China. Regras. Sudene. WiFi. Brazil's Devil's Railway gets new lease of life. 27 November 2010Last updated at 00:12 By Louise Sherwood Porto Velho The Madeira-Mamore railway was the culmination of a long-held dream It was the early 1900s and American Percival Farquhar was a man with a mission, determined to succeed where others before him had failed. The wealthy entrepreneur from Pennsylvania had been granted the concession by the Brazilian government to build a railway to help transport rubber from Brazil and landlocked Bolivia to the outside world. It would be the third attempt to lay rail tracks in this part of the Amazon rainforest, where treacherous rapids made sections of the Madeira and Mamore Rivers unnavigable. Farquhar, whose businesses went on to include other railways and ports in Brazil, contracted a US company - May, Jekyll and Randolph .
Their task was to build the line from the Bolivian border to Porto Velho in Brazil, where goods could be loaded onto boats to reach the River Amazon and out to sea. But reality was a remote outpost with no amenities. Rediscovered glowing mushroom could shed light on ... A bioluminescent mushroom that was first found in 1840 and later forgotten has been rediscovered and reclassified by a team at San Francisco State University. Collecting specimens required Desjardin and his mushroom hunting research partner Dr Cassius Stevani to stumble around in the dark on moonless nights trying to avoid poisonous snakes and jaguars. New cameras allow researchers to quickly photograph and analyse mushrooms they suspect are bioluminescent, because sometimes the glow is not clearly visible to the human eye.
This process might have taken around half an hour with regular film exposure but can be done in minutes with digital cameras. Researchers believe that fungi make light just as the firefly does, using a chemical mix of a compound called luciferin and an enzyme luciferase. Luciferase aids the interaction between luciferin, oxygen and water to produce a new, light-emitting compound. Why mushrooms glow remains a mystery. Pourquoi s'expatrier au Brésil? J’ai choisi le Brésil! Mais pourquoi? -Mode de vie, Coût de la vie, Le futur économique du Pays, La gentillesse des gens, Le climat, la faune et la flore, l’océan… On entends tellement de fait divers sur la Télévision Française et ailleurs que l’expatriation au Brésil peux faire peur. Même y voyager peux être un doute dans nos esprits. En réalité, je me sens beaucoup plus en sécurité au Brésil qu’en France, évidement qu’il y a des problèmes, des meurtres, problèmes de drogue, ect , mais comme partout en fin de compte.
Moi je suis dans le sud du Brésil, dans une ville de taille moyenne à l’échelle du Brésil, il n’y a même pas de Favelas ici, la vie y est bien tranquille et je n’entends pas beaucoup d’histoires malsaines. Le Brésil pour moi représente un endroit sur terre ou l’on a encore la possibilité d’évoluer librement, parce que le système est souple dans son ensemble. Le climat est aussi une source de motivation, fini les hivers à -5 dégrées, j’aime le soleil et les hivers tempérés! Rio favela tweets create overnight celebrity. 29 November 2010Last updated at 13:02 By Tim Hirsch BBC News, Sao Paulo A 17-year-old Twitter user gave Brazilians a rare insider's view of events in his favela For the past few days, Brazilians watched transfixed as scenes more reminiscent of Iraq or Afghanistan than of their own "marvellous city", Rio de Janeiro, unfolded live on TV screens.
Smoke rising from burning buses, armoured vehicles moving into the sprawling favelas, heavily armed drug traffickers fleeing across wooded hillsides to escape the advancing police operation - all these images were beamed directly from helicopters into living rooms across Brazil. In the studios, a succession of security experts, sociologists, lawyers and anthropologists have helped presenters fill the time and interpret what was going on in the "morros" (hills), as the steeply sloping favelas are known. The voices of the people living inside the favelas themselves were largely absent from the mainstream coverage. View from inside Complexo do Alemao. India Investors Sess LATAM as a 'Land of Plenty' Source: WallStreetJournal Trade between China and Latin America has been a symbol of strengthening ties between developing economies, but India, too, is now looking to increase its footprint in the region.
More and more Indian companies are looking to do business in Latin America as they seek exposure to growing markets. The ties are also manifesting themselves on a policy level with trade agreements between India and South American countries picking up. Like those of its Asian neighbor, Indian companies are seeing Latin America as a more secure investment destination, thanks to broadly stable government and economic policies.
These markets are also increasingly becoming a potential lifeline as India deals with food shortages and droughts. Indian companies have invested around $9 billion in Latin America during the last several years, according to Viswanathan, and “that number is just going to keep on growing.” The next step in this trend is the agribusiness side, market watchers say. Full Article at Business Week. CEO Interview: Softtek's Trevino Speaks Openly About Leadership ... Trevino on outsourcing in the Americas: "It's not just about convenience for clients, it's about using that proximity to work much more productively for them.
" Blanca Treviño is President and CEO of Softtek, an IT and BPO solutions provider headquartered in Monterrey, Mexico. With over 6000 associates in 30 global offices from Brazil to China, Softtek is the largest private IT services provider in Latin America. Since she took over as CEO in 2000, Treviño has increased company revenue by 400%, and agressively expanded operations worldwid Nearshore Americas sat down with Treviño last week to discuss the changing face of Latin American outsourcing, Softtek’s new direction in 2010, and her personal philosophy on work, corporate leadership and being a female CEO in a male-dominated playing field.
Q: What do you see for the nearshore industry in 2010? A: Things have changed since ’97 when Softtek launched the Near Shore initiative. NAFTA is another advantage for us in Mexico. A: No. Sonda Expands Presence in Brazil with $38 million Acquisition ... Source: Bloomberg Sonda SA, Chile’s largest IT provider, agreed to pay 66 million reais ($37.8 million) for Brazilian information technology company Telsinc, the Santiago- based company wrote in a regulatory filing dated April 24.
Telsinc, was founded in 1994 and provides communications, virtualization and security services, and has business agreements with companies such as Cisco Systems Inc. and VMware Inc. It had revenue of 108 million reais last year, Sonda wrote. “Given the company’s calling for inorganic growth and record of profitable acquisitions, we consider it good news for Sonda and expect to see a positive reaction in the stock price,” BCI Corredor de Bolsa SA wrote in a note today.
Sonda plans to buy three or more companies this year in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia for a total of about $200 million, Santiago-based newspaper Diario Financiero reported on April 23, citing the company’s chairman, Andres Navarro. Hungry Investors Spark Coming Nearshore M&A Wave: Softtek Goes Shopping ... By Dennis Barker It’s a crazy time to make predictions, but this one should hold up: There will be an uptick in company-buying-company activity in the nearshore during the remainder of the year. After a slowdown in dealmaking in the past two years, mergers and acquisitions will be on the rise as corporations go hunting for ways to grow—but not just grow anywhere. “There’s no doubt there will be a lot more activity, and a lot of it in Latin America, because everyone wants a nearshore component to their offshore strategy,” Ben Boissevain, managing partner at Agile Equity, told us. Agile is an investment banking firm that advises on mergers and acquisitions and has represented companies buying into Latin American and the U.S.
“The recovery will be bumpy, but people still want that nearshore component, especially to serve people who speak Spanish. Healthcare claims processing, for example, is a huge market, and companies in that business need Spanish. Legions of Buyers Contract Worker Hurdles. Emerging markets to benefit from western woes. Private Equity in Latin America Still Faces Hurdles. By Dan Weil The outlook for the private equity/venture capital market remains strong in Latin America, but there are still important obstacles that must be surmounted, says , co-manager of North Bay Equity. The Miami-based firm helps companies in Latin America garner private equity investments and invests its own capital in the region.
The European financial crisis hasn’t yet affected private equity in Latin America, but it may end up having a mixed impact, Cole tells VELA. A prolonged economic downturn in Europe might shrink the funds European investors have to put in alternative investments, including Latin American private equity, Cole says. “The flip side is that investors in more developed parts of the world will be looking to increase commitments to emerging markets, because they see better growth prospects there,” he said. “I’m not sure that’s true. And what are the risks? “But it’s unclear those investors are following through,” Cole said. Historia do Brasil - Sintese concisa. O Brasil é o país maior é e mais populoso da América Latina. Com uma área de 8514876 km 2 e uma população de 192 376 496 habitantes em 2011, é o quinto país do mundo em área territorial eo número de pessoas.
Em 2011, o Brasil é o sexto maior economia (antes do Reino Unido ), com um PIB de 2.517.000 milhões $ . Ele cobre metade do território da América do Sul , fazendo fronteira com todos os países do sub-continente, com exceção do Chile e do Equador. Colônia coroa próspero Português durante vários séculos, o país é o único legado de Portugal em solo americano, que se manifesta por sua língua oficial, Português. Maior país lusófono mundo, o Brasil é membro da Comunidade de Países de Língua Portuguesa. O Brasil tem características em comum com a maioria dos outros países da América do Sul é um país de maioria católica, a densidade populacional média é muito baixa ea população é altamente urbanizada (84%).
Cronologia 1744 e 1748 - Foram criadas as capitanias de Goiás e Mato Grosso. 1785 - D. Viewpoint: Brazil's growing international presence. 24 May 2010Last updated at 11:41 Brazil, Russia, Indian and China: a new grouping on the world stage The Brazilian government's recent mediation efforts to persuade Iran to sign a deal on enriching uranium as a way of allaying suspicions about its nuclear programme highlighted Brazil's ambition to project its influence beyond South America. Rubens Barbosa, former Brazilian ambassador to the US and the UK, offers his views on his country's growing international presence: The world has undergone major political and economic changes in recent years. The era of US unilateralism has ended and new centres of power have emerged, a transformation accelerated by the global economic crisis.
Brazil is one of the countries to most benefit from the new international disorder. But which specific factors explain why Brazil is opening up to the world and expanding its interests? There are, first of all, various domestic reasons. President Lula has pursued a pro-active foreign policy Honest broker Reforms needed. Bric countries try to shift global balance of power. Economists call them the "Bric" countries. Hiding behind the obscure title are some of the world's fastest growing and potentially largest economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Now the leaders of these countries are meeting in Brazil's capital Brasilia for the second Bric summit. The inventor of the acronym Bric is Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill. In 2001 he argued that "over the next 10 years, the weight of the Brics and especially China in world GDP will grow" and as a result "world policy making forums should be reorganised" in favour of the Bric countries. Since then this economic grouping has taken on greater significance, culminating in a summit last year in Russia where the four nations talked about how they could best tackle the economic crisis. The location of the first summit was poignant, because some critics say that Russia's economy is not strong enough to justify its presence in the group. Others question whether the Bric states have a common agenda at all. Brazil remembers slain activist. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has led tributes to the Amazon rubber-tapper Chico Mendes on the 20th anniversary of his murder.
Mr Mendes is seen as a pioneer of the environmental movement who mobilised local forest communities to stop the advance of loggers and ranchers. He was shot dead outside his home in the state of Acre on 22 December 1988. His legacy was the creation of a network of reserves where people can make a living from the forest. Mr Lula said that Brazil should give more recognition to people like Mendes, the Associated Press reports. The country has "many Chico Mendes", who "need to be saved," the president said in a radio address.
The rubber-tappers' leader had spent years encouraging poor communities to protect the rubber trees that gave them their livelihood against large landowners who wanted to clear the forest for cattle ranching. Pressures This year, the rate of Amazon deforestation increased for the first time in four years. Americas | 'DC Madam' found dead in Florida. Deborah Jean Palfrey, the US woman recently convicted for her role as the head of a Washington DC escort agency, has committed suicide, police say. Ms Palfrey, often referred to as "the DC Madam", was found hanged in a shed next to her mother's house in Florida. She was convicted on 15 April of running a prostitution ring, money laundering and mail fraud. The case became famous because of the prominent officials - including Senator David Vitter - who had used the agency. Suicide note Ms Palfrey maintained that she had had no knowledge of her escorts engaging in sex acts with their clients.
But on 15 April, after hearing testimony from a number of the agency's former employees and clients, a federal jury found her guilty on all counts. Archive footage of 'DC Madam' She faced a maximum 55-year prison term, but was free pending sentencing on 24 July. Police said that Ms Palfrey had left a suicide note, but did not disclose its contents.