Temas de relações internacionais, de política externa e de diplomacia brasileira, com ênfase em políticas econômicas, em viagens, livros e cultura em geral. Um quilombo de resistência intelectual em defesa da racionalidade, da inteligência e das liberdades democráticas.
O que é este blog?
Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida.
sexta-feira, 11 de julho de 2014
Eleicoes 2014: Academia Brasileira de Ciencias encaminha suas propostas aos candidatos
quinta-feira, 10 de julho de 2014
Understanding Political Islam - Dalibor Rohac (Cato Institute)
Cato Weekly Dispatch
July 10, 2014
The rise of political Islam into prominence poses important questions both for people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and for policymakers in the West. Since 9/11, the thrust of Western foreign and security policy toward the MENA region has aimed at containing radical forms of Islam.
In a new study, Cato scholar Dalibor Rohac examines the roots of political Islam, the policy implications of its rise, and the longer term prospects for secular liberal democracy in the region.
“Understanding Political Islam,” by Dalibor Rohac
"How Political Repression Breeds Islamic Radicalism," by Dalibor Rohac
Brasil e o padrao companheiro de construcao civil: lento e muito mal feito, caindo, para ser mais exato...
G1, 10/07/2014
Parte de viaduto desabou em Cubatão, SP (Foto: Jéssica Bitencourt / G1)Parte de viaduto desabou em Cubatão, no litoral de São Paulo (Foto: Jéssica Bitencourt/G1)
Três vigas de um viaduto em construção desabaram na Rodovia Anchieta, no sentido São Paulo, na altura de Cubatão (SP), na manhã desta quinta-feira (10). Segundo informações do Corpo de Bombeiros, ninguém ficou ferido. A Defesa Civil foi enviada ao local e vai investigar as causas do acidente.
A queda aconteceu por volta das 10h40. O bombeiros também foram chamados porque, a princípio, havia a informação de que três pessoas estariam soterradas pelas estruturas, que, somadas, pesam cerca de 300 toneladas. Após analisar a área, os bombeiros concluíram que ninguém foi atingido no acidente.
As causas do desabamento ainda estão sendo apuradas. As informações iniciais apontam que uma das vigas estava sendo instalada quando se soltou e derrubou outras duas partes da estrutura do viaduto, construído nas proximidades de Vila Natal, em Cubatão.
De acordo o morador Adenilson Eduardo, que estava em uma casa próxima quando a estrutura caiu, a situação no local é muito precária. "Além do risco de acidentes, desde que essas obras começaram o número de assaltos, alagamentos e falta de iluminação aumentou. Esse acidente poderia ter atingido uma casa. Escutamos um grande barulho", disse.
Segundo Rui Klein, gerente de engenharia da Ecovias, concessionária que administra a Rodovia Anchieta, todas as causas da queda do elevado serão investigadas. Ele também ressaltou a importância dos protocolos de segurança que eram seguidos no momento que as vigas caíram. "Todas as hipóteses serão investigadas. É cedo para saber se uma causa é mais ou menos provável. Todas serão investigadas. São várias as hipóteses, inclusive a do solo ter cedido por causa das chuvas. Isso não deve acontecer de qualquer maneira, mas infelizmente é uma movimentação de risco e, por sabermos disso, a gente toma as providências de contingência, que são cumprimentos de protocolos de segurança sempre feitos na movimentação dessas vigas", explicou.
Guindaste era responsável pela colocação das vigas no viaduto (Foto: Jéssica Bitencourt / G1)Guindaste era responsável pela colocação de vigas no viaduto (Foto: Jéssica Bitencourt/G1)
Millor Fernandes: enfim, um escritor com estilo - Guilherme Freitas
MILLÔR FERNANDES (1923-2012)
O gênio e seu legado
Reproduzido do Globo.com, 5/7/2014; título original “Homenageado da Flip, Millôr Fernandes ganha mais de 10 novas edições e tem legado revisto”
China: o grande arquiteto da modernizacao economica - Liu He (Belfer Center)
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, July 10, 2014
Overcoming the Great Recession: Lessons from China
The US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue being held in Beijing this week reminds us of the most important bilateral relationship in the world today. Americans are understandably concerned that the perspectives of American policymakers and scholars are understood broadly by elites and publics in other countries. We tend to be less vigilant, however, in listening to the perspectives of others.
Liu He is worth listening to. A rare combination of scholarly analysts and policy advisor, he has emerged as Chinese President Xi Jinping's right hand man on economic policy. The Chinese press has named him the "Chief Architect" of the current economic program to transform the Chinese economy. As Head of the Office of the Central Leading Group on Financial and Economic Affairs in the President's office, he plays a role not unlike that which one of us had in the Obama Administration's first term.
In the aftershocks of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, Liu led a research team that prepared an analysis of earlier financial crises to provide guidance for the Chinese government's response. We arranged for that document to be translated, and it was just published as a joint discussion paper of Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard's Kennedy School.
As we note in a foreword to the paper, five years after the meltdown that threatened a second Great Depression, the Eurozone's economic output has yet to reach pre-crisis levels. The US is stuck in secular stagnation. But China has averaged 7.5% annual growth, three quarters its previous rate. Indeed, the incandescent fact about the performance of the major economies since 2008 is that of all the growth that has taken place in the global economy, 40% of it has occurred in just one country: China.
Liu He's analysis provides clues to the reasons why—claims worthy of discussion and debate in the wider policy-related community.
Read Full Analysis (PDF): http://links.hks-belfercenter.mkt4851.com/ctt?kn=15&ms=ODk5NjMyMwS2&r=MzQxMTk0NDYyMjAS1&b=0&j=MzQwODQ3MDYwS0&mt=1&rt=0
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Email: belfer_center@hks.harvard.edu | Phone: 617-495-1400
Futebol: governo promete intervir - agora a coisa vai piorar de vez
Pronto: lá se foi o último reduto da espontaneidade...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Após 'lição' na Copa, governo quer intervir no futebol
Ministro cita organização do calendário e de clubes
O material jornalístico produzido pelo Estadão é protegido por lei. Para compartilhar este conteúdo, utilize o link:http://esportes.estadao.com.br/noticias/futebol,copa-do-mundo,governo-quer-intervir-no-futebol-brasileiro-revela-aldo-rebelo,1526534
Integração Regional e Políticas Comerciais na América Latina - Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Toda a revista possui excelentes matérias e o link fornecido acima permite ler sua íntegra.
Copa do Mundo: a ultima ofensa, Argentina no Maracana - Le Monde
Mondial 2014 : l'Argentine au Maracana, affront ultime pour les Brésiliens
« Brésil, dis-moi ce que ça fait d'avoir papa à la maison … Tu vas voir Messi, il va nous ramener la Coupe. Maradona est plus grand que Pelé ». Le chant entonné par les nombreux supporteurs argentins présents au Brésil depuis le début du Mondial 2014 risque de raisonner de plus belle dans les rues de Sao Paulo et de Rio. Mercredi, malgré un Lionel Messi très discret et une demi-finale ennuyeuse (0-0, 4 tab à 2), l'Albiceleste s'est qualifiée aux dépens des Pays-Bas pour la finale de la compétition organisée chez leur rival brésilien.
- Anthony Hernandez
Journaliste au Monde
National Security Archive: tortura no Brasil durante o regime militar (1970)
1970s Brazilian Government Torture Techniques Revealed in Declassified U.S. Documents
by Kevin Y. Kim
BRAZIL: TORTURE TECHNIQUES REVEALED IN DECLASSIFIED U.S. DOCUMENTS
DICTATORSHIP-ERA RECORDS GIVEN BY VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN TO PRESIDENT ROUSSEF
DETAIL "PSYCHOPHYSICAL" SYSTEMS OF TORTURE, SECRET EXECUTIONS
43 STATE DEPARTMENT RECORDS MADE PUBLIC BY BRAZILIAN TRUTH COMMISSION
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 478
Posted July 8, 2014
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
For more information contact:
Peter Kornbluh 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, D.C., July 8, 2014 -- The Brazilian military regime employed a "sophisticated and elaborate psychophysical duress system" to "intimidate and terrify" suspected leftist militants in the early 1970s, according to a State Department report dated in April 1973 and made public yesterday. Among the torture techniques used during the military era, the report detailed "special effects" rooms at Brazilian military detention centers in which suspects would be "placed nude" on a metal floor "through which electric current is pulsated." Some suspects were "eliminated" but the press was told they died in "shoot outs" while trying to escape police custody. "The shoot-out technique is being used increasingly," the cable sent by the U.S. Consul General in Rio de Janeiro noted, "in order to deal with the public relations aspect of eliminating subversives," and to "obviate 'death-by-torture' charges in the international press."
Peter Kornbluh who directs the National Security Archive's Brazil Documentation Project called the document "one of the most detailed reports on torture techniques ever declassified by the U.S. government."
Titled "Widespread Arrests and Psychophysical Interrogation of Suspected Subversives," the document was among 43 State Department cables and reports that Vice President Joseph Biden turned over on June 17 to President Dilma Rousseff during his trip to Brazil for the World Cup competition for use by the Brazilian Truth Commission. The Commission is in the final phase of a two-year investigation of human rights atrocities during the military dictatorship which lasted from 1964 to 1985. On July 2, the Commission posted all 43 documents on its website, accompanied by this statement: "The CNV greatly appreciates the initiative of the U.S. government to make these records available to Brazilian society and hopes that this collaboration will continue to progress."
The records range in date from 1967 to 1977. They report on a wide range of human rights-related issues, among them: secret torture detention centers in Sao Paulo, the military's counter-subversion operations, attitudes of the Church on human rights violations, and the regime's hostile reaction in 1977 to the first State Department human rights report on abuses. Some of the documents had been previously declassified under routine release procedures; others, including the April 1973 report on psychophysical torture, were reviewed for declassification as recently as June 5, 2014, in preparation for Biden's trip.
During his meeting with President Rousseff, Biden announced that the Obama administration would undertake a broader review of still highly classified U.S. records on Brazil, among them CIA and Defense Department documents, to assist the Commission in finalizing its report. "I hope that in taking steps to come to grips with our past we can find a way to focus on the immense promise of the future," he noted.
Since the inception of the Truth Commission in May 2012, the National Security Archive has been assisting the Commissioners in obtaining U.S. records for their investigation, and pressing the Obama administration to fulfill its commitment to a new standard of global transparency and the right-to-know by conducting a special, Brazil declassification project on the military era. "Advancing truth, justice and openness is precisely the way these classified U.S. historical records should be used," according to Kornbluh. "Biden's declassified diplomacy will not only assist the Truth Commission in shedding light on the dark past of Brazil's military era, but also create a foundation for a better and more transparent future in U.S.-Brazilian relations."
To call attention to the records and the Truth Commission's work, the Archive is highlighting five key documents from Biden's timely donation.
Check out today's posting at the National Security Archive's website - http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB478/
Find us on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/NSArchive
Unredacted, the Archive blog - http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/
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THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive receives no U.S. government funding; its budget is supported by publication royalties and donations from foundations and individuals.
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quarta-feira, 9 de julho de 2014
Ironias da vida: autor de um guia de sobrevivencia aos touros de Pamplona foi chifrado por um touro de Pamplona...
Esta entra na categoria das histórias deliciosas... sobre as desgraças alheias...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Author of “How to Survive the Bulls of Pamplona” gets gored by bull at Pamplona — but is it irony?
Alexandra PetriThe Washington Post, July 9 at 1:31 PM
Nunca Antes na Historia do Brasil: a maior vergonha futebolistica
http://imgur.com/a/Hs88z#XqFD8jV
Bem, os argentinos devem estar contentes, não é mesmo?
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Oriente Medio: revisitando os 14 pontos de Woodrow Wilson - David Ignatius (WP)
David Ignatius
The Washington Post, 9/07/2014
As U.S. policymakers ponder the future shape of the Middle East, they should perhaps recall that the United States was opposed to the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, the famous “line in the sand” that is now said to be dissolving.
The United States’ opposition back then was based on its rejection of the secret diplomacy between Britain and France that produced the plan to divide the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The United States opposed this neo-colonial carve-up of the region and called instead for the right to national self-determination.
The tragedy of the U.S. role in the modern Middle East is that it became, without entirely intending or realizing it, the protector of the very post- imperial order it once resisted. That story could fill a book, but for now, let’s refresh our memories about the alternative U.S. vision when the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
President Woodrow Wilson enunciated his framework in his famous “Fourteen Points” statement in January 1918, nine months after the United States had entered World War I. Following the armistice in November 1918, Wilson’s idealistic formula was a contentious centerpiece of debate at the Versailles peace conference. It was an inspiration to those who felt victimized by the old order and an annoyance to France and Britain.
Britain and France prevailed at Versailles, imposing a peace settlement so selfish and shortsighted that it all but guaranteed the rise of a revanchist Germany leading to World War II, and the endless headaches of the modern Middle East. It was, as David Fromkin titled his great 1989 history, “A Peace to End All Peace.” It’s this very fabric that is now ripping apart, as civil wars in Syria and Iraq create de-facto partitions of those countries. The question facing policymakers is whether to redraw the lines or let the region devolve into smaller cantons, like the ethnically cohesive “vilayets” of Ottoman times.
My sense is that it’s too early to judge whether the post-1919 boundaries are finished. After all, Lebanon was effectively partitioned during its 15-year civil war, but Lebanese national identity proved strong enough that its sovereignty was restored in the Taif Agreement of 1989. I’d guess that the Syrian national idea will survive over time, too. I’m not as sure about Iraq, but in any event, these are questions for the peoples of the region to decide, not outsiders.
What can Wilson’s Fourteen Points teach us that’s relevant to the current debate? The first five have some bearing, and they’re worth noting carefully because they set a framework for any reexamination of the Middle East map. Let’s list them, with some notations:
(1) “Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at.” This was Wilson’s reaction to the cynical private deal-making of Sir Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Picot, which appalled observers such as T.E. Lawrence. Lesson for today: Any new order in the region must have buy-in from the region itself, starting with regional kingpins Iran and Saudi Arabia.
(2) “Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas.” Still crucial for the United States, the world’s leading maritime power, is ensuring oil flow in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. But as U.S. power recedes, will China embrace this open, rules-based maritime order?
(3) “The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers.” The only hopeful vision of the region is one that begins with free trade, in which labor and capital flow across Israeli and Arab boundaries. This economically integrated Middle East could be astonishingly profitable.
(4) “National armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.” The logic of a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East is becoming increasingly obvious, even to Israelis. Does Israel really benefit from a world in which Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia compete to match Israel’s undeclared deterrent?
(5) “In determining . . . questions of sovereignty, the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.” The heart of the matter. One implication: Kurdish aspirations to nationhood don’t trump Iraqi sovereignty, but they deserve equal weight.
Let us ponder, finally, the self-declared “Islamic State,” which meets none of these Wilsonian conditions. Indeed, it is a textbook example of illegitimate state-making.
The only positive aspect of the Islamic State is that the jihadists, by declaring their caliphate, have given their neighbors (and the world’s counterterrorism forces) an address. Any state that makes itself a safe haven for terrorism becomes a target. In that sense, the Islamic State was born with a suicide pill in its mouth.
Ironias (dramaticas) da Historia: armas quimicas no Iraque
• Iraq's government told the United Nations that militants from the group Islamic State have seized a large chemical weapons factory north of Baghdad.
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