|
 The Brazilian industry recorded a 1.8% growth in production in January, compared with December last year, after two months posting negative results. In comparison with January 2007, the sector's expansion was 8.5%.
The data, culled from the Monthly Industrial Survey, were disclosed by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE). According to the institute, this initial growth rate for 2008 "points to a framework of continued industry expansion, as the result is outstanding, both when compared with the beginning of the previous year and with the month of December".
Also according to the IBGE, the result posted in January this year is the second highest since the historical series was initiated, in 1991, losing only to the result recorded in October 2007, which was 3.4%.
From December 2007 to January 2008, the industrial sector that expanded the most and had the greatest contribution to the overall result was that of automobiles (9.0%), thus reflecting the strong recovery in auto manufacturing that took place in January.
Coffee Exports
Coffee exports in Brazil totaled nearly US$ 340 million in February, an increase of 18.3% compared with the same month last year. The shipped volume was 2,093,782 60-kilogram bags, a 1.7% reduction using the same basis for comparison. The data were disclosed by the Brazilian Coffee Exporter Council (CeCafé).
The International Coffee Organization (ICO), according to the CeCafé, has informed that the Brazilian share in the international coffee market stood at 29.9% in February.
In the first two months this year, shipments amounted to US$ 690 million, 14.4% more than in the first two months of 2007. A total of 4,353,736 bags were exported, representing a 2.7% decrease.
According to the director general at CeCafé, Guilherme Braga, the lower sales volume was the consequence of a smaller crop, and higher earnings were recorded due to the commodity's appreciation in the international market.
The leading export destinations were Germany, the United States, Italy and Belgium, and the majority of production was shipped through the Port of Santos, in the southeastern Brazilian state of São Paulo.
ABr
 |
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.