|
 Boeing Co, which is US Defense contractor, says that it is prepared to have Brazilian companies supply a "big portion" of components for its Super Hornet jetfighter, creating as many as 5.000 local jobs, to sell 36 of the warplanes to Brazil. The pledge comes as Boeing maneuvers against competitors France's Dassault Aviation and Sweden's Saab AB.
Jim Albaugh, head of Boeing's Defense unit, said agreements have been signed with 27 Brazilian companies that are capable of producing parts for the F/A-18, including EMBRAER, the world's fourth-largest airplane maker.
"A big portion of the F-18 will be built in Brazil," said Albaugh in an interview in Brasília. "For every dollar that goes toward that airplane, that money will come back to Brazil as manufacturing, software, avionics, and electronics".
Brazil, Latinamerica's biggest economy is beefing up its military after years of neglect and seeking to rebuild its arms industry. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to award the contract, which analysts say could be worth as much as US$ 4.5 billion, as early as next month.
Two other contenders are also poised for the contract. Sweden Saab AB, maker of the Gripen warplane is prepared to shift as much as 50% of future Gripen production to Brazil, Bob Kemp, marketing chief for the US$ 50 million fighter plane was quoted last week by the Brazilian press.
But the toughest is France's Dassault Aviation. The Dassault Mirage 2000 is currently Brazil's most-advanced warplane. French officials have "clearly stated their openness" to cooperate with Brazil in the technology field, Yves Robins, deputy corporate communication of Dassault Aviation, said in an interview this week.
Under the tender guidelines, probably for 120 fighter planes, the company that wins the contract is required to transfer technology to Brazil equal to the full purchase price of the planes.
"Our main goal is technology access," Brazil's Defense Minister Nelson Jobim has repeatedly stated.
French Dassault has been Brazil's top arms supplier since 1978, when President Jimmy Carter banned US arms sales to Latinamerica, fearing an arms race among the reigning military juntas. The policy was reversed in 1997.
Besides French President Nicolas Sarkozy has lobbied strongly for the deal, which would be the Dassault's Rafale's first international sale. During a visit last December, Sarkozy signed contracts worth 8 billion euros to build 50 Super Cougar helicopters and five submarines.
Lula da Silva invited Sarkozy as Brazil's guest of honor at its independence day September 7. After meeting him in Paris last week, Lula da Silva said he hopes to sign new Defense accords at that time.
Mercopress
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.