtailing his tomato purchases to protest a tripling in prices for the vegetable over the past year to 150 reais ($75) for a 20-kilogram crate. A sign on the entrance of the 38-year-old restaurant urges patrons to become “conscientious consumers” and help fight inflation by ordering dishes without red sauce.

The one-man crusade may be touching a nerve with consumers, whose pockets are being squeezed by surging prices for food and services. A report tomorrow will show that inflation breached the 6.5 percent limit of the government’s target range in March for the first time in 16 months, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists, even as the economy struggles to regain its footing after its second-worst performance in 13 years in 2012.

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Analysis: Brazil’s Rousseff not a slam dunk for re-election

Brian Winter – Reuters, 04/04/2013

She’s one of the world’s most popular presidents with an approval rating that is the envy of her peers in richer countries struggling with debt crises and political deadlock – 79 percent and rising.

She presides over a country with record-low unemployment, a can-do optimism that invites comparisons to the post-war years in the United States, and a chance to showcase its progress when it hosts the soccer World Cup next year.

And yet, it’s entirely possible that Dilma Rousseff could fail to win re-election as president of Brazil in October 2014.

The 65-year-old leftist remains the clear favorite but the threat of rising inflation and unemployment, a trio of attractive opposition candidates, and the possibility of an embarrassing logistical debacle at the World Cup mean that Rousseff is less of a shoo-in than many observers think.

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Brazil opens inquiry into claims of wrongdoing by ex-president

Simon Romero – The New York Times, 04/06/2013

Brazil’s Public Ministry, a body of independent public prosecutors, has begun an investigation into a claim connecting former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to a vast vote-buying scheme that involved the channeling of funds to the governing Workers’ Party.

The inquiry, which was announced in the capital, Brasília, on Friday and comes after several months of analyzing testimony, opens a new phase in what has arguably been Brazil’s largest corruption scandal, already involving the conviction of Mr. da Silva’s powerful former chief of staff, José Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva, on conspiracy and bribery charges last year.

The move by the Public Ministry, which asked the federal police to carry out the investigation, is thought to be the first time that Mr. da Silva has been directly investigated in connection to the scheme, called the mensalão, or big monthly allowance, for the regular payments that some lawmakers received. The scandal emerged in 2005, during Mr. da Silva’s first term as president. At 67, he remains a towering figure in Brazilian politics.

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