776) Nuclear Insecurity, Foreign Affairs

Nuclear Insecurity
Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky
Foreign Affairs, September/October 2007
Article preview: first 500 of 2,976 words total.

Summary: The Bush administration has adopted a misguided and dangerous nuclear posture. Instead of recycling antiquated doctrines and building a new generation of warheads, the United States should drastically reduce its nuclear arsenal, strengthen the international nonproliferation regime, and move toward the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.
Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky is a particle physicist and Director Emeritus of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. He worked on the Manhattan Project from 1943 to 1945 and served as a Science Policy Adviser to Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter.
Since the demise of the Soviet Union, Washington's strategic thinking about nuclear weapons has evolved in dangerous and unwise directions. In January 2002, the Bush administration announced a new nuclear posture, which it reiterated in 2006. But instead of doing what it claimed it would do -- adapt American nuclear strategy to the realities of the twenty-first century -- the administration has focused on addressing threats that either no longer exist or never required a nuclear response. Rather than protecting the United States, this posture constitutes a danger to U.S. security.
The risks posed by nuclear weapons today are daunting, but rarely in the same ways that they used to be. As the nuclear club has expanded since the end of the Cold War, so have the dangers posed by the possibility of an inadvertent release of nuclear weapons, a regional nuclear conflict, nuclear proliferation, or the acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists. At the same time, the military utility of nuclear weapons for the United States has decreased dramatically. Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union, is no longer an adversary, and the United States, now the world's unchallenged conventional military power, can address almost all its military objectives by nonnuclear means. The only valid residual mission of U.S. nuclear weapons today is thus to deter others from using nuclear weapons. Given all this, it does not make sense for the United States to maintain a nuclear weapons stockpile of close to 10,000 warheads -- many of them set on hair-trigger alert -- and to continue to deploy nuclear weapons overseas.
An effective nuclear policy would take into account the limited present-day need for a nuclear arsenal as well as the military and political dangers associated with maintaining a massive stockpile. Building a new generation of warheads, as the Bush administration has proposed, would only compound these risks further.
Nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented, but as former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Senator Sam Nunn, and the outgoing British foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, have recently argued, a shift in U.S. policy could blaze the trail toward their eventual prohibition. Given that the risks posed by nuclear weapons far outweigh their benefits in today's world, the United States should lead a worldwide campaign to de-emphasize their role in international relations.
THAT WAS THEN
During the Cold War, the United States' policy of deterrence was designed to convince the Soviet Union's leaders that the assets they valued most highly, including their population, armed forces, and industrial centers, risked destruction if Moscow launched a major attack on the West. Estimates of the nuclear forces Washington needed to make such a threat credible -- that is, what forces it would need to be able to retaliate after withstanding a nuclear first strike -- differed widely. Some analysts were optimistic and thought a limited arsenal would suffice; others were pessimistic and sought to establish unchallengeable nuclear primacy. These debates, coupled with parochial bureaucratic pressures from the U.S. Air Force, led ...

(end of preview; para ler o resto, só pagando aos capitalistas da Foreign Affairs...)

775) Um novo conceito para a vida...

Do site The Edge, neste link.

LIFE: WHAT A CONCEPT!
An Edge Special Event at Eastover Farm
Dimitar Sasselov, Max Brockman, Seth Lloyd, George Church,
J. Craig Venter, Freeman Dyson

In April, Dennis Overbye, writing in The New York Times "Science Times", broke the story of the discovery by Dimitar Sasselov and his colleagues of five earth-like exo-planets, one of which "might be the first habitable planet outside the solar system".

At the end of June, Craig Venter has announced the results of his lab's work on genome transplantation methods that allows for the transformation of one type of bacteria into another, dictated by the transplanted chromosome. In other words, one species becomes another. In talking to Edge about the research, Venter noted the following:

Now we know we can boot up a chromosome system. It doesn't matter if the DNA is chemically made in a cell or made in a test tube. Until this development, if you made a synthetic chomosome you had the question of what do you do with it. Replacing the chomosome with existing cells, if it works, seems the most effective to way to replace one already in an existing cell systems. We didn't know if it would work or not. Now we do. This is a major advance in the field of synthetic genomics. We now know we can create a synthetic organism. It's not a question of 'if', or 'how', but 'when', and in this regard, think weeks and months, not years.

In July, in an interesting and provocative essay in New York Review of Books entitled "Our Biotech Future", Freeman Dyson wrote:

The Darwinian interlude has lasted for two or three billion years. It probably slowed down the pace of evolution considerably. The basic biochemical machinery o life had evolved rapidly during the few hundreds of millions of years of the pre-Darwinian era, and changed very little in the next two billion years of microbial evolution. Darwinian evolution is slow because individual species, once established evolve very little. With rare exceptions, Darwinian evolution requires established species to become extinct so that new species can replace them.

Now, after three billion years, the Darwinian interlude is over. It was an interlude between two periods of horizontal gene transfer. The epoch of Darwinian evolution based on competition between species ended about ten thousand years ago, when a single species, Homo sapiens, began to dominate and reorganize the biosphere. Since that time, cultural evolution has replaced biological evolution as the main driving force of change. Cultural evolution is not Darwinian. Cultures spread by horizontal transfer of ideas more than by genetic inheritance. Cultural evolution is running a thousand times faster than Darwinian evolution, taking us into a new era of cultural interdependence which we call globalization. And now, as Homo sapiens domesticates the new biotechnology, we are reviving the ancient pre-Darwinian practice of horizontal gene transfer, moving genes easily from microbes to plants and animals, blurring the boundaries between species. We are moving rapidly into the post-Darwinian era, when species other than our own will no longer exist, and the rules of Open Source sharing will be extended from the exchange of software to the exchange of genes. Then the evolution of life will once again be communal, as it was in the good old days before separate species and intellectual property were invented.

It's clear from these developments as well as others, that we are at the end of one empirical road and ready for adventures that will lead us into new realms.

This year's Annual Edge Event took place at Eastover Farm in Bethlehem, CT on Monday, August 27th. Invited to address the topic "Life: What a Concept!" were Freeman Dyson, J. Craig Venter, George Church, Robert Shapiro, Dimitar Sasselov, and Seth Lloyd, who focused on their new, and in more than a few cases, startling research, and/or ideas in the biological sciences.

Physicist Freeman Dyson envisions a biotech future which supplants physics and notes that after three billion years, the Darwinian interlude is over. He refers to an interlude between two periods of horizontal gene transfer, a subject explored in his abovementioned essay.

Craig Venter, who decoded the human genome, surprised the world in late June by announcing the results of his lab's work on genome transplantation methods that allows for the transformation of one type of bacteria into another, dictated by the transplanted chromosome. In other words, one species becomes another.

George Church, the pioneer of the Synthetic Biology revolution, thinks of the cell as operating system, and engineers taking the place of traditional biologists in retooling stripped down components of cells (bio-bricks) in much the vein as in the late 70s when electrical engineers were working their way to the first personal computer by assembling circuit boards, hard drives, monitors, etc.

Biologist Robert Shapiro disagrees with scientists who believe that an extreme stroke of luck was needed to get life started in a non-living environment. He favors the idea that life arose through the normal operation of the laws of physics and chemistry. If he is right, then life may be widespread in the cosmos.

Dimitar Sasselov, Planetary Astrophysicist, and Director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, has made recent discoveries of exo-planets ("Super-Earths"). He looks at new evidence to explore the question of how chemical systems become living systems.

Quantum engineer Seth Lloyd sees the universe as an information processing system in which simple systems such as atoms and molecules must necessarily give rise complex structures such as life, and life itself must give rise to even greater complexity, such as human beings, societies, and whatever comes next.

A small group of journalists interested in the kind of issues that are explored on Edge were present: Corey Powell, Discover, Jordan Mejias, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Heidi Ledford, Nature, Greg Huang, New Scientist, Deborah Treisman, New Yorker, Edward Rothstein, New York Times, Andrian Kreye, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Antonio Regalado, Wall Street Journal. Guests included Heather Kowalski, The J. Craig Venter Institute, Ting Wu, The Wu Lab, Harvard Medical School, and the artist Stephanie Rudloe. Attending for Edge: Katinka Matson, Russell Weinberger, Max Brockman, and Karla Taylor.

We are witnessing a point in which the empirical has intersected with the epistemological: everything becomes new, everything is up for grabs. Big questions are being asked, questions that affect the lives of everyone on the planet. And don't even try to talk about religion: the gods are gone.

Following the theme of new technologies=new perceptions, I asked the speakers to take a third culture slant in the proceedings and explore not only the science but the potential for changes in the intellectual landscape as well.

We are pleased to present streaming video clips from each of the talks (Freeman Dyson neste link). During the fall season Edge will publish features on each of the talks with complete texts and discussions.
Craig Venter neste link.

============

Em outra seção deste "número" de The Edge, há um:

RICHARD DAWKINS—FREEMAN DYSON: AN EXCHANGE

As part of this year's Edge Event at Eastover Farm in Bethlehem, CT, I invited three of the participants—Freeman Dyson, George Church, and Craig Venter—to come up a day early, which gave me an opportunity to talk to Dyson about his abovementioned essay in New York Review of Books entitled "Our Biotech Future".

I also sent the link to the essay to Richard Dawkins, and asked if he would would comment on what Dyson termed the end of "the Darwinian interlude".

Early the next morning, prior to the all-day discussion (which also included as participants Robert Shapiro, Dimitar Sasselov, and Seth Lloyd) Dawkins emailed his thoughts which I read to the group during the discussion following Dyson's talk. [NOTE: Dawkins asked me to make it clear that his email below "was written hastily as a letter to you, and was not designed for publication, or indeed to be read out at a meeting of biologists at your farm!"].

Now Dyson has responded and the exchange is below.

Primeiro, aos argumentos de Richard Dawkins, abaixo.

"By Darwinian evolution he [Woese] means evolution as Darwin understood it, based on the competition for survival of noninterbreeding species."

"With rare exceptions, Darwinian evolution requires established species to become extinct so that new species can replace them."

These two quotations from Dyson constitute a classic schoolboy howler, a catastrophic misunderstanding of Darwinian evolution. Darwinian evolution, both as Darwin understood it, and as we understand it today in rather different language, is NOT based on the competition for survival of species. It is based on competition for survival WITHIN species. Darwin would have said competition between individuals within every species. I would say competition between genes within gene pools. The difference between those two ways of putting it is small compared with Dyson's howler (shared by most laymen: it is the howler that I wrote The Selfish Gene partly to dispel, and I thought I had pretty much succeeded, but Dyson obviously hasn't read it!) that natural selection is about the differential survival or extinction of species. Of course the extinction of species is extremely important in the history of life, and there may very well be non-random aspects of it (some species are more likely to go extinct than others) but, although this may in some superficial sense resemble Darwinian selection, it is NOT the selection process that has driven evolution. Moreover, arms races between species constitute an important part of the competitive climate that drives Darwinian evolution. But in, for example, the arms race between predators and prey, or parasites and hosts, the competition that drives evolution is all going on within species. Individual foxes don't compete with rabbits, they compete with other individual foxes within their own species to be the ones that catch the rabbits (I would prefer to rephrase it as competition between genes within the fox gene pool).

The rest of Dyson's piece is interesting, as you'd expect, and there really is an interesting sense in which there is an interlude between two periods of horizontal transfer (and we mustn't forget that bacteria still practise horizontal transfer and have done throughout the time when eucaryotes have been in the 'Interlude'). But the interlude in the middle is not the Darwinian Interlude, it is the Meiosis / Sex / Gene-Pool / Species Interlude. Darwinian selection between genes still goes on during eras of horizontal transfer, just as it does during the Interlude. What happened during the 3-billion-year Interlude is that genes were confined to gene pools and limited to competing with other genes within the same species. Previously (and still in bacteria) they were free to compete with other genes more widely (there was no such thing as a species outside the 'Interlude'). If a new period of horizontal transfer is indeed now dawning through technology, genes may become free to compete with other genes more widely yet again.

As I said, there are fascinating ideas in Freeman Dyson's piece. But it is a huge pity it is marred by such an elementary mistake at the heart of it.

Richard

---------------

Agora, a réplica de Freeman Dyson, abaixo.

Dear Richard Dawkins,

Thank you for the E-mail that you sent to John Brockman, saying that I had made a "school-boy howler" when I said that Darwinian evolution was a competition between species rather than between individuals. You also said I obviously had not read The Selfish Gene. In fact I did read your book and disagreed with it for the following reasons.

Here are two replies to your E-mail. The first was a verbal response made immediately when Brockman read your E-mail aloud at a meeting of biologists at his farm. The second was written the following day after thinking more carefully about the question.

First response. What I wrote is not a howler and Dawkins is wrong. Species once established evolve very little, and the big steps in evolution mostly occur at speciation events when new species appear with new adaptations. The reason for this is that the rate of evolution of a population is roughly proportional to the inverse square root of the population size. So big steps are most likely when populations are small, giving rise to the ``punctuated equilibrium'' that is seen in the fossil record. The competition is between the new species with a small population adapting fast to new conditions and the old species with a big population adapting slowly.

Second response. It is absurd to think that group selection is less important than individual selection. Consider for example Dodo A and Dodo B, competing for mates and progeny in the dodo population on Mauritius. Dodo A competes much better and
has greater fitness, as measured by individual selection. Dodo A mates more often and has many more grandchildren than Dodo B. A hundred years later, the species is extinct and the fitness of A and B are both reduced to zero. Selection operating at the species level trumps selection at the individual level. Selection at the species level wiped out both A and B because the species neglected to maintain the ability to fly, which was essential to survival when human predators appeared on the island. This situation is not peculiar to dodos. It arises throughout the course of evolution, whenever environmental changes cause species to become extinct.

In my opinion, both these responses are valid, but the second one goes more directly to the issue that divides us. Yours sincerely, Freeman Dyson.

774) Pausa para propaganda: novo iPod Touch

Fantástico:

Apple acaba de lancar o seu novo formato para o iPOD, o iPOD touch. Parece fantastico.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj0UZjrSVLA


Mais informacoes:
http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/

773) Free Trade: the FIRST best solution...

Why is trade booming while trade talks are crashing?
Moisés Naim
Foreign Policy, September/October 2007

One of the most perplexing trends of our time is that free-trade negotiations are crashing while free trade itself is booming. For more than a decade, attempts by governments to get a global agreement to lower trade barriers have gone nowhere. These trade talks are routinely described as "acrimonious," "gridlocked," and "stagnant." In contrast, international trade is commonly described as "thriving" or "surging," and almost every year, its growth is lauded as "record breaking." It's no surprise that trade negotiators feel as despondent as international traders are cheerful.

The last time official trade negotiators had reason to celebrate was in 1994, when 125 nations agreed to a significant drop in trade barriers and the creation of a new institution charged with supervising and liberalizing international trade, the World Trade Organization (WTO). Since then, efforts to liberalize global trade through negotiations have stalled. In many countries, free trade agreements are now politically radioactive, with imports routinely blamed for job losses, lower salaries, heightened inequality, and more recently, even poisoned toothpaste and deadly medicines. The domestic politics of trade reforms are inherently skewed against trade deals. While the benefits of freer trade exist as future promises, the costs can be real, tangible, and immediate. And while the benefits of trade liberalization are widely distributed throughout the entire population, the costs are borne by highly concentrated groups. Cutting agricultural tariffs, for example, may benefit society at large by reducing what we pay for the food we eat. But it will immediately reduce the income of farmers, who will therefore have a strong incentive to organize to derail trade deals. The same is true of workers in factories forced to compete against far cheaper imports. These social and political realities go a long way in explaining why enthusiasm for reaching trade agreements has dried up in many countries.

It started in 1999, when the attempt to launch a new round of trade negotiations crashed in Seattle. Those botched meetings are now remembered more for the violent clashes between the police and anti-trade activists than for the fact that negotiators went home without even agreeing to start the negotiations. Ironically, the activists were protesting against a deal that wouldn't have happened anyway. Two years later, the trade ministers met again in Doha, Qatar, and decided to initiate a new round that, they agreed, would be concluded in four years. It was not to be. That deadline--and others--came and went. This past June, after six years of talks, negotiators left the meetings on the Doha Round and denounced each other as uncooperative.

Meanwhile, world trade continued to grow at its usual breakneck pace. In 2006, the volume of global merchandise exports grew 15 percent, while the world economy grew roughly 4 percent. In 2007, the growth in world trade is again expected to outstrip the growth rate of the global economy. This sustained, rapid pace of trade growth has led to a more than fivefold increase in world merchandise exports between 1980 and 2005. An unprecedented number of countries, rich and poor alike, are seeing their overall economic performance boosted by strong export growth.

So, what explains the paradox of gridlocked trade agreements and surging trade flows? The short answer is technology and politics. In the past quarter century, technological innovations--from the Internet to cargo containers--lowered the costs of trading. And, in the same period, an international political environment more tolerant of openness created opportunities to lower barriers to imports and exports. China, India, the former Soviet Union, and many other countries launched major reforms that deepened their integration into the world's economy. In developing countries alone, import tariffs dropped from an average of around 30 percent in the 1980s to less than 10 percent today. Indeed, one of the surprises of the past 20 or so years is how much governments have lowered obstacles to trade--unilaterally. Between 1983 and 2003, 66 percent of tariff reductions in the world took place because governments decided it was in their own interests to lower their import duties, 25 percent as a result of agreements reached in multilateral trade negotiations, and 10 percent through regional trade agreements with neighboring countries.

So, who needs free trade agreements if international trade is doing just fine without them?

We all do. Although trade may be booming, giving up on lowering the substantial trade barriers that still exist--in agriculture, in services, or in manufactured goods traded among poor countries--would be a historic mistake. Even the more pessimistic projections show that the adoption of reforms like those included in the Doha Round would yield substantial economic gains, anywhere from $50 billion to several hundred billion. Moreover, according to the World Bank, by 2015 as many as 32 million people could be lifted out of poverty if the Doha Round were successful.

But it isn't just the money. As the volume of trade continues to grow, the need for clearer and more effective rules becomes more critical. In this century, the quality of what is traded will be as important as the need to lower tariffs was in the last. The recent cases of deadly dog food and toxic toothpaste coming out of China prove as much. No country acting alone stands as good a chance of monitoring and curtailing such lethal goods as does the WTO working in concert with governments across the globe.

Moreover, a rules-based system accepted by a majority of nations can protect smaller countries and companies from the abusive practices of bigger nations or large conglomerates. The rule of law is always better than the law of the jungle, even in resolving trade conflicts.

But perhaps what is most important to keep in mind is that, despite all the misgivings about international trade, the fact remains that countries in which the share of economic activity related to exports is rising grow 1.5 times faster than those with more stagnant exports. And though we know that economic growth alone may not be sufficient to alleviate poverty, we have also learned that without growth, all other efforts will fall short. That argument alone should be enough to make us root for the trade negotiators, and not just the trade.

Moisés Naím is editor in chief of Foreign Policy.

772) Produtividade do trabalhador brasileiro em baixa

Uma situação mais do que preocupante, dramática, na verdade. Significa que estamos perdendo a competitividade interna e externa de nossa economia. Má educação geral da população, e dos trabalhadores em particular, explica esse quadro lamentável.

Produtividade cai e Brasil fica mais longe de desenvolvidos
Assis Moreira
Valor Economico, 03/09/2007

A produtividade por empregado no Brasil caiu abaixo do nível verificado em 1980, na contramão da tendência global. A capacidade de produção do trabalhador brasileiro é três vezes menor do a que a de trabalhadores de economias industrializadas e está ameaçada pela China e outros concorrentes emergentes. Os dados são da Organização Internacional do Trabalho (OIT), em relatório que mostra a crescente diferença entre a produtividade do país e das principais economias.

O nível de vida num país depende também da produtividade, que mede quanto um trabalhador produz por hora. Os lucros das empresas crescem quando os empregados produzem mais por hora do que antes. A renda adicional pode ser repartida entre lucro extra e aumento salarial, alimentando gastos e investimentos, criando mais empregos e expandindo a economia. Para a OIT, a produtividade é mais alta quando a empresa combina melhor capital, trabalho e tecnologia. Falta de investimento na formação e qualificação e em equipamentos e tecnologias provoca subutilização do potencial da mão-de-obra.

No relatório "Principais indicadores do mercado de trabalho" (KILM, em inglês), a entidade mostra que a produtividade aumentou no mundo inteiro nos últimos dez anos, mas as disparidades persistem entre nações industrializadas e os demais países. No caso da América Latina, o ritmo de crescimento da produtividade foi o menor entre 1996-2006, período em que parte da Asia e da Europa do Leste ex-socialista começou a reduzir seu atraso.

No Brasil, a diferença no valor agregado por trabalhador cresceu especialmente em comparação com os Estados Unidos, o campeão global da produtividade, segundo a OIT. A produção por trabalhador foi de US$ 14,7 mil em 2005, abaixo dos US$ 15,1 mil de 1980. É várias vezes menor que os US$ 63,8 mil por empregado nos EUA em 2006 (e era de US$ 41,6 mil em 1980).

Na China, a produtividade dobrou em dez anos. Pulou de US$ 6,3 mil para US$ 12,5 mil por empregado entre 1996 e 2006, a mais forte alta no mundo. A produtividade chinesa era oito vezes menor que a dos industrializados, e agora passou a cinco vezes menos. O Leste da Europa registrou alta de 50%.

A produção brasileira, em comparação com os EUA, sofreu queda ainda maior. O valor agregado por empregado no país era equivalente a 36,5% do atingido pelos americanos em 1980, e caiu para 23,5% em 2005. Na direção oposta, a produtividade da Coréia do Sul pulou de 28% para 68% em relação à dos EUA no período.

No setor industrial, a diferença cresce. A produção por empregado industrial no Brasil representava 19% daquela dos EUA em 1980. Agora, declinou para 5% em 2005. O valor agregado na indústria brasileira foi de US$ 7.142 para US$ 5.966 por empregado entre 1980 e 2005. Já a China aumentou o valor agregado industrial em 7,9%. Com isso, reduziu a diferença com os EUA, e a produtividade passou a ser o equivalente a 12% da americana, e não mais 5%.

A produtividade brasileira só cresceu no setor agrícola, florestas e pesqueiro, ficando em média em 3,6%, mas esse ritmo foi inferior ao da China e de alguns países que subsidiam altamente suas agriculturas, como Noruega e Coréia. Com a alta de 3,6% ao ano, o valor por trabalhador brasileiro no setor aumentou de US$ 2.356, em 1980, para US$ 5.700 em 2005. Em contrapartida, os chineses, ao iniciarem a reforma agrícola, com menor coletivização das terras, registraram alta de 4% por ano de produtividade agrícola, triplicando de US$ 330 para US$ 910 por pessoa entre 1980 e 2006. No comércio, onde é maior o uso de tecnologia da informação e de novos modelos de negócios, a produtividade brasileira por trabalhador declinou no período de US$ 3,945 para US$ 4 1.726.

A carga de trabalho dos americanos foi calculada em 1.804 horas em 2006, bem acima da média dos países desenvolvidos, como França (1.540 horas, ou 300 a menos com a carga de 35 horas semanais), Alemanha (1.436 horas) e Japão (1.784 horas). Em boa parte dos emergentes, a carga de trabalho fica bem acima de 1.800 horas. O dado sobre o Brasil é ainda de 1999, quando era estimada em pouco mais de 1.600 horas por ano.

Quando a OIT mede o valor por hora trabalhada, o Brasil também está lá embaixo. A produtividade por hora trabalhada fica em torno de US$ 7,50, valor quase idêntico ao de 1980. Não há dados sobre a China, mas aí é a Noruega, e não os EUA, que tem a mais alta produtividade, de US$ 38 por hora, seguido pelos americanos, com US$ 35,60. A França é o terceiro país com maior nível de valor agregado por hora, de US$ 35.

Para o diretor-executivo do setor de emprego da OIT, José Maria Salazar, dentro de três anos a China pode superar a produtividade da América Latina, que no momento é um terço maior (US$ 18,9 mil) que a chinesa. Mas o assessor nota que no Brasil e no resto da América Latina, em cada dez empregos, sete são criados no setor informal, sem proteção social e com pouca qualificação.

Para reforçar a tendência do perigo chinês, o relatório mostra que só na América Latina subiu a "'vulnerabilidade do emprego"', com menor redução no número de pobres. Já a China é tomada como exemplo de país com amplo aumento de produtividade, que consegue baixar o número de pessoas vivendo com menos de US$ 2 por dia.

"O incremento de produtividade é enorme na agricultura da China, com grande transformação ao deixar a agricultura coletivizada, mas o maior incremento é na manufatura, graças à taxa de investimento anual muito alta, de cerca de 30%", afirma. "Há muita inovação tecnológica, investimentos fortíssimos na educação e uma reserva de mão-de-obra barata."

771) Mais dicas para a preparacao aos exames de entrada na carreira diplomatica

O diplomata Mauricio Costa, que mantém o excelente blog Diálogo Diplomático (mas que insiste em permanecer incógnito), nos transmite mais algumas recomendações para um exame bem sucedido na área de história do Brasil.

Segunda-feira, 27 de Agosto de 2007
DICAS DE HISTÓRIA DO BRASIL PARA O TPS

Atendendo a pedidos, esta semana iniciarei uma série de comentários sobre as provas, matéria por matéria e fase por fase. Não tenho a menor pretensão de ser exaustivo nas minhas análises e indicações, muito menos acredito que sejam as únicas corretas. Não estou, de maneira nenhuma, publicando receitas prontas para a aprovação no concurso. O que pretendo é contribuir para que os interessados possam evitar erros recorrentes na condução do processo de preparação sem que precisem aprender com eles depois de perderem um ou dois anos de dedicação.

Começaremos hoje pela prova de história do Brasil no TPS.

O programa de HB é extenso, bem como a bibliografia indicada. É importante atentar para o fato de que boa parte da bibliografia de HB, principalmente os tópicos referentes à politica externa brasileira, coincidem com a bibliografia de política internacional. Não há como ler tudo, mas é possível otimizar o rendimento com estudo com algumas leituras imprescindíveis. Vamos a elas.

Amado Cervo e Clodoaldo Bueno, História da Política Exterior do Brasil: imprescindível. Deve ser lido quantas vezes forem necessárias e decorado nos fatos e nas interpretações. Não adianta nada contestar gabarito do CESPE discordando de Amado Cervo. Leia, decore, assimile, consolide. Não tem erro.

Bóris Fausto, História do Brasil: também é imprescindível. Ao contrário do História Concisa, este manual é o mais completo, didático e bem direcionado para o conhecimento necessário de HB. Apesar de fazer uma boa cobertura de todos os períodos de HB, o "domingão da faustão" é excelente para o período republicano, nem tanto para o império e a colônia. Deve ser lido quantas vezes forem necessárias, decorado e assimilado em todos os aspectos. Os tópicos de HB não referentes à PEB são baseados em Bóris Fausto, não vai adiantar teimar com a banca depois...

As duas primeiras obras citadas, se bem lidas e assimiladas, podem garantir um TPS seguro em HB. Entretanto, meus caros, como eu não sou o tipo que conta com a sorte, vou indicar umas leiturinhas complementares que podem ajudar consolidar um ou outro aspecto do programa que não tenha ficado claro na leitura das duas bíblias de HB no TPS. Vamos a elas:

Colônia
Charles Boxer, a Idade de Ouro do Brasil: incomparável, aprofunda aspectos fundamentais do período.

Caio Prado Júnior, Formação do Brasil Contenporâneo: nenhuma outra obra apresenta uma visão tão abragente dos temas que envolvem a colônia, embora não se restrinja a tal período.
Na dúvida, é melhor ler três vezes!

Império
Maria Yeda Linhares, História Geral do Brasil: incomparável na abrangência, detalhamento e didática na análise do período. Aborda diversos aspectos que passam batidos em Bóris Fausto.

História da Política Externa Brasileira
Paulo Vizentini, Relações Internacionais do Brasil-46/64 e A Política Exterior dos Governos Militares: sem dúvidas, esses livros contribuem significativamente para sanar muitas dúvidas sobre o período do pós-guerra. Para o TPS, são mais que suficientes.

Agora vamos as tópicos que não podem ser negligenciados no "decoreba" para um bom TPS:
-Revoltas Coloniais e economia da colônia;
-Período Joanino, processo de independência;
-Sistema de tratados do Primeiro Reinado;
-Revoltas na Regência;
-Política de Limites (em todos os períodos);
-Era Vargas (decorar tudo, ou tudo o que conseguir);
-Regimes militares.

A prova de HB do CESPE é bastante factual, o ideal é decorar as cronologias. Mesmo questões interpretativas podem exigir o conhecimento factual e/ou cronológico. A prova de 2007, para ficarmos num exemplo mais próximo, teve muitas questões do tipo. Se o candidato não soubesse que o tratado de 1851 foi com o Peru, não com a Bolívia, perderia uma questão... E muita (gente) que perdeu uma questão no TPS dançou...

OBS: há obras que não citei porque não considero imprescindíveis para o TPS e serão debatidas quando chegarmos na discussão sobre a terceira fase. ;-)

Por último, um alerta: não pense que somente porque um ou outro tópico não apareceu nas duas últimas provas ele não aparecerá na próxima. É melhor estar preparado para qualquer questão. Com a disputa pela vaga no TPS cada vez mais acirrada, é sempre melhor nivelar por cima.
Postado por M-A-C às 03:20 0 comentários
Domingo, 19 de Agosto de 2007

O QUE ESPERAR DO CACD 2008?
Não há discordâncias, creio eu, relativas ao fato de que a preparação torna-se mais fácil quando se pode prever o padrão de prova do CACD. A pergunta que não quer calar é: o padrão do CACD é previsível? Apressadamente, qualquer um de nós afirmaria que sim. Uma análise mais detalhada, entretanto, demonstra que as coisas não são tão simples quanto parecem à primeira vista.

Se eu fosse a Mãe Dinah, ou então algum outro tipo de vidente(alguns me acusam de ser uma espécie de Lair Ribeiro), diria que o CACD do ano que vem será elaborado pelo CESPE, que o formato da prova do TPS incluirá itens e múltipla escolha, que o modelo de 3 fases será preservado e que o concurso tende a começar a fevereiro. Minhas chances de acertar seriam grandes, mas não auxiliaram em nada no principal objetivo deste texto: ajudar a orientar quem está se preparando para a o CACD 2008.

Se analisarmos os concursos realizados pelo atual governo, a partir de 2003, veremos que nenhuma edição do CACD foi igual à edição anterior. Houve todo o tipo de mudança: TPS com notas mínimas por matéria, TPS com todas as matérias do concurso, TPS com questões discursivas, CACD com prova oral, CACD sem prova oral, TPS com geografia, TPS com PI e sem geografia. Se analisarmos no último nível de detalhe, perceberemos que a formatação do TPS variou no conteúdo programático que foi privilegiado, bem como no peso de cada matéria na prova. Se eu ainda fosse candidato, minha conclusão seria: algo vai mudar em 2008.

Pautar a preparação pelo o concurso anterior é uma estratégia que eu qualifico como temerária, no mínimo. Apenas como exemplo, quem passou 2006 se preparando para um TPS com geografia teve de recuperar muito tempo perdido quando geografia foi substituída por PI. Quantos candidatos que foram aprovados no TPS de 2006 ficaram de fora em função da mudança em 2007? Não sei. Se foram muitos ou poucos não faz diferença, o relevante é que a preparação de alguém foi prejudicada pela mudança.

A única estratégia segura é estar preparado para qualquer tipo de prova, que inclua qualquer item dos conteúdos programáticos do concurso. Dedicar-se a estudar somente as matérias do TPS antes de conhecer o conteúdo do edital pode ser um "tiro no pé" e resultar no desperdício de muitos meses, alguns milhares de reais e muita energia gastos e aplicados na preparação.

A tendência, de acordo com as estatísticas, é que o concurso mude em algum ponto(pode ser num ponto fundamental ou não), portanto é melhor não confundir as expectativas, que devem ser baseadas nos fatos, com as esperanças, baseadas nos desejos.

Estudem muito e estudem tudo, nenhuma estratégia é mais segura, pelo menos até sair o edital do CACD 2008.
Postado por M-A-C às 18:56 4 comentários

http://dialogodiplomatico.blogspot.com/

770) Dois discursos de politica externa: China (1985), França (2007)

A uma distância de 22 anos, dois discursos de política externa, que não precisam necessariamente ser comparados, pois cada um expressa uma realidade distinta.
O que os une, provavelmente, é o mesmo propósito de expor claramente princípios de política externa segundo interesses nacionais bem definidos:

1) Discurso del Primer Ministro Zhao Ziyang de la República Popular China en el Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales (Buenos Aires, 6.11.1985)
Neste link.

2) Le discours de politique étrangère de M. Sarkozy (Le Monde, 27.08.2007)
Neste link.

Boas reflexões...
Pela transcrição: Paulo Roberto de Almeida, em 28 de agosto de 2007.