|
Brazil's all powerful industrial lobby doubts that Bolivia will remain a reliable supplier of natural gas in the wake of the country's decision to nationalize hydrocarbons' resources.
São Paulo's Federation of Industries, FIESP, said the Bolivian nationalization process could have drastic consequences for the Brazilian market. "In the medium and long term there will be a serious problem in the supply of gas, since many industries depend on Bolivia and we don't know how negotiations will end," Fiesp energy analyst Luiz Gonzaga Bertelli told reporters. São Paulo state, the powerhouse of Brazil, which generates a third of Brazil's GDP, depends on Bolivia for 75% of its natural gas. Any supply interruptions will have a greater impact on industrial users than on consumers who use natural gas to cook or power their vehicles, Fiesp said. Two other Brazilian states, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, receive 100% of their gas from Bolivia, and Rio Grande do Sul 75%. São Paulo business leaders fear Bolivia will impose a drastic price increase on the gas it sells to Brazil, currently at US$ 3.25 per million British Thermal Units. Officials from Bolivian President Evo Morales administration often point out that natural gas fetches 7 US dollars per 1 million BTU on world markets. But Petrobras, the Brazilian state-owned giant that holds (held?) the biggest gas concessions in Bolivia, says that the US$ 7 applies to liquefied natural gas shipped over long distances by sea, a line of business unavailable to landlocked Bolivia. Petrobras CEO Sergio Gabrielli said recently that the company will depend on natural gas from Bolivia until at least 2010. However the chairman of Brazil's National Confederation of Industry, Armando Monteiro Neto, downplayed concerns about a possible gas cut-off recalling that Bolivia's "income depends to a great extent" on providing fuel to Brazil. But amid the complaints and gloomy predictions from Brazil's business community, the leader of the oil workers union in São Paulo offered support for Morales' decision to nationalize hydrocarbons' resources. "If Brazil can have control of its petroleum (via Petrobras), why not Bolivia?" asked union chief Antonio Carlos Spis. Mercopress - www.mercopress.com
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
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. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
Brazil doesnt want pay market price for Bolivia gas, HIV drugs, GM seeds, other drugs, HDTV, software, CDs, DVDs just to name a few..
Do you want to cheat everyone, everywhere, repeatedly ?