Lights return following Brazilian blackout
Brazil emerged early Wednesday from a widespread power outage that plunged its major cities and at least nine states into darkness for hours, prompting security fears and concern from residents about another black eye for a country hosting the 2016 Olympic Games.
Power went out for more than two hours in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and several other major cities, affecting millions of people, after transmission problems knocked one of the world’s biggest hydroelectric dams offline. Airport operations were hindered and subways ground to a halt.
All of neighboring Paraguay was plunged into the dark, but for less than a half hour.
Brazilian authorities blamed storms that took down power lines and towers, causing a domino effect that rippled across the region.
Lights twinkled back on along Rio’s Copacabana beach, in South America’s largest city of Sao Paulo and in Paraguay’s sleepy capital of Asuncion. But some traffic lights were still out in both Rio and Sao Paulo and traffic officials were expecting drivers to face difficulties the rest of the day, according to local media.
In Rio, Governor Sergio Cabral sent an elite police unit into the streets early Wednesday to help maintain calm in a city known for its crime. The mayor dispatched 300 extra unarmed civil guards to help control traffic.
The city saw a spike in robberies around the Maracana football stadium – where the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Olympics will be held, along with the 2014 World Cup final. A police spokesman said a band of roughly a dozen criminals worked the area together, robbing people en masse – a crime phenomenon so routine it is known as a “big sweep.”
The spokesman, who talked on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the matter, didn’t say how many robberies occurred or how many happen in an average night in the area, but said there were more than usual during the blackout. He said elsewhere in Rio there did not appear to be much of an increase in crimes, which he in part attributed to commuters staying within the safety of train and subway stations until energy was restored.
Questions remained about what happened and what the fallout would be in Brazil, a nation seen as an ascending economic and political power.
“The image of Brazil, of Rio, is bad enough with all the violence,” said 35-year-old graphic designer Paulo Viera, as he sat in a restaurant a block from the sandy arc of Copacabana.
Standing in an open-air restaurant where patrons were drinking quickly warming beer, he said he worried about how the outage might look for a city that last month was picked to host the 2016 Olympics and will be the showcase city for soccer’s World Cup in 2014. “We don’t need this to happen. I don’t know how it could get worse.”
The blackout comes on the heels of a wave of gang fighting in Rio’s favelas that led to violence fears for the Olympics.
“It’s sad to see such a beautiful city with such a precarious infrastructure,” said 22-year-old law student Igor Fernandes. “This shouldn’t happen in a city that is going to host the Olympic Games.”
The outage occurred when the huge Itaipu dam straddling the Brazilian-Paraguay border stopped producing 17,000 megawatts of power, Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said. He said outages hit nine of the 27 states in this country of more than 190 million people. No power outages happened in Brasilia, the national capital.
Jorge Miguel Samek, the head of Itaipu Binacional, the agency in charge of the dam, said there was a “99-percent chance the blackout happened because of a storm.”
“There was no problem with generating electricity, but a problem with “lightning or a storm that took down some towers,” he said.
In a Wednesday statement, the agency said that despite the fact it never stopped functioning, “there was no possibility of transmitting energy because the transmission lines that connect Itaipu to the Brazilian system were disconnected.”
Lobao also said the hydro plant at the dam itself was working, but there were problems with the power lines that carry electricity across Brazil. Brazil uses almost all the energy produced by the dam, and Paraguay consumes the rest. About 80 percent of Brazil’s energy comes from hydroelectric power.
In Paraguay, the national energy agency blamed the blackout on a short-circuit at an electrical station near Sao Paulo, saying that failure shut down the entire power grid supplied by Itaipu. All of Paraguay went dark for about 20 minutes, the country’s leading newspaper, ABC Color, reported.
The blackouts came two days after CBS’s “60 Minutes” news program reported that several past Brazilian power outages were caused by computer hackers. Brazilian officials had played down the report before the latest outages, and Lobao did not mention it.
Brazil’s official Agencia Brasil news agency said Tuesday’s outage started about 10:20 p.m. (1220 GMT; 7:20 a.m. EDT), snarling streets in Rio, where traffic that is normally chaotic turned riotous.
Cars, taxis and buses sped through dark intersections, honking to make their presence known as they zoomed through. Pedestrians scampered across avenues, and tourists scurried back to a handful of luxury beach hotels, the only buildings with light.
The Itaipu dam is the world’s second biggest hydroelectric producer, supplying 20 percent of Brazil’s electricity. China’s Three Gorges dam is the largest.
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World Cup Highs and Lows for Brazil and Argentina
Brazil is certain to play at the World Cup in South Africa next year, as it has in every previous tournament. Argentina, its South American rival, might have to go through hell to get there.
From left, Brazil teammates Maicon, Luis Fabiano, Elano, Felipe Melo and Kaka celebrated after scoring the team’s second goal against Argentina during their World Cup South Africa-2010 qualifier football match on Saturday.
That is the outcome of a fierce encounter in the Argentine city of Rosario late Saturday. Brazil, the better-organized and better-balanced team, won, 3-1.
It means that Carlos Dunga, Brazil’s coach, for all that he has been denounced in his homeland for preferring steel to the Beautiful Game, could yet become the third man ever to win the World Cup as a player and as coach.
Diego Maradona, attempting to coach as he played, on idolatry and instinct, looks unlikely to follow that path. The Brazilian Mario Zagallo, playing alongside Pelé in the 1958 World Cup and coaching him in 1970, was the first man to achieve the double. Franz Beckenbauer, West Germany’s libero on the field in 1974 and its coach in 1990, is so far the only other man to emulate the feat.
A lot of men have tried, and failed to get even close. And if you know Zagallo and Beckenbauer, it is abundantly clear that to play the game is relatively easy compared to managing and merging 11 others to play it for you.
In a venue chosen by Maradona because he felt the proximity of the crowd would help his men and daunt Brazil, the result was a clear victory for Dunga. Each coach, the Brazilian and the Argentine, played for his country 91 times, but what God gave Maradona — gifts bordering on soccer genius — he did not hand to Dunga.
The Brazilian had to sweat, to think about his game. Maradona did what came from his soul — beautifully.
On Saturday, we saw how far the wheels have turned. Argentina attacked and attacked, but failed to break down the yellow lines of defense, failed to beat the outstanding goalkeeper Julio Cesar. Brazil waited, and then struck twice before half time.
Each goal emanated from a foul on Kaká. Each punished the rough way that Javier Mascherano, especially, tried to stop Kaká. And each capitalized on the woeful defending, inept at this level, of Argentina’s back line.
Is Maradona to blame? Certainly. It is the coach’s responsibility to pick the right players for the right occasion. Maradona played a hunch.
He was denied the defenders Nicolás Burdisso and Martín Demichelis through injury, but he chose not to select Walter Samuel and Daniel Díaz, experienced central defenders with European clubs. Instead, Maradona put in the Vélez Sarsfield pair, Nicolás Otamendi and Sebastián Domínguez.
Domínguez was more than a gamble. He is 29, this was his international debut, and though one man isn’t to blame for a whole defensive collapse, he committed the lunging foul on Kaká and was hopelessly out of position to defend it.
Indeed, when Kaká stroked the free kick toward the penalty spot, nobody stood within three meters, or 10 feet, of Luisão as the tall center back headed the first goal on 24 minutes. Six minutes later, after yet another foul on Kaká, no Argentine was in place to prevent Luís Fabiano poaching the second goal.
The free kick had been saved, but not held, by Argentina’s goalkeeper. An organized defense surely would have known that Fabiano is no man to leave unmarked six meters from the net.
As hard as Lionel Messi and the aging Juan Verón tried to turn the tide, it only looked a possibility for one minute. Argentina came back on 65 minutes when Jesús Dátolo fired a 30-meter shot of ferocious beauty, showing that Maradona’s instincts remain as an attacking thinker.
Dátolo was given his first cap last month. Maradona sees something of himself in the winger, who plays for Naples, Maradona’s former club.
Alas for Argentina, Kaká and Fabiano took less than two minutes to quell any hope. A pass from Kaká, a gliding run of pace and anticipation from Fabiano, and then a delicate chip behind the advancing goalkeeper finished the scoring.
It was 3-1 to Brazil, and 25 goals now in 33 games for Fabiano, who appears to have outgrown the petulant, unreliable firebrand he once was.
Brazil is the seventh nation to qualify for the World Cup, joining South Africa, Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, and North and South Korea.
Maradona, a forlorn, lost figure on the sideline, defeated in three of the four World Cup qualifiers in his nine-month tenure as coach, told reporters, “This won’t break me.” Maybe not. But time is against him. Argentina now desperately needs to learn how to defend. It is running out of games. The next one, in Paraguay on Wednesday, has to be won. Otherwise Maradona, and his national team, will be broken.
There are Brazilians everywhere, particularly in Portugal. The Portuguese team, relying on Cristiano Ronaldo as Argentina relies on Messi, started two Brazilian-born players on Saturday.
Both of them — Deco and Pepe, playmaker and defender — struggled in Copenhagen against a Danish side that was big, strong, athletic and sound. The Danes led through Niklas Bendtner who, two minutes before half time, controlled the ball on his chest, turned, and drove in a high, unstoppable, left-foot shot.
Wave after wave of Portuguese attacks foundered on stout Danish defending until, with the final whistle almost at hand, Liédson da Silva Muniz headed the equalizing goal. Liedson is a Brazilian nobody in Brazil rated; he made his career in Lisbon and, days after qualifying for Portuguese citizenship, the 31-year-old came on as a substitute to score a precious goal.
The Danes remain clear on top of the group, but the draw gave Portugal, a semifinalist at the last World Cup, an outside chance of qualifying by the playoff route. France appears to face the same prospect after it was held 1-1 at home by Romania on Saturday.
With Portugal and France diminishing, Spain is the pride of Europe.
The partnership of David Silva and David Villa, rejuvenated now that their club, Valencia, has been bailed out by the banks and the regional government, routed Belgium, 5-0, in La Coruña. Villa scored two and made the other three, two of them for Silva.
Some are saying Spain plays the Beautiful Game, the way Brazil used to.
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Brazil: TV host accused of targeting judge
A lead prosecutor on Wednesday accused a television crime show host of attempting to have a federal judge assassinated, adding to allegations that he set up killings to boost his TV ratings.
Crime-show host Wallace Souza — a former policeman accused of setting up at least five killings — tried to have the judge killed in 2007, said Ronaldo Andrade, a prosecutor in Amazonas state.
Souza’s lawyer Francisco Balieiro said his client had nothing to do with any assassination plan.
Souza — who has been charged with drug trafficking, gang formation and weapons possession, but not in any killings — denies all the accusations leveled against him.
Andrade and investigators also say Souza ordered the murders of at least five competing drug traffickers — and of then getting a crew from his “Canal Livre” crime show on the scene before police to get exclusive video.
Andrade said they now suspect Souza of trying to orchestrate the murder of federal judge Jaiza Fraxe in 2007 for her role in getting one of Souza’s associates investigated and arrested. The assassination plot was not carried out.
According to Andrade, police suspect Souza of being involved in as many as 19 killings.
One of those killed was Souza’s own gunman Luiz Joao Macedo, allegedly murdered for not agreeing to carry out the assassination of the judge, Andrade said.
Souza, who also works as a state congressman, remains free because of legislative immunity that prevents his arrest as long as he is a lawmaker. He is being investigated by a special task force, and state judicial authorities will decide whether the case goes forward.
Souza became a media personality after a career as a police officer that ended in disgrace, according to state police intelligence chief Thomaz Vasconcelos, who said the lawmaker was fired for involvement in scams involving fuel theft and pension fraud.
Souza denies those allegations, but says he was forced to leave the force in 1987 after being wrongly accused of involvement in a college entrance exam fraud scheme that he was investigating.
He started “Canal Livre” later on a local commercial station in Manaus, the capital of Brazil’s largely lawless Amazonas state. It became extremely popular among Manaus’ 1.7 million residents before going off the air late last year as police intensified their investigation.
The show featured Souza, in a studio, railing against rampant crime in the state, punctuated with often exclusive footage of arrests, crime scenes and drug seizures.
Souza said his reporters managed to get quickly to crime scenes using well-placed sources and constantly monitoring scanners for police radio dispatches. The show also posted workers at police stations, and at the Manaus morgue, where word often came first about newly discovered bodies.
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Brazil scandal draws in Lula’s chosen successor
The expected ruling party candidate in Brazil’s 2010 presidential election has been drawn into a scandal by an accusation that she tried to stop a probe into the finances of the Senate chief’s family.
The alleged involvement of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, underlines the growing risks posed by the two-month-old corruption scandal for Lula’s hopes of getting her elected as the Workers’ Party candidate in October next year.
Lula’s backing of embattled Senate chief Jose Sarney has raised criticism that he is turning a blind eye to graft in exchange for support from Sarney’s party for Rousseff’s bid.
A former senior tax official said in an interview with Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper on Wednesday that Rousseff asked her to “speed” the probe of a son of Sarney, who is accused of nepotism, embezzlement and overseeing a secret scheme of perks and pay for staffers and relatives.
Lina Maria Vieira, the former head of Brazil’s tax agency, says Rousseff had clearly meant her to close the investigation into Sarney’s family in the meeting that she said took place at the end of last year.
“I was there at the invitation of the minister,” she told Estado. “The secretary that was there saw it, and it was registered.”
Rousseff has denied that the meeting took place.
Vieira left her job last month, with media reporting she had been asked to quit after her agency launched a probe into alleged accounting irregularities by oil firm Petrobras without the finance minister’s approval.
Sarney’s centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), Brazil’s biggest, guarantees Lula’s narrow majority in the Senate and would play a crucial role in helping elect Rousseff, who lacks Lula’s sky-high approval ratings and is trailing in early opinion polls.
The scandal has already delayed crucial reforms, opened a rift between the Workers’ Party Congress members and the PMDB, and is likely to favor Sao Paulo state Governor Jose Serra, the presumed presidential candidate of the centrist opposition PSDB party, who heads opinion polls.
After appearing close to resigning last week, Sarney has gained support and appears likely to survive.
But the allegations against Rousseff give the opposition a chance to keep the pressure on the government — it has called Vieira to testify next week at a Senate commission.
“I think it’s dangerous for Dilma, it has the potential to become a big problem,” said Joao Pedro Ribeiro, a political analyst at Tendencias consultancy in Sao Paulo.
“The opposition has the ability to make this drag for a while just when Dilma is looking ahead to the electoral race next year.”
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7 steps to Brazil Cultural Immersion
Brazil is one of the largest countries in the world, taking up nearly half of South America. It is bordered by Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French overseas department of French Guiana to the north; by Colombia northwest; by Bolivia and Peru in the west; by Argentina and Paraguay on the southwest and by Uruguay in the south. The Atlantic Ocean lays to the west of this country. There are many places to explore in this diverse country to immerse yourself into the culture with its beaches, the Amazon and the Iguazu Falls. A trip to immerse oneself in the culture of Brazil includes the pleasure of experiencing the traditional and modern together, getting a full rounded picture of the cultural diversity.
1. To truly immerse yourself in the Brazilian culture you need to experience some of its past. The best way to see and learn about Brazil’s past is to visit some of the historical locations that can be found. To begin with you could go visit Serra da Capivara National Park in the northeast area of the country with its prehistoric artifacts and paintings and Serra das Paridas. It is a good point to start in your immersion into Brazilian culture.
2. The second way to continue with your Brazilian cultural immersion is to look around for and experience the natural preserves that can be found around Brazil. Experience your natural surroundings as you tour the nature and ecological preserves in Brazil. Embrace the natural beauty of the nature preserves such as the Atlantic Forest (southeast) and the Cerrado and the beaches You can appreciate and get to know the environment better, finding out how the people interact with different parts of their environment.
3. Continuing your immersion into the culture of Brazil it must be remembered that history and nature are only a start. Hungry by now the next place on our agenda should be a stop for some authentic traditional food in one of the small restaurants to be found here near the town square, and run by locals. The best place if in the north is with some tacaca which you can find sold by street vendors, and if in the northeast you could try some moqueca, a Bahia’s dish. This is an excellent way to taste the cuisine within Brazil.
4. A popular time to travel to Brazil is during high season, December to March when foreign tourists and holidaying Brazilian families visit. Depending where you go the weather will impact differently. To go to the Pantanal you should go during the dry season (mid April to late September). The Amazon, the best time to go is May to December, but be away it still rains, but shorter spells. Brazil has no end of holidays and festivals all year round so whenever you take a trip to the country you are sure to run into some. These holidays will show you how the Brazilians celebrate their holidays and immerse you further into their culture.
5. Communities gather in Brazil in the town squares as in the past you can see, a popular gathering spot for locals and tourists. Town squares are always good places to people watch, many dressed in the traditional clothing of their beautiful country. Here you can immerse yourself in the culture with the traditional costumes, crafts and food of Brazil. Walking through the streets, markets or just sitting you will see all walks of life in Brazil. You can enjoy and take in the smells and taste of all on offer of the local culture, and with everything you taste or smell you will find yourself wanting more.
6. Another step to immersing yourself in the culture of Brazil is to meet people, talk to them about their lives, making new friends in the process. The markets and the local shops are perfect places to meet people. You can meet local artisans in their shops, learn about their family’s roots and their ancient traditions first hand. This is a good way to relax and unwind, a good time to mingle in an unstressed atmosphere.
7. A final way to immerse yourself in the culture of Brazil is to volunteer in one of the many programs from around the world involved in rural education, development projects, and other social projects most affected by poverty. You could get involved with volunteers and teach English to small groups of children in the town of Foz do Iguazu, giving them an essential advantage if they are ever going to attain success in Brazil. You can volunteer to work with street kids, teach, do youth work, work with health or conservation. The possibilities are endless. This is a fantastic opportunity for you to experience Brazil as tourists rarely get the opportunity to do so.
Any of these steps above is the perfect opportunity to truly immerse yourself in a foreign culture. To see the world through the eyes of the inhabitants of that country is often an eye opener, yet a great experience. However you choose to do it you will be forever changed by your experiences. So plan your trip carefully, making sure you make the most of the time there. Following these guidelines will help make your trip to Brazil unforgettable.
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