Zero Hora on the Revolt of the Sergeants

ANAC: Brazil’s fledgling civilian FAA-equivalent.

Zero Hora (Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) reports, as clipped by Brazil’s Ministério das Relações Exteriores, the foreign ministry: How the revolt of the sergeants unfolded, from the perspective of the land of gaúchos and chimarrão. Tchê.

Foi uma barbaridade.

Itamaraty is in some sense Brazil’s best blogger, in terms of organizing relevant newsflow in this online service.

But not in the way, mind you, that the U.S. State Dept. is apparently devoted to blogging — as a nonsense discovery and promotion technique.

See Government 2.0: State Googles Apoplexy Targets.

Zero Hora I have always thought of as a pretty darned good paper — Moacyr Scliar is a columnist, and I am fond of — and one that apparently knows how to draw the line when it comes to Journalism 2.0, even if its holding company one of the participants in the recent IAPA festival of the technological sublime in Cartagena, where Bill Gates spouted the same nonsense as always.

See Carvalho x Zero Hora, for example.

Em um movimento inédito da história brasileira, quase todos os aeroportos do país pararam a partir do final da tarde de ontem. Milhares de passageiros ficaram em terra, perdendo compromissos pessoais, negócios e a paciência. Logo depois da meia-noite, foi anunciado o final da greve dos controladores de vôo.

In a development unprecedented in Brazilian history, nearly all of the nation’s airports shut down starting in the late afternoon yesterday. Thousands of passengers were stranded on the ground, missing personal appointments and business appointments and losing their patience.

You cannot readily translate the nice zeugma there, in which “missing” and “losing” are expressed by the same verb: “losing appointments and patience.”

Costurado pelo ministro do Planejamento, Paulo Bernardo, pelo comandante da Aeronáutica, Juniti Saito, e pelo advogado que representa os controladores, Normando Cavalcanti Jr., o acordo prevê uma gratificação emergencial, a desmilitarização do setor e a contração de mais profissionais.

Put together by the Planning minister, Paulo Bernardo, along with the Air Force commandant, Gen. Saito, and the lawyer representing the controllers, Normando Cavalcanti, Jr., an accord [to end the work stoppage] provides for emergency pay, demilitarization of the sector and the hiring of more professionals.

The executive had already allocated funds for contracting outside controllers on a two-year contract, with an option to renew, I read.

“The World Is Sunk in Shit”: Badillo on The Mexican State of Exception

“I am not a mano dura”: Calderón, the frequent fister.

Miguel Badillo, author of the ISOSA exposé — and excavator of archived invoices in failed technology big digs by contractors also under regulatory scrutiny back in gringoland; hint: they do not want to support a Larry Summers-free Harvard — and the weekly Web column Oficio de Papel, on the justification given for surrounding the Mexican Congress with shock troops, under the command of the executive, as PAN and PRI legislators pushed through the Ley Gordillo last week.

On which, see How Elba Esther Got Her Chips in the Big Game and The Teacher Reaches for the Golden Apple.

The post is from March 26.

I have a running bet with a friend of mine, a correspondent for a Latin American daily: a formal or de facto permanent state of exception in Mexico within two years. In other words, the Alberto Gonzalez Democracy Exportation Plan.

Also this week from Badillo: More detailed analysis of Pemex deals that according to the vigilante accountant suggest massive corruption in the state oil company.

Calderón, who was Fox’s energy minister, has brought a ton of energy sector “technocrats” into his government, including the former Pemex general counsel, César Nava.

On whom see Calderón Crony Cooked Over Pemex-Banobras Boondoggle.

Sin medir consecuencias, el presidente de la República ha elevado los problemas del narcotráfico y el crimen organizado a una confrontación con el Estado mexicano cuando la semana pasada declaró a la prensa que él, su familia y sus principales colaboradores en el gabinete, han recibido amenazas de muerte por bandas delincuenciales.

Without weighing the consequences, the president of Mexico turned the problem of the narcotraffic and organized crime into a confrontation with the Mexican state when he announced last week that he, his familiy and his principal cabinet offices have received death threats from criminal groups.

Esa declaración irresponsable hunde a México dentro del marco internacional en un rango de inseguridad y peligrosidad como hace años lo fue Colombia, cuando las principales bandas del narcotráfico se apoderaron de ese país y empezó para los colombianos una verdadera pesadilla de persecución, odio y reproche mundial y de la cual aún no puede salir ni tampoco olvidar.

This irresponsible statement damages Mexico on the international stage, consigning it to the same level of insecurity and risk that Colombia represented some years ago, when the leading narcos took over the country and Colombians sank into a nightmare of persecution, hatred and international condemnation that it has yet to emerge from or forget.

The Sergeants Smuggle Out Their Manifesto

Controllers from other regions folded their arms to support Cindacta I sergeants. A manifesto was released through an international professional association, without signatures, to prevent reprisals.

“We are working at gunpoint.”

Manifesto exige desmilitarização do setor: The Folha carries the “apocryphal” text of a manifesto by the striking sergeants of CINDACTA, released anonymously through an international professional association to avoid reprisals.

A copy of the document, according to the Folha, was distributed to IFATCA, the international federation of air traffic controllers’ unions. One Brazilian [pelêgo?] professional association condemned the action, according to the Folha, which neglected to report on responses from the union representing civilian controllers, the SNTPV — which posted the text on its Web site.

I am actually not finding that statement on the IFATCA Web site. How about providing the URL?

If Mr. Frías fils does not believe in your existence, you do not exist. If you provide access to information, it does not have to source you. It merely says that the information “began circulating on the Internet.” This is substandard:

Use anonymous attribution only when essential and even then provide the most specific possible identification of the source.

The controllers say they have been accused of sabotage by superiors, and deny it.

Personally, my wife and I were not thinking of the sergeants when — like many people — the idea of sabotage occurred to us. See also “Sabotage Suspected, Says Brazilian Defense Minister”.

I translate, and will append the text of the agreement signed by the government.

Antes do manifesto, a ABCTA (Associação Brasileira dos Controladores de Tráfego Aéreo) emitiu uma nota oficial em seu site no qual condenava “atos radicais.” Leia a seguir a íntegra do documento.

In response to the manifesto, the ABCTA (Brazilian association of air traffic controllers) issued an official statement on its Web site, condemning “radical actions.” Read the entire text of the manifesto below.

The ABCTA’s statement included this, signed by president Wellington Rodrigues:

A ABCTA continuará a defender e a representar nossos Controladores, entretanto, mantém sua conduta política dentro da legalidade, repudiando qualquer ato de radicalismo! Que Deus dê sabedoria aos Homens que irão decidir nosso futuro!

The ABCTA will continue to defend and represent our Controllers, but will continue to act withing the limits of the law, repudiating any act of radicalism! May God grant Wisdom to the Men who will decide our future!

Rodrigues is a first sergeant with 15 years experience as a controller, one reads. The military opened a star chamber board of inquiry againt ABCTA leaders late last year for instigating acts of insubordination.

The manifesto follows:

A quem são atribuídas as paralisações do tráfego aéreo em virtude de fenômenos naturais como chuvas e nevoeiros?

Who gets the blame for air traffic slowdowns due to natural phenomena such as rains and fog?

Quem, ao tentar expor as verdadeiras situações do tráfego aéreo nos livros de ocorrências dos órgãos operacionais, sofre perseguições da chefia militar?

Who, trying to expose the true situation of air traffic in the incident logs of the operational centers, are persecuted by the military leadership?

Quem é acusado de insubordinado e sindicalista ao executar uma operação de segurança que consta em norma internacional de aviação civil?

Who is accused of insubordination and union agitation when realizing a safety procedure which is considered an international norm for civil aviation?

“Mutiny” at CINDACTA: The Sergeants Stop Traffic

Controllers from other region folded their arms to support Cindacta I sergeants. Transfer of union representative to Ô do Borogodô — a proverbial way of saying a remote jungle clearing, far from the madding crowd– raised fears of sinister reprisals.

Agora MS picks up the wire service story from the Folha de S. Paulo: How the sergeants stopped air traffic for more than five hours yesterday. And why.

When will the press be free to actually interview some of these people? Most of my sense of this situation — which is by no means well-informed, mind you — comes from an interview late last year with the head of the union representing civilian employees of Infraero, with Caros Amigos.

Os controladores de vôo se amotinaram ontem, paralisando o espaço aéreo brasileiro e obrigando o governo federal a ceder a suas exigências por escrito para voltar ao trabalho.

Air traffic controllers mutinied yesterday, paralyzing Brazilian airspace and forcing the federal government to give in to their demands in writing before returning to work.

O motim, iniciado no Cindacta-1, em Brasília, durou cinco horas e 20 minutos, espalhando-se pelo país e suspendendo praticamente todas as decolagens no país.

The mutiny, which started at Cindacta-1 in the nation’s capital, lasted five hours and 20 minutes, spread throughout the company and cancelled almost all takeoffs in Brazil.

Pego de surpresa, o governo formou um gabinete de crise e se reuniu por telefone com o presidente Lula -que estava em vôo para Washington e vetou decisão da Aeronáutica de prender os sargentos amotinados. O presidente interino, José Alencar, foi chamado de Minas Gerais para coordenar a crise em Brasília.

Taken by surprise, the government formed a crisis cabinet and conferred with President Lula by telephone, who was en route to Washington and vetoed the decision by the Air Force to arrest the rebel sergeants. The interim president, José ALencar, was summoned from Minas Gerais to coordinate the crisis in the capital.

Cancún Journalist Was Gonzalez’d

González Canto

Reporters sans frontières reported: “Suspected plot revealed against journalist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro” (Feb. 27).

RSF was “concerned” at the time, but has not exactly followed the newsflow closely.

For a similar bit of insight into high-level government pressure on news media in Mexico, see also  Bours of Another Color: Stifling The Press in Sonora.

A new development in the Cacho case today, as a commission of the Mexican Supreme Court summoned the governor of Quintana Roo to give a deposition in the case of a plot to silence the Cancún freelancer, who reported on the involvement of officials with a pedophilia ring in a book she authored.

I translate for googlability in inglés or inglês.

 

Cancún, QR, 29 de marzo. La comisión de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación (SCJN) que investiga las presuntas violaciones a las garantías individuales de la periodista Lydia Cacho Ribeiro, solicitó la comparecencia del gobernador de Quintana Roo, Félix González Canto, para que aclare si recibió una llamada del mandatario de Puebla, Mario Marín Torres, en la que le hubiera solicitado su colaboración para aprehender a la comunicadora en diciembre de 2005.

The SCJN commission looking into alleged violations of the rights of journalist Cacho Ribeiro, summoned the Governor of Quintana Roo, Félix González Canto, to clarify whether he received a call from Puebla governor Mario Marín Torres in which he as asked to cooperate in a plan to arrest the journalist in December 2005.  

En conferencia de prensa, el abogado Alejandro Olea, del grupo de defensores de Cacho Ribeiro, reveló lo anterior y señaló que el magistrado federal Sergio Eduardo Alvarado Puente, integrante de dicha comisión, se encuentra desde hace dos semanas en esta ciudad para realizar varias diligencias en las que se tomará testimonio a los implicados en el caso.

In a press conference, attorney Alejandro Olea, from a group that is defending Cacho Ribeiro, revealed the fact and said that federal judge Alvarado Puente, a member of the commission, has been in the city for two weeks conducting various investigations in which the testimony of the persons involved will be taken.

Stratfor Parachutes in on Rio Militias

“Rio: Where does the danger live?” Caros Amigos coverage still offers more insight than the parachute X-9s, I think.

The Stratfor intel newswire — always an interesting read — on Rio militias (March 30).

I will try to annotate.

Illegal militias control more than 80 of the approximate 600 slums, known as favelas, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Beginning in the 1980s, the militias ran out drug traffickers and criminal gangs in many favelas. The militias, which have gained prominence in recent months, not only contribute to Rio’s unstable security environment, but also could develop into shadow governments or even competitors to the real state and city governments.

“Beginning in the 1980s, the militias ran out drug traffickers and criminal gangs in many favelas.” That statement surprises me. What’s your source on that? However, it is my general understanding — reading between the lines, per speculum enigmitate — that these organizations do go back more than a decade, or further.

It’s just that most [English-language] press reports describe them as recent developments.

According to conventional wisdom in the Brazilian press — but no one ever sources the number, and Rio state public safety folks refused to vouch for it — the number of favelas with milita presence is about 100.

I would say there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that “development into shadow governments or even competitors” has already happened, and that we may have moved beyond that during the Garotinho years into a state of full-fledged — or half-fledged, or considerably well-fledged, at any rate — parapolitics.

Also not a development that has cropped up in the last few months.

Just because a militia or a death squad operated in a shantytowns and the press did not notice it does not mean that bystanders and people guilty of breathing while black did not get their heads blown off. 50,000 people in the last 8 years or so, one reads.

The thing to watch now is the degree to which parapolitical groups wield influence within the “real” state and city governments.

There is a parapolitical angle here that is deeply rooted and long established. We await details.

The militias — not the government — provide social services, utilities and justice for the tens of thousands of people living in the favelas. They run off drug traffickers and criminal gangs and provide protection for a nominal “tax”; mototaxi operators, for example, pay approximately $10 a week, and merchants, depending on the size of their businesses, pay up to $25 a week. The militias even provide cable television, electricity, garbage pickup and water to the favelas by siphoning off local utilities — again, for a fee.

See, e.g., Rio: GatoNet Goes Dark; Alleged Militia Chieftain Netted.

In reality, the militias are not much different than the gangs they replace in the favelas; both operate outside the law, and both finance themselves through protection rackets and other “taxes.” To the favela residents though, the militias are more benevolent. Because the militias provide services the city and state governments are unwilling or unable to, they are popular with favela residents. In many ways, they act as de facto governments, sometimes with constituencies of between 40,000 and 60,000, depending on the favela.

This seems wrongly stated to me. My sense is that drug gangs do not principally live by taxing residents of the “hillsides.” Or did not used to, anyway. Maybe they are changing their business model.

They make money by selling blow and crack to the “asphalt.” This is a retail business geared to the, er, alt.leisure industry.

They do not tend to provide services.

They tend to take whatever the fuck they want from and do whatever the fuck they want to whomever they want. Caco Barcellos has a book, O Dono do Santa Marta, that you ought to have a read of. For one thing, it makes an intriguing case story in the ethical quagmire that can result in becoming part of the story in return for access.

They have lately tried to emulate the militias in the “service area” — a Vigário Geral group even says it will follow the official Penal Code in its kangaroo courts, I read — but they have a ways to go with that rebranding project, I think.

We need to account for evidence, however, that militias likewise do not live by “taxes” alone, but by running organized crime enterprises themselves, with political cover from “law and order” legislators.

See also “Militia Laundered Money”: From the Rio Roundup and Rio’s Brave New World: Miranda on the Militia Melee in the Cidade Maravilha.

“Heads Are Gonna Roll”: In Brazil, Civilizing Civil Aviation Is a Savage Business

Pires, left, with Zuanazzi.

O comandante caiu, mas ele (Pires) vai cair também (Terra Magazine, Brazil).

In Brazil, the striking air traffic controllers of CINDACT 1 have now reportedly been arrested for insubordination — they are are Air Force sergeants, as I understand it.

[Update: the arrest of the sergeants was later countermanded by the president, and a civilian minister sent in to negotiate. Bloody murdered was screamed.]

Among their demands is the immediate demilitarization of air traffic control and attention to what they say is substandard equipment and operating procedures.

– O comandante caiu, mas ele vai cair também.

“The commander went down, but he is going down, too.”

A frase, já de conhecimento não restrito no Ministério da Defesa, ajuda a se entender a retomada, mais uma vez, do que parece ser uma interminável crise no setor aéreo – hoje com controladores de vôo do Cindacta 1, em Brasília, e de Manaus, a ameaçar greve.

The phrase, already widely known beyond the Ministry of Defense, helps to understand the fresh outbreak of what seems to be an interminal crisis in the air transportation sector — today with a threatened strike by air traffic controllers as Cindacta 1, in Brasília, and in Manaus.

Manaus, Brasília, Salvador and Rio airports are said to be closed at this hour.

Os sujeitos da frase acima estão ocultos. Eles são três. É fundamental saber quem são eles, e os significados contidos no fraseado.

The subjects of the phrase cited above are left unspecified. There are three. It is fundamental to know who they are, and the connotations of the phrase.

O comandante que “caiu” é o brigadeiro Paulo Roberto Cardoso Vilarinho. O “Ele”, jurado para “cair também” é o ministro da Defesa, Waldir Pires. E a indignação pertence ao brigadeiro Ramon Borges Cardoso, atual diretor do Departamento de Controle do Espaço Aéreo, o Decea.

The commander who “went down” was Brig. Gen. Paulo Roberto Cardoso Vilarinho. “He,” whose downfall is sworn to is the Minister of Defense, Waldir Pires. And the indignation expressed belongs to Brig. Gen. Ramon Borges Cardoso, current director of DECEA, the Dept. of Airspace Control.

Mexico: Federal Auditor Counts Billions of Missing Beans

The “iron auditor”: For our friends and family, anything; for everybody else, the Tax Code?

Devolvió SHCP $17 mil millones a 10 consorcios en el quinto año de Fox (La Jornada, Mexico): Mexico’s federal auditor finished his review of the national accounts for 2005 and thinks the tax man was gypped to the tune of 26 billion pesos ($2.36 billion).

Besides continuing suspicions about the Enciclomedia educational technology venture with Microsoft and satellite aDSL provider Hughes, the auditor has also raised questions about a “Pharanoic project” (La Jornada‘s phrase) known as the Megalibrary, which may also constitute a megaboondoggle. About which more in a bit.

And of course the use of public funds to pay staff of Fox’s presidential library is also raising a minor flap as well.

El auditor superior de la Federación, Arturo González de Aragón, informó que en el quinto año de gobierno de Vicente Fox se cometieron irregularidades que implican daños a la hacienda pública por 26 mil millones de pesos; cuestionó además que la Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (SHCP), a través del Servicio de Administración Tributaria (SAT), devolviera a diez grandes contribuyentes más de 17 mil millones de pesos de IVA e ISR, y detalló que 100 importantes consorcios pagaron sólo 7 mil 50 pesos por ambos gravámenes en 2005.

The head of the federal audit agency (ASF), Arturo González de Aragón, reported that in the fifth year of the Fox administration, irregularities were committed that cost the public treasury 26 billion pesos, and questioned why the Treasury department, through the federal tax service, returned more than 17 billion pesos in taxes to ten large corporate taxpayers, as well as identifying 100 business consortia that paid only 7,050 pesos in taxes for 2005.

Entre los beneficiarios de Hacienda, que encabezaba Francisco Gil Díaz, están Wal-Mart, Bimbo, cinco fabricantes de automóviles, que la Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF) tuvo cuidado de no detallar su razón social, así como una empresa de equipos fotográficos.

Among those benefitted by the Treasury, which was headed by Francisco Gil Díaz, were Wal-Mart, Bimbo, five automakers, which the ASF took care not to identify, and a photographic equipment manufacturer.

Por si fuera poco detectó a 50 grandes contribuyentes, de los que tampoco precisó sus nombres, cuyos pagos individuales de impuesto sobre la renta en ese año, deducidas las devoluciones, fueron menores a 74 pesos. Es decir, entre todos pagaron 3 mil 700 pesos. Mientras, otros 50 pagaron hasta 67 pesos por concepto de impuesto al valor agregado, es decir, 3 mil 350 entre todos, aun cuando se trata de consorcios con ingresos brutos anuales superiores a 500 millones de pesos.

He also detected 50 large taxpayers, who names he also did not reveal, whose individual income tax for that year, after deducting the refunds, was less than 74 pesos. That is to say, the 50 collectively paid only 3,700 pesos. In the meantime, another 50 paid up to 67 pesos in value-added tax, that is to say, 3,350 in all, even though they are business consortia with gross revenues of more than 500 million pesos.

Bolivarian Blogging: The Triumph of Hugo 2.0!

When did Alexa charts stop showing the legend? What a PITA. Green is El Universal Dot com; Blue is Telesur; red is Noticias 24. I think. You had best double check for youself. This is, after all, just a blog.

VERMELHO (Communist Party of Brazil) reports: Alexa rankings show that anti-Hugo Venezuelan media is losing out to pro-government Internet news media.

This is, of course, to assume that Alexa traffic statistics mean something.

(Which they may. I can never figure out exactly what, but that may have more to do with the fact that I majored in poetry.)

And that the Internet means something in the greater Venezuelan scheme of things.

Internet penetration in Venezuela is 12.2%, according to Internet World Stats.

I offer it merely as a random factoid on the state of the Latin American Netroots.

Os sites venezuelanos que fazem oposição ao governo de Hugo Chávez sofreram uma queda significante de visitas por parte dos internautas. Já as páginas pró-governo registraram aumento expressivo de acesso. As conclusões são resultados de pesquisa feita no site Alexa (www.alexa.com) e divulgada, na quarta-feira (28), pelo site noticias24 ( www.noticias24.com ).

Venezuelan Web sites that oppose the Chávez goverment have suffered a signficant fall in site visitors, while pro-government sites have registered a significant increase in page views. Those conclusions are the results of a study using the Web site Alexa and published on Wednesday by Noticias 24.

Brazil: Sergeants of CINDACTA Start Hunger Strike; Senator Raises Specter of Horrible Death!

Gringo UFOlogists at CINDACTA. Source: Exopolitics

Controladores se aquartelam e fazem greve de fome (Terra): Military air traffic controllers confine themselves to barracks, where they start a hunger strike and send the Defense Minister a manifesto reportedly charging high-level shennanigans.

Os controladores do Cindacta 1 de Brasília decidiram iniciar uma greve de fome reivindicando melhores condições de trabalho. Mais de 100 profissionais estariam participando do movimento, que teve como estopim a transferência de um de seus coordenadores para o Rio Grande do Sul. Os controladores estão todos no Cindacta no movimento de aquartelamento, por iniciativa própria.

Cindacta 1 air traffic controllers decided to initiate a hunger strike for better working conditions. More than 100 operators are said to be participating in the movement, which was triggered by the transfer of one of their coordinations to Rio Grande do Sul. The controllers are all stationed at Cindacta and have confined themselves to barracks on their own initiative.

CINDACTA 1 is located in Brasília, in central Brazil, in Goiás. It is a district in the military’s integrated air defense command — think NORAD. See also Tupi Travel Update: “New Chaos” Causes Clarified!

Gallo-Tupi E-Vote Note: E-Vote Activism in France

“Simulation of an electronic ballot box.” Source: TSE.

From  the Voto Seguro mailing list in Brazil, news of e-voting activities in the land of the team that knocked the Timão out of the 2006 World Cup, only to get mugged by the Italians — whose last championship was marred by crooked officiating and whose current championship was suspended on account of massive ultraviolence — in the final. Not exactly the jogo bonito, is it?

Ronaldo, dude, you got outhustled. You got to stay hungry, mano.
See Brazil x France: Let’s Dance, Monsieur Fancy Pants.

I translate, and hope the list won’t mind.

Ando sumido, mas sempre de olho na evolução do voto-e mundo afora. Me  ocorreu fazer uma observação sobre a evolução recente aqui na França.  Período eleitoral exige, a lista do voto-e na França explode. Mas o que  mais surpreendente é a velocidade com a qual avança o abaixo assinado  aqui. Em um mês já temos mais de 25000 assinaturas. É impressionante a velocidade com que esse número avança, da ordem de 1 Hz durante o dia!  Já o nosso Manifesto no Brasil está no ar desde 2003 e não tem nem 3000  assinaturas…

I have disappeared lately, but I still am keeping my eye on the develepment of e-voting throughout the work. It occurred to me to make an observation about recent developments in French. With an election coming up, the e-vote mailing list in France is exploding. The most suprising thing, however, is how fast the petition on e-voting is moving here. In just one month we already have 25,000 signatures. It is impressive to see how fast it grows, on the order of 1 Hz per day! Our Manifesto back in Brazil has been up since 2003 and does not have even 3,000 signatures. 

Reuters and the Global Content Management Contingent: Optimism About The Future!

“In the future, what do you view as the principal threat to your newspaper’s editorial independence?” Source: The Editor’s Weblog. Given that this was an international poll, it would be interesting to see the results broken down by region. And for rank and file journalists to be surveyed with the same questions, to compare attitudes across the gap.

Survey finds editors ‘positive’ about newspapers’ future (Euractiv). The Reuters survey arrives i nmy inbox as part of a standing Google News Alert on “editorial independence.”

Compare The Latin American Press 2.0: The Echo Chamber Speaks Portunhol for a similar study conducted for the Interamerican Press Association meetings in Cartagena, Colombia.

The WEF’s Web blog actually has quite a thorough analysis of the findings. I would recommend reading that rather than this rewriting of a Reuters press release. It sticks to the hard numbers, avoiding the rhetoric of the technological sublime and “glass half-full” readings of soft quantifications.

The ‘Newsroom Barometer’, a new global survey conducted for the Paris-based World Editors Forum and Reuters, has found that the vast majority of newspaper editors worldwide are optimistic about the future of their newspapers.

Great. Optimism about the future. Thanks be to Prozac.

Is that really the most interesting finding this study has to offer? Is that really the headline-grabber? It strikes me as textbook case of a glittering generality.

They are also divided, it seems to me, over (1) whether the Internet is going to revolutionize their work or not, and (2) whether media owners are going to succeed in their war on editorial independence, as in the Fox News-Monsanto case.

On which see my Kill the Umpire: A Big Think.

Released on 27 March 2007, the survey by Zogby International found that:

• 40% of editors believe that online will be the most common way to read the news ten years from now;
• 35% believe that the print format will reign supreme ["reign supreme"? does that mean "be the most common say to read the news"? And what do the other 25% believe?--Ed.];
• two-thirds believe that opinion and analysis pages will grow in importance [to whom? --Ed.];
• half are convinced that the quality of journalism will improve [and half do not --Ed.], and;
• half believe that shareholders and advertisers present a threat to editorial independence [and half do not?].

Ah, but how many optimists on journalistic quality also believe that editorial independence is threatened by advertisers and owners?

And most importantly: How many say that they see no threat to their editorial independence in their future?

Take the case of Thailand, with its military government: Need for independent TV station is greater than ever (The Nation, Thailand, March 27). Discuss.

The survey of 435 editors-in-chief, deputy editors and other senior news executives from around the world, around half of whom are from Europe, demonstrates an industry in transition, but one that is rapidly adapting to the new media environment.

Folha de S. Paulo Regrets, Commits, Chiclete Com Banana

Rede Globo vs. Internet (Crash Tester): The Web site poll picture above, from Globo.com, asks Lusophone Web site visitors, “Do you you use the Internet?” 75.10% of Web site visitors had the presence of mind and the malicious wit to answer “no.”

The Folha de S.Paulo says it regrets the error:

Diferentemente do publicado no texto “Filmes sobre Terror têm EUA na mira”, Bob Kennedy, pai da diretora Rory Kennedy, não foi presidente dos Estados Unidos.

Unlike what was asserted in the article “Films on terrorism look to the USA,” Bob Kennedy, father of film director Rory Kennedy, was not president of the United States.

The man’s name was Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy. He was Attorney General of the United States and a U.S. Senator. He was assassinated in 1968 while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.

I do believe the Folha de S. Paulo’s style manual indicates that you should use people’s full names, and get their nicknames correct.

Baltasar Garzón in Bogotá

Colombia’s government broadcaster.

Confesiones de ‘paras’ por TV quedaron descartadas en el corto plazo: The Colombian press deal with rules on publication of videotaped depositions in the “parapolitics” case.

The interesting factoid for my clip file: The involvement of Pinochet prosecutor, the Spaniard Baltasar Garzón, who is visiting Bogotá.

Even as Bogotá officials visit Rio de Janeiro and the governor there measures his words about militias there, and the Bogotization of the public safety area in the cidade maravilha.  See, e.g., Rio: Cabral Backs Off On Bogotá.

Source: El Tiempo.

El fiscal general, Mario Iguarán, anunció que la reglamentación de las transmisiones está lista y dijo que solo fiscales y jueces decidirán cuándo televisarán las versiones.

Lead investigator Mario Iguarán announced that rules on the broadcast are ready and said that only prosecutors and judges will decide when the depositions will be broadcast.

Colombia: Procurement Chief Signed Parapolitical Pact

Paras of the Norte Bloc. Source: Plan Colombia and Beyond

Nadie fue obligado a firmar pacto con paramilitares, dijo Luis Carlos Ordosgoitia (El Tiempo, Bogotá): With the Bogotá mayor meeting with Brazilian mayors and governors, it is time to pay more attention to the newsflow out of there, I think.

El Tiempo is becoming my trusted source. They are running an excellent running news hole on the “parapolitics” affair.

In today’s news, the Colombian government’s chief procurement officer  — the counterpart to this Ms. Lurita Doan, head of the GSA, who intervened to renew a Sun Microsystems contract despite findings that SUNW had overbilled the taxpayers, because “technology is strategic” — admits that he signed a secret political pact with the paramilitaries, but insists that there was no “coercion.”

INCO is the National Public Concessions Institute, or something like that.

En declaración ante fiscales, áfirmó que fue invitado a Ralito sin amenazas y que el documento en el que se proponen “refundar la Patria” fue leído ante todos los asistentes por Salvatore Mancuso.

In a declaration to federal investigators, he affirmed that he had been invited to Ralito without threats and that the document in which it is proposed to “refound the Fatherland” was read aloud to all signatories by Salvatore Mancuso.

Mancuso was

… accused of illegal drug trafficking related activities by both Colombian and the United States which asked the Colombian government for his extradition. …  On January 15th, 2007, Mancuso admitted to his crimes in a Columbian court in a deal that would preclude his extradition to the United States for drug trafficking charges. Mancuso must still reveal trafficking routes and drug contacts in order to fulfill completely his end of the deal.

Source: Wikipedia, today’s date. So you may want to keep an eye peeled for revisionist historians.

Ordosgoitia, ex director del Inco (instituto que maneja los megacontratos del Estado colombiano), fue uno de los firmantes del acuerdo que destapó el lío de la ‘parapolítica’, durante una reunión entre políticos y paramilitares que tuvo lugar en julio del 2001.

Ordosgoitia, former director of Inco (the institution that manages the Colombian state’s megacontracts) was one of the signatories on the accord that unleased the “parapolitics” scandal, during a meeting between politicians and paramilitaries in July 2001.

What other contracts did he write? With whom?

In Defense of Chocolate Jebus

Source: The Moderate Voice

I don’t care if it rains or freezes
‘Long as I got my plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
Through my trials and tribulations
And my travels through the nations
With my plastic Jesus I’ll go far

Back in Brooklyn from São Paulo now, I get to wake up in the morning and watch NY1, the anchor news channel on the local cable TV line-up. Oddly, newsreader Pat Kiernan now reminds me strongly of Heródoto Barbeiro of TV Cultura in São Paulo — or vice versa.

Lately, it seems, the Time-Warner channel has signed up with Forbes magazine for its business coverage.

But if that explains what “publisher Steve Forbes” — with associated political hacks and flacks — was doing with such extensive air time on the channel to promote his endorsement of Rudy Giuliani’s candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination, well, that leaves me with my thumb behind my ear.

Sticking your thumb behind your ear is a Brazilian gesture of skepticism. This stinks fresh of Berluscronyism.

Speaking of Brazil, NYC is rolling out a social assistance program that is very similar to the Bolsa Familia program in Brazil, in which assistance is made conditional on such factors as school attendance by children, job training attendance, work or seeking work, stuff like that.

The gummint down there in the antipodes recently announced the noncompliance numbers — some 200,000 out of [mumble] million families that receive the aid; I need to look that up — and the number of recipients who will be cut off if they do not get back into compliance.

NY1 is calling the program “innovative” and “modeled on a simliar program in Mexico.”

I thought I had read quite explicitly that Mayor Bloomberg’s wonks were studying Brazil’s Bolsa Familia and Fome Zero anti-hunger program, the latter for the newly created Office of Food Policy here? I am a bit of Brazil fan — I married a Brazilian — so let me do a bit of rooting for the land that took me in as a semi-desirable alien and demand credit where credit is due.

Unlike Lula, Bloomberg donated some of his own personal cash to the program. Which I guess makes its something of an innovative public-private partnership.

The Catholic League, meanwhile, is fulminating against “My Sweet Lord,” a life-size, anatomically correct Christ crucified that will be displayed at the Roger Smith Hotel during Holy Week.

“The worst assault on Christian sensibilities ever,” say defender flacks of the faith. “Christ is depicted as a gifted male,” blurts the field reporter for NY1, in a meatheaded effort to be coy. In other words, the artist has depicted Christ’s penis as a large, low-hanging one.

The Daily News page one screamer: “Shocking!”

Did Jorge 40 Do Drummond’s Dirty Work?

Jorge 40 talks to Colombian journalist. Source: YouTube.

La FM (Colombia) updates the newsflow on Drummond’s potential involvement in murdering leaders of its employee’s union in 2001. See also Did Drummond Do Its Duty Against “Dictatorship of the Labor Unions”?

Un fiscal de derechos humanos vinculó al ex jefe paramilitar Rodrigo Tovar Pupo con el asesinato en 2001 de los dos principales dirigentes del sindicato local de la multinacional estadounidense Drummond.

A human rights monitor has tied former paramilitary chief Rodrigo Tovar Pupo with the 2001 assassination of the two principal leaders of the local union at U.S. multinational Drummond.

Tovar, más conocido como “Jorge 40″ y pieza clave en el llamado escándalo de la “parapolítica”, fue asimismo procesado por el crimen en 2005 de un sindicalista de la ciudad norteña de Barranquilla.

Tovar, better known as “Jorge 40″ and a key player in the so-called “parapolitics” scandal, was charged with the crime in 2005 by a union activist in the city of Barranquilla.

La Fiscalía General informó que Tovar fue llamado a que rinda indagatoria ante el funcionario que instruye el proceso por el homicidio del presidente y el vicepresidente del Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Drummond en Colombia, Víctor Hugo Orcasita y Valmore Locarno Rodríguez, respectivamente.

The federal prosecutor reported that Tovar was summoned to give a deposition by the investigator leading the inquiry into the murder of the president and vice-president of the Drummond Workers’ Union in Colobmia, Victor Hugo Orcasita and Valmore Locarno Rodríguez.

Style Points: AP on Saving Daylight and Citing Sources

In my Gmail inbox, I get a breaking update on new usage guidelines from the AP Stylebook [online edition].

AP will no longer hyphenate the first two words in the phrase “daylight saving time.”

Note that it is “saving,” singular, not “daylight savings.”

They provide no explanation for the change, however.

And they still have not delivered the handy flipbook hard copy that is supposed to come with my online subscription.

Another entry that has apparently changed since I purchased my last dead-tree edition of the Stylebook — in the spirit, if not the letter.

anonymous sources Use anonymous attribution only when essential and even then provide the most specific possible identification of the source. Simply quoting “a source,” unmodified, is almost always prohibited.

Brazil: E-Voting Issues Get An Airing

Brunazo (center): Speaking dystopian truth to the podres poderes.

Agência Câmara covers testimony by Mr. Brunazo Filho, the persistent Brizolist Brazilian e-voting activist who coordinates the Voto Seguro project, before the local equivalent of the judiciary committee today.

Leonel Brizola is a former Rio governor who passed into legend for foiling a Globo-backed election fraud in 1982. His party, the PDT, likes to cite that as part of its political legacy. I will translate you some of their literature on the subject. It’s interesting.

Ronaldo Lessa, the previous Alagoas governor, was a PDT politician, but left to form a new party. I think. Let me check that. Alagoas seems to have turned into something of a narco-dominated temporary autonomous zone. A federal task force was sent in recently after … well, after a lot of very, very strange things went down. See, e.g., Alagoas Calls in the Feds and Alagoas: Judge Reported Kidnapped, “Political Motivation” Linked to E-Voting Case Cited.

The government majority on the committee is proposing to set up a (permanent?) subcommittee on the topic.

TV Cidadania has posted a video interview by Aldo Novak with Engineer Amilcar, here.

It has been a while since the issue had any media exposure.

See, for example, Amilcar Gets Exposure on the G1 (Globo) news portal’s coverage of the issue on election eve.

I translate.

Especialistas em segurança de sistema de informática criticaram e apontaram vulnerabilidades no processo de voto eletrônico brasileiro. Em audiência pública na Comissão de Constituição e Justiça e de Cidadania (CCJ) nesta manhã, o representante do Fórum Voto Eletrônico, Amílcar BRUNAZO Filho, afirmou que já foram identificados pelo menos 120 pontos em que o processo pode ser atacado, desde a elaboração do programa até a totalização do resultado eleitoral. “É mais seguro transferir 1 milhão de dólares pela internet do que depositar um voto na urna eletrônica”, comparou.

[...] the representative of the Electronic Vote Forum said that at least 120 points of vulnerability have been identified that allow the system to be attacked, from the programming stage up to the vote tallying procedure. “It is safer to transfer $1 million over the Internet than it is to deposit a vote in voting machine,” he said.

Sampa Diary: “Teenaged Hookers Are Good for Business!”

“Always use a condom: Respect is a good thing, I like it, and it does not cost much.” A public service message from the Ministry of Health produced by Rio’s Daspu fashion label, which is run by a street prostitutes union and was included in the last São Paulo Biennial. The target of the satire, the Daslu luxury boutique — Alckmin’s daughter worked there — sued for trademark infringement.

Item: Centros de defesa da criança querem Timóteo fora da Câmara de SP.

Renting underage girls, taking them to a love motel and fucking them.

A São Paulo city legislator is all for it.

Anything for our gringo friends!

The attitude reminds me of Sen. Alberto Goldman’s famous remarks about the raid on the Daslu luxury boutique — where Geraldo “Decent Brazil” Alckmin’s daughter worked as a buyer — with warrants to toss the joint for evidence of smuggling, money-laundering, and racketeering.

“… this arrest could lead to an economic crisis. Businesses will say: why invest in Brazil if we are going to wind up getting arrested?”.

See Cultural Reference Lexicon Entry No. 48: Daslu.

See also my post on Brazilian Hooker Arbitrage.

Timóteo is also a popular recording artist, billing himself, on his Web site, as “the romantic voice of Brazil.”

In the city legislature, he sits on the Human Rights committee.

As declarações do vereador Agnaldo Timóteo (PR) a favor do turismo sexual infantil revoltaram representantes dos principais centros de defesa da criança e do adolescente em São Paulo.

City legislator Agnaldo Timóteo’s statements in favor of child sexual tourism has provoked outraged from leading rights advocates in São Paulo.

Na última terça-feira (27), ao comentar as declarações da nova ministra do Turismo, Marta Suplicy, que prometeu combater o turismo sexual, Timóteo classificou a idéia como “frescura” e defendeu que “é brincadeira” prender turistas estrangeiros que levam meninas de 16 anos para motéis. Em meio à sua argumentação, ao ser interpelado pela vereadora Claudete Alves (PT), o vereador chegou a perguntar com quantos anos ela havia tido sua primeira relação sexual.

Last Wednesday (March 27), commenting on statements by incoming Tourism minister, Marta Suplicy, that she would combat sexual tourism, Timóteo called the idea “flippant” and said that the idea of arresting foreign tourists who take 16-year-old girls to motels was “a joke.” In the middle of his speech, when questioned by city legislator Claudete Alves (PT), he asked his female colleague her age when she had her first sexual relations.

Brazil’s E-Vote: Fernandes on Founding Faith

Phony transparency: The interface is not the algorithm. “Electronic ballot box” simulation on the TSE Web Site: requires Java.

In Brazil’s Câmara dos Deputados, a committee hearing on the security of Brazil’s electronic voting system. I will clip in some news clippings as they come in.

O professor da Divisão de Ciência da Computação do Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA) Clóvis Torres Fernandes disse há pouco aos parlamentares que analisou todas as urnas de Alagoas nas últimas eleições e concluiu que, em 44,19% das 5.166 urnas, houve alguma perda de integridade. Em 1.619 foram detectados problemas na totalização de votos para governador, o que significou a perda de 22.562 votos.

Air Force Technological Institute computer science professor Clóvis Torres Fernandes said just now to committee members that he analyzed all the voting machines used in Alagoas and concluded that, in 44.19% of the 5,166 machines used, some loss of integrity occurred. In 1,619, problems with the totalization of votes for governor, which means a loss of 22,562 votes.

According to the Associated Press, that number was over 50,000. The AP on the Alagoas E-Vote Controversy: Cribbing Mumbo Jumbo.

 

The Brazilian congressional news agency, by the way, erroneously states, in its hedline, that it is Fernandes’ position that those voting machines were “violated” or “tampered with.”

That is not what the Fernandes Report states. It states that those machines malfunctioned, for causes that cannot be determined without further testing, up to and including deliberate tampering.

O professor fez três sugestões para amenizar os problemas:

1. voltar ao voto impresso enquanto não for possível garantir a auditoria do voto virtual;
2. realizar teste de penetração para avaliar se a urna antes das eleições pode ser invadida;
3. fazer uso de técnicas de criminalística computacional para exames mais detalhados das urnas suspeitas.

The professor made three recommendations for minimizing the problems: (1) return to the printed vote until an audit mechanism is provided for the virtual vote; (2) perform penetration testing to determine whether the machine can be tampered with prior to elections; (3) use techniques of computer crime investigation to conduct more detailed tests of the suspect machine.

Fraud and the Franchise

Albert “Constitution 2.0″ Gonzalez rewrites the rulebook. 

The Myth Of Voter Fraud: The WaPo runs an op-ed by two think-tankers of the Brennan Center at NYU.

Proven voter fraud, statistically, happens about as often as death by lightning strike.

At issue in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, as you know, is the notion that some of these may have been “soft on voter fraud” — on dead persons voting, “vote early, vote often” and other legendary Tammany Hall-style hijinks.

The disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida in the 2000 general election, of course, is also legendary. The Florida election authorities commissioned a list of convicted felons, who cannot vote by law, from Choicepoint. The list was grossly erroneous, and, as I recall reading, Choicepoint told the authorities they had a, er, data quality management issue.

But authorities preferred to skip data quality procedures, and the list was used to turn voters away, without prior notice.

Pure FUD, say the professors.

I will try to translate this into Portuguese if I get a chance. I have been meaning to do that more often. Call it ad hoc professional development. I can swear like a truck driver and tell dirty jokes, but I am still not that great at churning out standard prose.

Allegations of voter fraud — someone sneaking into the polls to cast an illicit vote — have been pushed in recent years by partisans seeking to justify proof-of-citizenship and other restrictive ID requirements as a condition of voting. Scare stories abound on the Internet and on editorial pages, and they quickly become accepted wisdom.

Sasquatch and the history of Texas mapacheria:

But the notion of widespread voter fraud, as these prosecutors found out, is itself a fraud. Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch. Where fraud exists, of course, it should be prosecuted and punished. (And politicians have been stuffing ballot boxes and buying votes since senators wore togas; Lyndon Johnson won a 1948 Senate race after his partisans famously “found” a box of votes well after the election.) Yet evidence of actual fraud by individual voters is painfully skimpy.

“São Paulo Smoking Hole Echoes With The Sound of Silence!”

 

Pictured here is not the Great Pinheiros Yellow Line Smoking Hole. The Line 2 extension on the São Paulo subway — our line! (above) — which is being built with a traditional rather than a World Bank-”recommended” turnkey contract and constant oversight by the state Metrô authority, has suffered no mishaps, say subway gophers.

LINHA 4: TRINTA PERGUNTAS AO GOVERNADOR: Paulo Henrique Amorim, a muckraking journo blogger on the iG portal, has been bashing São Paulo governor José Serra over the Great São Paulo Subway Yellow Line Smoking Hole Catastrophe of 2007.

On which see Earth Opens Up and Swallows Another Boondoggle for the initial report and “In Hell, The Engineers Are Brazilan and the Musicians Are German” for some recent commentary in the absence of further information.

Mr. Amorim likes to refer to Mr. Serra as “the president-elect of Brazil,” mocking his presidential aspirations for 2010. Mr. Serra opposed Candidate Squid in 2002, and got about the same number of votes as Geraldo Alckmin in the last election.

I am reserving judgment, myself — I tend to think Mr. Serra is getting sniped at from both sides, including lots of Toucan on Toucan noise machine campaigning.

My impression — and I am just a member of the peanut gallery, mind you, not a qualified pundit — is that Mr. Serra is at least not saying incredibly stupid and irresponsible things in public. That seems to be a matter of policy, too.

But Mr. Amorim does come up with a useful checklist of questions that need to be answered. I translate into my clipping file for future reference and annotation.

O acidente na Linha 4 do Metrô de São Paulo ocorreu no dia 12/01/2007. Portanto, no dia 02/04/2007 se completam 80 dias que a cratera se abriu.

The Line 4 accident happened on Jan 12, 2007. Thus, on April 2, 2007, 80 days will have passed since the crater opened up.

Até hoje, dia 28 de março, o Governador do Estado não deu nenhuma informação à população sobre o que houve e o que pretende fazer daqui para frente. Limitou-se a dizer que aguarda o laudo do IPT – órgão subordinado à Universidade de São Paulo, e, portanto, ao Governo do Estado.

As of today, March 28, the state government has not given the population any information on what happened or what it means to do from here on out. It has limited itself so saying it awaits the report of the IPT — a body that is part of the University of São Paulo, and therefore, under the authority of the state government.

Yes, but the USP movers and shakers — Toucan and petista factions alike — hate Serra with a passion these days, it seems to me. See “Serra [is] Frankenstein”: Notes on Bald Toucan-Bashing.

The WaPo on Rio Militias: Foreign Desk Does Foreign Disservice to Facts

The Peacemakers in mourning: “The battle flag of Rio das Pedras, Rio de Janeiro”

In Rio’s Slums, Militias Fuel Violence They Seek to Quell: The Washington Post‘s Foreign Service engages in “narrative journalism” in a story on militia activity in Rio de Janeiro that focuses on fallout from the Tostes case.

The guy at Global Guerillas thinks the story is great. Me, I think these folks tend to fall in love with extravagant theories about the withering of the nation-state and start ignoring the devil in the details.

The most problematic notion here being that Rio’s militias are in business to “quell violence.” They are business, it seems to me, to gain access to markets for traditional non-drug organized crime businesses with heavy assault weapons and the infamous microwave.

The Post’s story belongs to the same genre as Larry Rohter’s coverage of the issue, I think. See Rohter Simplifies the Plot Pra Inglês Ver.

Based on anonymous sources and glittering generalities, this bedtime story smooths the jagged edges off inconvenient facts and omits others entirely — the most glaring being any mention of militia involvement with entrenched non-narco organized crime, and through them to the local version of Colombian parapolitics.

Why?

Hint: the story is sourced almost entirely to anonymous “police” and “NGO” sources. Why not talk to local independent journalists, who have been digging into the story for years? Because the roots of this story go back years, if not decades.

There is nothing particularly new or innovative about the mafia business model.

It is also interesting to read the story alongside the Foreign Service desk’s recent coverage of Colombian parapolítica — see “Colombian Elites Are Shocked! Shocked!” — given the Bogota connection in the Rio case.

See, for example, Rio: Cabral Backs Off On Bogotá.

The only new fact here, to me, being that the Rio governor is meeting with security professionals in the Colombian city to study their approach to reducing urban violence.

On which see also my Death and Carnaval: Counting the Corpses.

Bogota’s secret? Gun control, according to public health studies I have looked at. And who runs guns in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, anyway?

We don’t know, but military-grade ammunition has been showing up in weapons seizures lately, and CartaCapital magazine recently noted a case involving use of military facilities, including weapons depots and ammo, for training of private, er, security consultants recruited by an Italian, er, military entrepreneur for work in Iraq.

A decorated police officer was sitting behind the wheel of his Toyota pickup truck here last month when a group of men surrounded the vehicle and pumped more than 40 bullets into him.

This is true: A Toyota Hilux. 72 shots were fired. He was leaving the apartment of his girlfriend in the Zona Oeste.

Decorated by the previous chief of the Civil Police, it is true, he had also been AWOL for over a month at the time, and was a fugitive from justice.

And who decorated him, by the way?

Another former Civil Police chief, Mr. Lins, recently elected to the state legislature, is awaiting trial on charges related to deep police involvement in an illegal gambling mafia, for example.

See Pela Internet: How Rio One-Armed Bandit King Paid Off Cops.

In the same case, a Globo TV journalist was indicted for tipping off criminals with information he gleaned from cops while doing his day job.

See A Globo Debacle Not Even the Soap Opera Scriptwriters Could Have Dreamed Up.

This story from the WaPo’s foreign desk completely neglects that aspect of the situation as well.

Such execution-style killings are not unusual in a city where police and gang members routinely battle for turf in the shantytowns, but this one sent ripples through Rio. The slain officer, Felix dos Santos Tostes, had been moonlighting as the leader of a militia unit — one of the well-armed groups that have multiplied throughout the city’s slums in recent months, complicating an urban conflict that has defied solution for decades.

In these “moonlighting” jobs, militia members can make up to ten times their official salary. So which job is the real job and which is the bico?

The implication that militia and other off-duty moonlighting activity by Rio police officers is unusual or shocking is disingenuous.

The idea that militias have “multiplied throughout the city’s slums in recent months” is equally disingenous. Militias have operated in on form or another in the city since the 1980s.

Ignoring the pile of reporting on the extent to which the militias are the police — and the extent to which some police agents are on the payroll of organized crime, if not equity partners — is disingenuous at best.

The militias have wrested control of nearly 100 of this city’s 600 slums, or favelas, from the drug gangs that have long held sway, according to police and nongovernmental organizations.

I have read that Rio has 700 shantytowns, but I am not sure who keeps official count. Where exactly do WaPo foreigner deskers get their factoids? I would like to double-check them.

The implication here, that drug gangs have “long held sway” over all 600 or 700 shantytowns in Rio, stinks of glittering generality and gross exaggeration.

I would like to know exactly what NGOs and police sources the WaPo reporter is talking to.

Brazil: Pires Persists; Squid Squeezes Airheads; Comparative Chaos Notes

“Airport clôse” and flights delayed by meteors screaming to Earth, ready to destroy all life! Kibe Loco comments that Infraero “needs English lessons.” Reuters, meanwhile, needs to sort out its risk prognostication methods.

29% of U.S. flights did not “arrive on time” in December 2006, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Brazil’s Infraero is reporting a delay rate of 1 in 6 flights in the last 24 hours, or 15.4%. The Brazilian news media consistently refers to the situation as an air travel “crisis” and “blackout.”

Pires stays on as Brazilian defense minister: This, I think it is fair to say, if if pans out, means that Reuters was wrong in its breathless prognostications about the imminent appointment of Aldo Rebelo to replace the elder statesman in the post.

That analysis, sourced without exception to anonymous “insiders,” was also picked up by quite a few of the bloggers in the Veja content ecosystem, I noticed, and their nasty little fellow travellers.

One more reason to mistrust punditry sourced anonymously for no stated reason at all, much less for a canonically acceptable one.

Gossip is not a good basis for decision making.

Am I making a controversial point here?

O presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sinalizou nesta terça-feira que o ministro Waldir Pires (Defesa) permanecerá no cargo, mas cobrou o fim da crise aérea no país. Ao chegar no Palácio do Itamaraty, Lula foi questionado por jornalistas sobre a presença de Pires no cargo e balançou a cabeça de forma afirmativa. “Continua”, respondeu.

President Lula signaled today that Waldir Pires will continue as minister of defense, but demanded an end to the air traffic crisis in the country. Arriving at the foreign minister at Itamaraty Palace, Lula was asked by journalists if Pires would remain and nodded his head in the affirmative. “He is staying,” he responded.

Antes disso, Lula afirmou que a crise do setor aéreo “vem se arrastando desde março do ano passado” e que ele quer uma definição sobre o prazo, dia e hora para o fim do caos nos aeroportos.

Beforehand, Lula said that the crisis in air transportation “has been dragging on since March a year ago” and that we wants to know when, to the day and hour, the chaos in the airports will end.

“Eu quero prazo, dia e hora para a gente anunciar ao Brasil que não vai ter mais problemas nos aeroportos brasileiros”, disse.

I want a deadline, a day and hour, when we can announce to Brazil that there will be no more problems in our airports,” he said.

I believe President Squid used the word “problems” rather than “chaos.”

The problem, allegedly, being an unusually high rate of flight delays.

Maranhão: Death of a Repentista

Repentistas do their thing.

PM’s acusados de envolvimento vão à Delegacia de Homicídios: In San Luis, Maranhão, in northern Brazil, a well-known local repentista — a composer of topical, improvised poetry, from a tradition that you might call a form of embryonic rap — is killed by military police.

The policeman are giving depositions. Two have been indicted.

A delegada Edilúcia do Carmo Chaves Trindade, titular da Delegacia de Homicídios, presidente do inquérito instaurado para apurar o assassinato do ator, compositor, poeta e repentista Jeremias Pereira da Silva, 46 anos, o popular Gerô, interrogou na tarde de ontem três policiais militares que teriam testemunhado o crime. O tenente Carlos Aleksandro e o sargento Sérgio Henrique Mendes, apontados como testemunhas, foram indiciados por omissão de tortura e tortura, respectivamente. O Pm Valdimar Santos Carvalho, outra testemunha, só iniciou seu depoimento por volta das 20h.

This afternoon, civil police official Edilúcia do Carmo Chaves Trindade, head of the Homicide Bureau and chief investigator in the inquiry into the murder of the popular actor, composer, poet and repentista, Jeremias Pereira da Silva, 46, known as Gerô, questioned three military policemen who reportedly witnessed the crime. Lt. Carlos Aleksandro and Sgt. Sérgio Henrique Mendes, have been indicted for condoning torture and torture, respectively. PM Valdimar Santos Carvalho, another witness, began his statement at around 8 pm.

Na presença de três promotores de justiça – A delegada Edilúcia Trindade tem 10 dias para concluir a peça informativa e encaminhá-la à justiça, por tratar-se de prisão em flagrante e o prazo se encerra na próxima sexta-feira (30). Durante o intervalo, Edilúcia Trindade conversou com os jornalistas e disse que todos os depoimentos foram acompanhados pelos promotores de justiça Themis Carvalho, Cláudio Guimarães e Cláudio Cabral, da Promotoria de Investigações Criminais, e pelo PM major Tinoco, comandante do 9º BPM, onde os acusados são lotados. Familiares de Gerô também estiveram na Delegacia de Homicídios, bem como os advogados dos militares, Margareth Maud Madeira dos Santos e Marcos Vinícius Azevedo de Andrade. “Nossa intenção é não cercear o direito de defesa dos acusados”, enfatizou a delegada.

In the presence of three prosecutors — Trindade has 10 days to conclude the factual part of her investigation and send it to prosecutors, since the arrest was made in flagrante delicto and the deadline expires next Friday (March 30). During a break in the questioning, Trindade spoke to journalist and said all the depositions were heard by three prosecutors .. from the Criminal Investigations office, and by Major Tinco of the PM, commander of the 9th Military Police Battalion, where the accused are billeted. Relatives of Gerô were also on hand, as well as attorneys for the PMs … “Our intention is not to infringe on the rights of the accused,” said the homicide inspector.

De testemunhas a indiciados – De acordo com a autoridade policial, uma testemunha (flanelinha que presenciou a barbárie) também foi apresentada e apontou o sargento Mendes como o militar que teria “batido com a tampa da viatura” na cabeça de Gerô. A declaração dele e de outras pessoas arroladas serviu para esclarecer mais os fatos e o sargento passou de testemunha a acusado, sendo indiciado no inquérito. Quanto ao tenente Aleksandro, que teria “apenas pegado uma carona na viatura”, também deixou a condição de testemunha e Edilúcia o indiciou no inquérito “por omissão de tortura”, tendo em vista que ele teria assistido a todo o desenrolar dos acontecimentos. Já o soldado Valdimar, que estava de serviço no posto do Terminal Rodoviário e teria se recusado a receber “o preso” por causa de seu estado, também poderá ser indiciado.

From witnesses to defendants — According to the police official, a witness (a [street person] who witnesses the act of barbarity) appeared and pointed to Sgt. Mendes as the PM who had “slammed” Gerô’s head “with the hood of his squad car.” His declaration and that of others helped to clarify the facts, and the sergeant went from a witness to a defendant, with the issuance of an indictment. As to Lt. Aleksandro, who said he had “just bummed a ride in the squad car,” was also indicted for “condoning torture,” given that he had been present during the entire indicdent. Pvt. Valdimar, who was on duty at the bus station and refused to take custody of “the prisoner” because of his condition, might also be indicted.

Alckmin Arrives on the Playing Fields of Harvard

Alckmin the Harvard scholarship boy: As honest and competent as his hair is long?

From The Fellows Program | Weatherhead Center for International Affairs | Harvard University:

Geraldo Alckmin (galckmin(at)wcfia.harvard.edu), Brazil, was the principal opposition candidate in the 2006 presidential elections, receiving about 40% of the valid vote. Previously, he was the governor of the State of São Paulo, Brazil’s most important and developed state, responsible for 31% of the country’s GDP. As governor from 2001 to 2006, he helped transform the economy and administration of the state, with the result that he left office with very favorable approval ratings. He served as lieutenant governor from 1994 to 2000, and as congressman for the State of São Paulo from 1983 to 1994. He also has the distinction of having been Brazil ‘s youngest mayor ever; he was elected mayor of his home town of Pindamonhangaba at the age of just 18. He was a founding member, in 1988, of Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB), one of Brazil ‘s most influential political parties. Mr. Alckmin was educated at Taubaté University , from which he received a bachelor of science degree and a doctor of medicine degree; he earned his specialization in anesthesiology at São Paulo ‘s Public Servant Hospital. While at Harvard, he plans to conduct research in several areas, including the economy of Latin America , management and public administration, and urban planning and policies. He is married to Maria Lúcia and they have three children, Sophia (26), Geraldo (25), and Thomaz (23).

Sophia worked for Daslu, where she lobbied Alckmin’s state treasurer for exceptions from tax accounting rules on behalf of her employer, according to sworn public testimony from the man.

Alckmin, as governor, had cut the ribbon on the shop’s new 20,000 square meter facility in early 2005 — shortly before the federal police and an army of auditors stormed in and arrested everyone in sight on lurid charges worthy of a Paraguayan Marlboro counterfeiting mafia.

Still waiting for the other shoe to drop on that case.

Alckmin and such political allies as Magalhães — see Antônio Carlos Magalhães Chews The Carpet — screamed “political persecution.”

Lu Alckmin, meanwhile, claimed that she had donated mountains of haute couture she had received from Sâo Paulo fashion houses to a Catholic charity. The charity said it had received no such donation. I have the clippings. Want me to send them along?

A Forbes Brasil profile on Lu during the campaign pictured her emerging from private jets belonging to somebody else even as Geraldo was boasting that he would decommission Brazil’s presidential Boeing 707 as an austerity measure.

On Alckmin’s election in 1976 as mayor of the city where he was born:

Em 1976, Alckmin foi eleito prefeito da sua cidade natal por uma diferença de apenas 67 votos e logo de cara nomeou seu pai como chefe de gabinete, sendo acusado de nepotismo. Ainda como prefeito, tomou outra iniciativa definidora do seu perfil, que na época não despertou muitas suspeitas: no cinqüentenário do Opus Dei, em 1978, ele batizou uma rua de Pinda com o nome de Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, o fundador desta seita fascista. Na seqüência, ele foi eleito deputado estadual (1982) e federal (1986). Na Constituinte, em 1998 [sic], teve uma ação apagada e recebeu nota sete do Diap; em 1991, tornou-se presidente da seção paulista do PSDB ao derrotar o grupo histórico do partido, encabeçado por Sérgio Motta.

In 1976, Alckmin was elected mayor by only 67 votes and immediately named his father as his chief of staff, and was accused of nepotism. As mayor, he undertook another initiative that would set the tone for his political career: On the 50th anniversary of Opus Dei, in 1978, he renamed Pinda St. for Josemaira Escrivã de Balaguer, founder of this fascist sect. Later, he was elected state deputy (1982) and federal deputy (1986). During the Constitutional Assembly of [1988] he was [...]; in 1991, he became São Paulo party chair of the PSDB, defeating the historical party leadership, headed by Sérgio Motta.

Kirchner Turns Up Heat on Generalissimos

Fuerte crítica de Kirchner a la Cámara de Casación (La Nación): Rio’s “ex-blogging” mayor, César “The Naked” Maia, keeps pointing to the interesting parallels between what Kirchner is doing to demilitarize the Argentine government and the Lula government’s attempts to do something similar.

And you also hear government ministers in Brazil, especially Pires of Defense, downplaying the analogies, playing up the “Brazil is not Argentina” meme.

See “Sabotage Suspected, Says Brazilian Defense Minister”.

This is a fascinating debate, which, to me — and remember, I am just an amateur idiot who has read a few books — turns on the question, “What did you do during the dirty wars, Daddy?”

And who paid for your kids to go to Harvard? Was there a quid pro quo?

Again, it is interesting to contrast Brazilian generalissimos of whom it can be credibly asserted that they did not retire with Malufian Swiss bank accounts with the likes of Pinochet — see Merry Xmas from Hell.

You then try to start guessing how a Brazilian national reconciliation process might go about winnowing the wheat from the chaff.  (Some say Delfim Netto, the economic guru who signed AI-5, is a murderer for that reason, fo example. But the guy writes a — quirky, often boring and abstruse, but Kremlinologically interesting — column for CartaCapital.)

Especially if archives of the dictatorship keep on disappearing, as the Folha de S. Paulo reported recently. I mean to translate that for you.

Because the amnesty law in Brazil is bound to go at some point, given the international treaties that Brazil has put its John Hancock on.

See, for example:

• “In Defense of Amnesty”
• A General’s Farewell to the Troops

How to manage the transition is the delicate question.

The mechanism devised for the FNSP, a state-federal law enforcement cooperation program, provides some hints on what is being tried.

Latest newsflow on the antics of adamant Argy:

How Elba Esther Got Her Chips in the Big Game: Proceso

The Teacher and Felipe  “I am not a mano dura” Calderón.

El ISSSTE de Elba Esther: Proceso magazine argues that we ought to think of Mexico’s civil service pension reform as handing over the keys to the public treasury to a grotesquely corrupt she-caudillo, who now gets a pile chipsto play the game on the same scale as Mr. Gil Díaz allegedly did.

See also Mexico: The Teacher Reaches for the Golden Apple.

Recall, also, that the Oaxaca situation began, in part, as a revolt by a dissident teachers union, Section 22, against the national leadership of the SNTE. Other locals are carrying on a similar struggle. Section 37 in, I think it is, Baja California del Sur, for example. They vlog, too, on YouTube. It is an interesting grassroots media case study.

Proceso magazine, by the way, does not regard the Calderón goverment with grudging respect, as the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post would have you believe.

Proceso has labored mightily and consistently to elaborate the suspicion that Calderón’s relations with the president of the massively corrupt national teacher’s union is grotesquely incongruent with PAN’s empty, Mussolini-style moralizing discourse.

See:

• Proceso Keeps Cooking Calderón
• Elba “The Teacher” Esther: The Rank and File Fester
• Autohagiography By Proxy: “The Surprising Competence of Calderón the Nerd” 
• Translation: A Free Primer for the WaPo, in which Jefferson Morley of Global Opinion Roundup mistranslates a Proceso op-ed piece in order to misrepresent a material statement of fact on which it relies.

Proceso also continues to insist that this latest political victory for the Gordillo cabal shows signs of being a political quid pro quo, although the nature of the quid that purchased so much quo remains a bit murky.

El Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado (ISSSTE) comenzó a ser privatizado cuando su gestión fue entregada por el presidente Fox a Elba Ester Gordillo, que lo dirigió a través de Benjamín González Roaro, ahora diputado panista-elbista y uno de los firmantes del proyecto de ley del nuevo ISSSTE, a la que, cuando sea aprobada, convendrá llamar Ley Gordillo, porque ella es su autora, la tejedora de la urdimbre que ha puesto bajo su férula personal, privada, el órgano de seguridad social de la burocracia federal.

ISSSTE began to be privatized when its management was turned over by Fox to Elba Ester [sic] Gordillo, who ran it through Benjamin González Roaro, currently a PAN deputy allied with Gordillo and one of the authors of the current ISSSTE reform bill, which, if passed, ought to be called the Gordillo Bill, because she is its author and the prime mover behind the move to place the social security administration of the federal civil serve beneath her personal, private, iron rule.   

I believe a Supreme Court decision, requiring the body to admit an SNTE-led labor coalition for state educational employees to a board controlled by a political rival of Gordillo’s, who represents a confederation of federal employees’ unions, also played a role.

Oh, right: Proceso gets to that next.

COPPE-Out? The COPPE-UFRJ E-Voting Report

Relatório COPPE-UFRJ do Voto-E (Voto Seguro, Brazil): In 2002, the PT political party commissioned a report on the software development process used to produce software for Brazil’s electronic voting machine.

As the matter is about to get a public hearing the Brazilian Congress this week, it might be interesting to translate pra inglês ver.

Maybe somebody will google it up and find it informative.

In itself, the story of the COPPE reports makes for an interesting nerdy detective story and miniature exposé that deserves more follow-up than it has gotten.

I have not done that follow-up, mind you. I tend to think that newspapers should do that for me, doing the due diligence so I do not have to.

But even the world-class journalistic brands often do not do that anymore. See, for example, The AP on the Alagoas E-Vote Controversy: Cribbing Mumbo Jumbo.

A Fundação COPPETEC, ligada à UFRJ, foi contratada pelo Partido dos Trabalhadores em 2002, para elaborar uma avaliação da qualidade do software do Sistema Informatizado de Eleições (SIE) do TSE.

The COPPETEC foundation, with ties to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, was hired by the Workers’ Party in 2002 to evaluate the quality of the software used in the Computerized Elections System (SIE) of the federal elections authority (TSE).

The Public and Public Information: Mexican Divorced?

Gobiernos obstruyen acceso a información: A cover story from the El Universal (Mexico City) newspaper, which has been on something of a crusade on this topic lately. See also Mexican Ombudsmen: A Black Year For Transparency, Press, Human Rights.

Organismos encargados de garantizar el derecho de acceso a la información pública denunciaron que diversas leyes locales y funcionarios obstaculizan la transparencia de datos gubernamentales

Agencies responsible for guaranteeing the right to access to public information charge that various local laws and officials are erecting barriers to the transparency of government information.

En un foro organizado por este diario los comisionados presidentes de Morelos, Sinaloa, Puebla, el estado de México y el Distrito Federal, así como el presidente del Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información (IFAI), Alonso Lujambio Irazábal, advirtieron presiones de algunas autoridades estatales.

In a forum organized by this newspaper, the transparency commissioners from Morelos, Sinaloa, Puebla, Mexico State and the Federal District, as well as the president of the Federal Institute for Access to Information (IFAI), Alonso Lujambio Irazábal, noted pressures by certain state authorities.

 

On another aspect of the approach taken by the PAN governor of Morelos, see Narcocops in Cuernavaca: A Slice of Life.

On the approach to public information taken by the governor of Sonora, see Bours of Another Color: Stifling The Press in Sonora.

Mexico Adelante: More on Wal-Mart’s Banana-Republican Bank

In a recent “intelligence unit” backgrounder, El Financiero looks at Banco Wal-Mart de México Adelante S.A., as it gears up to start operations. I translate, in haste, because you get what you pay for, pra inglês ver:

El nombre de registro ante las autoridades es Banco Wal-Mart de México Adelante, SA; sin embargo, no necesariamente será con el que se dé a conocer al público, reveló a la UIAE de EL FINANCIERO, Antonio Ocaranza, vocero de la cadena de tiendas de autoservicio más grande en México y a la que la SHCP le otorgó permiso para operar como banco.

The name on the official registration is Banco Wal-Mart de México Adelante, S.A., but this is not necessarily the name by which it will be known to the public, says Antonio Ocaranza, spokesman for the largest self-service retail chain in Mexico, which regulators have granted permission to operate as a bank.

Stateside Supremes: Moonlighting Moralists Pull a Mendes

Me reading about Mendes (left).

For our friends, anything; for our enemies, the law.

Alito, Scalia to Teach Summer Courses at Starr-Deaned Law School: Brazilian friends will be interested in the similarity between this case and the Mendes controversy back there in the gigante por natureza:

When former judge, solicitor general, and Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr argued a key First Amendment case before the Supreme Court last week, he was there in his capacity as of counsel at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis. But he was also playing a lesser-known role: As dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law, Starr is also the summer employer of two of the justices who heard the case.

Justice Mendes faces misconduct charges over a similar arrangement, although in that case, he was a partner in the legal education firm at which he lectured, and taught courses there while employed as the solicitor general (or something comparable) of the FHC government.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito Jr. will be teaching courses for the law school’s summer programs — Scalia for two days in London and Alito for two weeks in Malibu, Calif., university officials have confirmed. Typically, the justices are paid several thousand dollars for teaching stints like these, representing one of the few opportunities justices have to make outside income.

Narcocops in Cuernavaca: A Slice of Life

Marco Antonio Adame of PAN.

Morelos: En la red del narcotráfico (Proceso, Mexico): Just another one of those “narcos in high places” stories.

Cuernavaca, Mor., 26 de marzo (apro).- La ejecución del policía ministerial Juan Luis Montes Delgado, quien fue encontrado con un índice amputado en el interior de su boca, el pasado 11 de marzo, confirmó lo que el gobierno de Morelos ha negado sistemáticamente: la presencia del narcotráfico y una agudización de la violencia desde que iniciaron las acciones contra el crimen organizado en estados vecinos como Guerrero y Michoacán.

Cuernavaca, Morelos — The execution of state police official Juan Luis Montes Delgado, who was found with his severed index finger inside his month, on March 11, confirmed what the Morelos state goverment has systematically denied: the presence of the narcotraffic and an escalation of violence since the actions against organized crime were launched in such neighboring states as Guerrero and Michoacán. 

In Guerrero, the PAN state party chair has been arrested for allegedly ordering the assassination of a PAN legislator who was investigating corruption in the passing of state money to municipalities.

En abril de 2004, bajo la administración de Sergio Estrada Cajigal, la Procuraduría General de la República detuvo al entonces jefe de la Policía Ministerial del estado, Agustín Montiel López, actualmente preso en el penal de El Altiplano, en Almoloya de Juárez, Estado de México, acusado de narcotráfico y delincuencia organizada.

In April 2004, under Gov. Estrada, the federal attorney general arrested then-state police chief Montiel López, who is currently confined in the El Altiplano prison in Mexico State, accused of narcotrafficking and organized criminal activity.

Pese a los antecedentes sobre esta actividad delictiva en la entidad, el gobernador Marco Antonio Adame Castillo se rehúsa a solicitar el apoyo de las fuerzas federales, bajo el argumento de que “aún no estamos en el contexto de entidades que lamentablemente están siendo golpeadas por la presencia y operación de cuerpos del crimen organizado”.

Despite the precedents for criminal activity in the state government, Gov. Adame refused to request support from the federal government, arguing that “we are not yet in the situation of those states that unfortunately have been plagued by the presence and operation of organized crime groups.”

The AP on the Alagoas E-Vote Controversy: Cribbing Mumbo Jumbo

The interface is not the algorithm. “Electronic ballot box” simulation on the TSE Web Site: requires Java.

If you cannot bring good news then don’t bring any — Bob Dylan, “Wicked Messenger”

Brazil’s electronic voting system probed for possible fraud in governor’s race (AP/IHT): I was just checking with a new feature on Google News, the news archive search.

In my first run-through, I came up with this Associated Press story on the Alagoas election fraud controversy, from January 22, which ran in the International Herald Tribune.

I have been sort of glued to this story, as you know, and trying to read all the court filings and technical reports, among them the so-called Fernandes Report.

See, for starters, The Great Alagoas E-Voting WTF: Did Brazilian Election Authorities Cover Up Fraud, Incompetence?

The subject will be the subject of a hearing in the Brazilian congress this week.

The AP’s reporting is lazy, incoherent and ineptly sourced, and editorializes crassly at certain points. One more item to file under The Shrinking Investment in Finding Shit Out.

It has apparently merely cribbed the Veja magazine story on the subject — see Brazil: Feds Order Indy Audit of Alagoas E-Voting Machines and Indymedia Oddity: Infowarriors Brandish Veja “Scoop” in FUD Campaign — and, what is worse, it garbles the factoids in the process.

Prof. Fernandes, a computer science researcher at an Air Force R&D institute, examined the log files of the machines and found, among other things, that the total number of votes counted was larger than the number of votes cast, as recorded in those log files.
Wrote Fernandes:

The total number of votes recorded in the log file is less, by nearly 20,000 votes, than in the official results as published.

Somehow, it seems, that statement morphs into the proposition that “52,000 votes were cast but not counted.”

But first of all, the Associated Press editorializes in the lead paragraph.

SAO PAULO, Brazil: Authorities are investigating claims that some of Brazil’s highly praised electronic voting machines were tampered with in a remote northeastern state ahead of elections last fall.

Who praises them? Who does not?

Brazil’s electronic voting machines are highly praised by the press office Brazil’s elections authorities and certain commercial media outlets that reproduce its PR campaigns verbatim.

The lawsuit is based on a technical report that found that tampering cannot be ruled out and that further tests are needed to investigate the causes of discrepancies discovered from examining the log files.

I think, technically speaking, that the two lawsuits filed by the candidate, Mr. Lyra, aim at two possible outcomes:

1. If the machines are found to have malfunctioned on a large scale, the results should be voided as unreliable and a new election should be held; and
2. if those malfunctions were induced for the purpose of committing fraud, the candidate who benefited from the fraud should have his mandate canceled, and then new elections should be held.

I have no idea where AP gets the following number, which is sourced to an anonymous TSE spokeswoman.

Lawyers for a candidate who lost the race to become governor of Alagoas state said some 52,000 votes cast weren’t counted by the machines, which had been praised worldwide for their efficiency and infallibility, a spokeswoman for Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal said Monday.