China and Brazil cement their alliance. A country such as Brazil can go a long way in guaranteeing its sovereignty or territorial integrity by forging a partnership with China. Whoever attacks Brazil attacks China. Both Russia and China are helping Brazil gain the capability to launch ICBMs with nuclear warheads. -Am
Brazil Petrobras, China's Sinopec To Unveil Deals In May
Saturday March 27, 3:47 AM
ITAGUAI, Brazil (Dow Jones)--Brazilian oil giant Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR), or Petrobras, and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (SNP), or Sinopec, are looking into forging partnerships in oil exploration and production, refining and fuel sales, a top executive said Friday.
"Everybody wants to be in the Chinese market, so we are also studying ways to do business with them," Petrobras' chief executive Jose Eduardo Dutra told journalists on the sidelines of a visit to an industrial facility about 85 kilometers southeast of Rio de Janeiro.
He said Petrobras has started to negotiate a cooperation accord that is expected to be signed during a state visit by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to the Asian country in May.
Dutra also said Sinopec is interested in participating in Brazil's sixth oil exploration-and-production licensing round, scheduled for August.
"They may bid in partnership with us for some of the blocks on offer," the chief executive said.
Petrobras had already said in a statement last month that the agreement would focus on "cooperation and partnerships to study opportunities in oil exploration and production, oil and gas sales, refining and petrochemicals."
The South American oil giant said in the statement the companies recognized partnerships would allow them to develop "large-scale projects" that would benefit China and Brazil and the company's shareholders.
Meanwhile, Dutra said Petrobras will likely announce its new strategic plan in May, after the board of director reviews it in a meeting on April 29.
The new plan includes a revamped business plan until 2010, including a revision in investments, and also lays down guidelines through 2015.
These documents also reveal what some experts say was a major miscalculation by the CIA.
At the time of the 1964 Brazil coup the U.S. was involved in the feverish competition against communism known as the Cold War. That ‘coloured their judgment’. With Brazil the military aid was never needed, the coup ended swiftly and without carnage.
``The CIA was probably harking back to events in 1961, when the military was deeply divided over the issue of Goulart assuming power,' said American political scientist David Fleischer, who teaches at the University of Brasilia. ``But, just as there was no violence in 1961, there was none in 1964. It was a CIA miscalculation, not for the first time and not for the last.'
Now during the new Cold War we find the 80-page report from Israel’s own Parliament just as damning, especially so in context with other documents and behaviors. Israel has ‘colored their judgment’ regarding Iraq in much the same way Bush and cohorts have ‘colored their judgment’. #msg-2682946
Regarding Iraq the intelligence communities of Israel and the United States got it wrong just as in the Brazilian incident “They (the CIA) got it wrong.”
This time the U.S. and Israel are involved in a feverish competition against other consuming countries for oil and gas that has ‘coloured their judgment’. Unlike Brazil the conflict with Iraq did not conclude quickly nor is there an end in sight to the war or to the bloodshed.
And now Brazil is about to point ICBMs with nuclear warheads at us. #msg-2670339
Therein lurks the danger of ‘colored judgment’. When you get it wrong sometimes there are repercussions.
-Am
Papers on 1964 Brazil Coup Declassified
Saturday April 3, 2004 10:46 AM
By TOM MURPHY
Associated Press Writer
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Newly declassified U.S. documents show the extent of American willingness to provide aid to Brazil's generals during the 1964 coup that ushered in 21 years of often bloody military rule.
The National Security Archive, a non-governmental Washington-based research group, posted the documents on its Web site this week to coincide with Wednesday's 40th anniversary of the coup.
Figuring prominently in the records is Lincoln Gordon, the U.S. ambassador to Brazil at the time and now a resident expert in Latin American affairs at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
``We were working at a frenzied pace in those days to get Washington ready for whatever might happen,' Gordon, 90, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. ``It was the height of the Cold War and Brazil was a major country in Latin America.'
The documents show members of Lyndon B. Johnson's administration actively preparing to aid the coup plotters.
In a March 27, 1964, cable to the State Department, Gordon requested a naval task force and deliveries of fuel and arms to the coup plotters ``to help avert a major disaster here.'
Gordon said in the cable that Brazil could fall under the spell of a communist-style regime led by President Joao Goulart, ``which might make Brazil the China of the 1960s.' Mainland China turned communist in 1949 under Mao Zedong.
The documents also reveal what some experts say was a major miscalculation by the CIA.
A CIA cable from Brazil, dated March 30, predicted a military coup ``within the next few days.' It added, ``The revolution will not be resolved quickly and will be bloody.'
In fact, the coup was put in motion the next day, March 31, and was over by April 4, when Goulart fled to exile in Uruguay. The entire episode was bloodless.
``The CIA was probably harking back to events in 1961, when the military was deeply divided over the issue of Goulart assuming power,' said American political scientist David Fleischer, who teaches at the University of Brasilia. ``But, just as there was no violence in 1961, there was none in 1964. It was a CIA miscalculation, not for the first time and not for the last.'
A Brazilian historian, Gaudenico Torquato of the University of Sao Paulo, said, ``They (the CIA) got it wrong. At that time, the U.S. was involved in the feverish competition against communism known as the Cold War. That colored their judgment.'
In a March 31 reply to Gordon, Secretary of State Dean Rusk said the administration had decided to ``immediately mobilize' a naval task force. He also promised fuel, ammunition and tear gas shipments to the Brazilian military.
``These new documents serve to reinforce what is now a well-known tale,' said Fleischer. ``The U.S. organized its support for the coup in an operation called Brother Sam. The task force ended up steaming toward the South Atlantic, but the aid was never needed. The coup ended quickly and without bloodshed.'
Gordon said Rusk made it clear that the U.S. would only intervene under certain circumstances. ``He wanted to make sure there was broad political support in Brazil for the military before advising any intervention.'
The documents show President Johnson was keenly following events in Brazil. In one instance, Johnson instructs aides ``to take every step that we can' to aid Brazilian military forces opposed to Goulart.
The audiotape presents a briefing between Johnson and national security aides. In it, Johnson says, ``I'd get right on top of it and stick my neck out a little.'
But Gordon said: ``People like Rusk were cautious. I think they were influenced by the Bay of Pigs and didn't want a repeat of that experience.'
In 1961, anti-Castro rebels, supported and armed by the U.S., were defeated by Castro when they attempted to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
From 1964 to 1985, Brazil was ruled by a string of five colorless military presidents chosen by their fellow officers. The dictatorship ended in 1985 when a democracy movement swept the country.
Brazil has the right to guard its nuclear secrets: top scientist
In the next few months Brazil anticipates signing contracts with Russia that will give them the capability of bringing to orbit large payloads or to launch ICBMs
A little-discussed Brazilian uranium enrichment program illustrates some critical flaws in the Bush administration's campaign to prevent the proliferation of what it calls the world's most dangerous weapons.
It is very clear, Brazil, our neighbor to the South, is going for ICBMs with nuclear warheads. This apparently is being kept quiet probably at least until after our presidential election. -Am
Brazil has the right to guard its nuclear secrets: top scientist
RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil’s uranium enrichment process is not secret, but Brazil has “technical solutions” that it has the right to keep confidential, one of the country’s top nuclear scientist told AFP on Tuesday.
“There are no conceptual secrets,” said scientist Luis Pinguelli Rosa, currently president of Brazil’s national electricity concern, Electrobras.
“But there are advanced technological solutions that Brazil has the right to guard,” he said. Those “technological solutions” include equipment set up and materials used, he added.
Pinguelli insisted that Brazil’s programme was peaceful, and that Brazil uses an ultra centrifugation process used in Europe, while the United States and Russia use the different gas diffusion process.
“There is in no way a need for a further ‘intrusion’ (of the inspectors) to check the uranium enrichment,” Pinguelli said. It comes down to a “matter of principles” for Brazil to stand up to the “imperial position” of the United States, he added.
Brazil is a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well as the Tlateloco treaty, which bans nuclear weapons in Latin America. Also, the Brazilian Constitution clearly prohibited atomic weapons, he said. —AFP
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
