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Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 9:18 am
The homeless invade Brazil’s World Cup dream
You know when you are approaching the shantytown known as Copa do Povo, or People’s Cup, when a pair of men suddenly appear on the road in front of the car lugging a long piece of bamboo.
The pole is building material for this “flash favela”, a patchwork of black plastic lean-tos that has sprung up overnight on a vacant lot near São Paulo’s new Itaquerão World Cup football stadium in the city’s gritty eastern periphery.
ON THIS STORY
- Simon Kuper The ugly side of Brazilian football
- Airport brings World Cup win for Brazil
- Editorial Brazil’s Olympian World Cup blues
- Brazil under fire for Olympics preparation
ON THIS TOPIC
- Global Insight Brazil’s fat public sector needs reform
- Ex-governor offers Brazil option for president
- Misha Glenny Brazil’s ugly flaws exposed
- Global Insight Foreign policy approach weakens Brazil
IN AMERICAS SOCIETY
Copa do Povo is the result of an “invasion” organised with near military precision by the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto, the homeless workers’ movement, a leftist group that tries to find houses for the poor. Its aim is to use the World Cup to pressure the government to build housing on this piece of land for the 4,000 homeless people the organisers claim have moved here.
“Thanks to the World Cup, rents around Itaquerão have risen from R$350 per month to R$700 (US$316) last year,” said Sueli Gomes da Silva, a cook in one of the camp’s common kitchens as she offers a piece of fried cassava. “You want one? We may be poor but our food is OK.”
With football’s World Cup due to kick off at the Itaquerão stadium on June 12, initiatives such as the Copa do Povo are designed to bring maximum pressure on the Brazilian government at a time when it is most vulnerable.
The government faces presidential elections in October, further weakening its hand. The combination of the two events is spurring on every form of activist group, from the homeless to unions. The government can do little but either meet their demands or try to stall them.
“From the point of view of social interest groups, there is no better moment than this,” said Carlos Mello, political scientist at Insper in São Paulo.
The homeless workers’ movement has 17 “invasions”, as these illegal land grabs are known, under way in greater São Paulo, including six in the past year alone. It is blaming the latest one on the World Cup for allegedly increasing rents in Itaquera, the suburb in which the stadium is located, making accommodation unaffordable for the poor. The Copa do Povo and the stadium are about 3km apart.
“This region has suffered the most from the event and this situation is being repeated in every host city,” said Josué Rocha, spokesperson for the MTST. He said while the group was not against the World Cup, the government had failed to deliver projects of longer lasting significance, such as improvements in transport or housing, that he claimed it had promised.
If I were rich, I would donate something, just a little, to help the people living under bridges or on the streets
- Sueli de Souza, unemployed maid
However, Miguel Reis, the deputy mayor of Itaquera, said rising rents and house prices in the region were due to improvements in the economy rather than the World Cup. “Itaquera is attracting industry, there are new roads and shopping centres, and the metro has been improved. It is natural that house prices would rise.”
While Itaquera’s problems might have little to do with the World Cup despite the rhetoric of the homeless workers movement, the event has exposed the challenges for an unequal society of holding a tournament of this stature.
Brazil’s social problems are so pressing that it is easy for activists to hold the government hostage over its expenditure on a vanity event such as the World Cup. In São Paulo alone, for instance, there is an estimated deficit of 230,000 homes with nearly 1m people living in favelas or irregular areas, according to the city government.
At the Copa do Povo, the homeless arrived in the early hours of a Saturday this month and immediately began assembling makeshift tents. The 150,000 square metre piece of land occupies a verdant hill near a large park. It was the property of a bankrupt construction company that has been seized by banks.
A sense of opportunism spreads among the poor who have crowded in here to stake their claims. Most hope the homeless movement will be able to win negotiations with Fernando Haddad, the city mayor, who has said he is considering turning the land over to them.
Adrielly Kesley Alves, a child who is sitting with her friends and mother talking on a mobile phone, lives nearby in a rented house but her family came running here when they saw the invasion starting.
“I’ve never taken part in anything like this,” says her mother, Maria de Fátima.
A friend, Sueli de Souza, an unemployed maid, is using a carpet as a door on her lean-to. She says she does not support any political party, including President Dilma Rousseff, despite the Brazilian leader’s recent increase in social security benefits for the poor.
“I don’t know about these rich people. If I were rich, I would donate something, just a little, to help the people living under bridges or on the streets,” says Ms de Souza.
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Sunday, May 11, 2014
Brasil Opens New International Terminal In Sao Paulo 32 Days Before The World Cup Begins
May 11, 2014 5:01 am
Brazil opens new airport terminal ahead of World Cup
Brazil has completed its biggest infrastructure project for the World Cup with only 32 days to spare, opening the country’s long-awaited new international airport terminal in São Paulo.
In defiance of critics who said it would not be ready in time, the consortium running the São Paulo Guarulhos airport started operating the glass and steel complex on Sunday that will eventually handle all international flights to Latin America’s biggest city.
ON THIS STORY
- Simon Kuper The ugly side of Brazilian football
- Brazil credit down to BNDES
- Brazil must up its game in Brics
- Editorial Brazil’s Olympian World Cup blues
- Brazil under fire for Olympics preparation
IN LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN
The inauguration will help relieve pressure on Brazil’s government, which has faced growing criticism from Fifa over the country’s lack of preparation for the tournament. São Paulo’s Itaquerão stadium, which will host the opening match of the World Cup, held its first game at the weekend although the grandstands are yet to be finished.
The R$2.9bn ($1.3bn) revamp of São Paulo’s airport for the World Cup, which included minor changes to the existing terminals and a new car park, will also help resolve one of the country’s most visible infrastructure problems.
Famous for its queues and grim, cramped concrete structure, Guarulhos previously ranked among the world’s most-hated airports. Only three months ago, the airport suffered a 20-minute blackout, preventing aeroplanes from landing or taking off.
“Two-thirds of passengers who come to Brazil by plane arrive here so it’s the most important gateway to Brazil,” said Antonio Miguel Marques, head of GRU, the private consortium that paid R$16.2bn in 2012 for the Guarulhos concession.
In an effort to speed up preparations for the World Cup, as well as the Olympics in 2016, Brazil’s government ended the state monopoly over the country’s airports in 2011, allowing private groups to take a 51 per cent share of the new concessions.
About 600,000 football fans are expected to arrive in Brazil for the World Cup, while as many as 3m Brazilians are set to travel to different cities during the tournament.
Over the next four months, 21 airlines will migrate to São Paulo’s new terminal, Terminal 3, allowing workers to fully renovate the existing terminals, which will be dedicated to domestic flights.
Brasília, the country’s capital, also opened a new wing of its airport last month but other cities are struggling to complete their upgrades. In January the northeastern city of Fortaleza admitted that it would not finish its new terminal until 2017. The airport will instead erect giant tents to welcome fans to the city.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Repsol's $1.26 Billion YPF Sale Ends Argentina Entanglement
May 7, 2014 11:08 am
Repsol’s $1.26bn YPF stake sale ends Argentine entanglement
Repsol has drawn a final line under the Spanish energy group’s ill-fated entanglement in Argentina, with the sale of its remaining 12 per cent stake in YPF for $1.26bn.
The move comes two years after the Argentine government nationalised Repsol’s majority stake in YPF, setting off a protracted legal and political battle that only ended in February this year. The settlement involved a $5bn compensation package for Repsol, which in turn agreed to drop its legal challenge in front of an international arbitration panel.
ON THIS TOPIC
- Repsol relieves Brufau of chief executive role
- Week in Review Week in Review, March 1
- Compensation deal overshadows quarterly results
- Slideshow Resolution of Repsol-YPF conflict
IN ENERGY
Repsol executives said at the time that the settlement would also allow the group to finally divest its remaining minority stake in YPF, which it had kept throughout the dispute in order to maximise its leverage.
The compensation deal and YPF sale, coupled with other possible divestments, give Repsol the ability to spend as much as $10bn on acquisitions. It is looking in particular to expand in North America, and has recently looked at assets and companies in Canada, though so far without making a deal.
The group said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that it had sold almost its entire shareholding to Morgan Stanley, in a transaction that will realise a pre-tax gain of $622m. Repsol still has a small holding of YPF shares, less than 0.5 per cent of the total, which it is planning to sell at a later date.
The Spanish group reports first-quarter results on Thursday. It expects to receive the Argentine dollar-denominated bonds that underpin the $5bn compensation package the same day.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Discovering A Lady Who Lived In Rio De Janeiro 35 Years ago
I realized yesterday that a lady who I swam with lived in Rio in the 70's as I did. I discovered it quite by accident. She always swims in the same lane I do. She is a lady in her 60's and often treads water. Her name is Cathy.
I over heard her discussing Rio de Janeiro and Brasil. I got curious and asked her if she had lived there. Sure enough, she had lived near the Corcovado from 1977 to 1980. Her husband had been a diver for an oil company. We had a lively conversation. We talked about the wonderful things in Rio and the sad things like the favelas, street robbers, the rough police ("I would rather have ten years in prison than one night in the police station"-an old Rio saying) and the DOPS. When we started to discuss Lord Jim's Pub, a light went on in her brain. After 34-35 years she remembered me! I was touched.
Most interesting, I mentioned the point that our Rio experience showed us what it was like to live in a society where people are either upper middle class and wealthy or poor. She got very serious and told me that the US was going the same way. I agreed with her.
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