February 8, 2020

Government Wants Foreign Companies to Build Public Infrastructure Works

Today foreign companies must have a Brazilian subsidiary company
Feb.7.2020 12:36PM

Fábio Pupo
Bernardo Caram
BRASÍLIA
The Jair Bolsonaro administration wants to allow foreign companies to bid for infrastructure projects and become government suppliers without the need for a Brazilian subsidiary. It will likely introduce a new measure soon.

The Ministry of Economy thinks the measure will ease the participation of international groups in infrastructure works - such as on highways, railways, and airports.

Today, the law requires a Brazilian company or even an individual to represent the foreign company in the bidding process legally. Now, a normative statement is being prepared to allow outside groups to participate directly.

Cristiano Heckert, Secretary of Management at the Ministry of Economy, estimates that the measure will be published in March and start to take effect until May. “She [company] comes in and starts bidding from anywhere in the world, wherever she is.”

More:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/business/2020/02/government-wants-foreign-companies-to-build-public-infrastructure-works.shtml

February 8, 2020

Brazil's Military Elite Sees France as A Threat

Secret document envisions war over the Amazon, American bases in Brazil, Chinese action and even terror at Rock in Rio
Feb.7.2020 12:29PM

Igor Gielow
SÃO PAULO
The Brazilian military elite views France as a strategic threat to Brazil. This stems from France's renewed interest in internationalizing the Amazon.

This is the view of the secret draft "Defense Scenarios 2040", a document that Folha accessed. The document helps to support the ongoing review of the National Defense Strategy and will be sent to Congress by June.

Their views may or may not be accepted by the defense ministry. Still, they reflect the feelings among the officers - the meetings took place in military commands, organized by the Escola Superior de Guerra.




(FILES) In this file photograph taken on June 28, 2019, France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro attend a meeting on the digital economy at the G20 Summit in Osaka. (Photo by Jacques Witt / POOL / AFP) - AFP

The folder says that it spoke to people from the "internal and external sphere". According to those involved in the process, the military is the absolute majority of ears.

More:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/world/2020/02/brazils-military-elite-sees-france-as-a-threat.shtml

February 8, 2020

From Venezuela with love: fugitive coalition politician drops corruption bomb on Duque's allies

Aida Merlano (Screenshot: YouTube)

by Adriaan Alsema February 7, 2020

From a Venezuelan courtroom, fugitive coalition politician Aida Merlano accused President Ivan Duque of being complicit in a plot to assassinate her.

The bombshell accusation was just one of many made by Merlano who broke prison in October last year and was arrested in the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo earlier this month.

Justice Minister Margarita Cabello rejected the accusations, claiming they were a “fabrication of the dictatorial regime of Nicolas Maduro that seek to smear the honor of the president.”

Whether the president has honor is as speculative as whether parts of Merlano’s testimony were fabricated.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/from-venezuela-fugitive-coalition-politician-drops-corruption-bomb-on-duques-allies/

February 8, 2020

How crooks elect presidents, according to Colombia's first and only voter fraud convict

How crooks elect presidents, according to Colombia’s first and only voter fraud convict
by Adriaan Alsema February 7, 2020

Fugitive politician Aida Merlano explained how Colombia’s presidents are elected through elaborate election fraud during the first court hearing after her arrest in Venezuela.

The neighbor’s president, Nicolas Maduro, must have been drooling; His Colombian counterpart Ivan Duque has called Venezuela’s government a dictatorship.

Merlano, Colombia’s first and ever politician sentenced to prison over election fraud, destroyed any illusion Colombia is a democracy.

Instead, the fugitive politician told in detail how presidents come to power through elections that are rigged by a corrupt elite.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/how-crooks-elect-presidents-according-to-colombias-first-and-only-voter-fraud-convict/

Also posted in LBN:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142430537

February 7, 2020

If Iowa Was Bolivia, the US Would Have Already Intervened

BY KEVIN CASHMAN

We're still waiting for the full results of the Iowa caucus. In Bolivia, the United States backed a violent coup against Evo Morales for even less.



Last October, Bolivia held a presidential election that pitted incumbent Evo Morales against former president Carlos Mesa. Morales, a socialist that had been in power since 2006, was popular and successful, although his reelection bid was marred by a contentious decision to scrap presidential term limits. Many in the opposition had promised they wouldn’t recognize the results if Morales won.

On election day, as tallies trickled in and the election commission reported results from the unofficial “quick count,” Mesa preemptively declared victory, claiming that he had forced a second round of voting. (Presidential candidates in Bolivia must capture 50 percent of the vote, or must receive at least 40 percent of the vote and lead the second-place candidate by at least ten percentage points, in order to win outright.) Controversially, the election commission then stopped reporting voting tallies for the night. The outcome was up in the air.

Sound familiar?

Along with the suspension of results, both the Democratic presidential caucuses in Iowa and the presidential election in Bolivia faced geographic challenges (there were more than 1,600 precincts in Iowa and 5,300 in Bolivia, many of them rural) as well as technological hurdles (using smartphone apps to record results requires technical familiarity and internet access). Security concerns in each election caused administrative delays, although in Bolivia the delay was briefer, and the official count — entirely separate from the quick count and tabulated in person — was not affected by the suspension.

One thing, however, is entirely different: Morales was overthrown in a violent coup, with the full backing of the United States. The worst that could happen in Iowa is the state losing its first-in-the-nation status — and even that’s unlikely.

More:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/02/iowa-caucus-bolivia-coup-democratic-party

February 7, 2020

US warns Venezuela of consequences if Guaido harmed

5 HOURS AGO



US President Donald Trump walks with Interim President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, after his arrival at the White House, on February 5, 2020 in Washington, DC. Later Today the US. (Mark Wilson / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)


The United States on Thursday warned Venezuela's rulers of consequences if opposition leader Juan Guaido is not allowed to return safely from a visit to Washington, where he enjoyed pledges of robust support.

In one sign that some saw as retaliation, authorities in Caracas threw into jail six oil executives with joint US and Venezuelan nationality, two months after allowing them to shift to house arrest.

Elliott Abrams, the US envoy leading the drive to oust leftist leader Nicolas Maduro, warned that the United States was "prepared" with unspecified actions if Guaido faces trouble.

"We hope that the regime makes the calculation, particularly after this trip, that the support for Guaido is strong and that the counter-reaction to any move against him would make it a mistake for the regime," Abrams told reporters.

"We're very concerned about it and we hope that he will return safely," he said.

More:
https://www.trtworld.com/americas/us-warns-venezuela-of-consequences-if-guaido-harmed-33568

Also posted in Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016247149





Elliot Abrams



Next in line as puppet presidents
should something happen to Guaido

February 5, 2020

Fugitive politician held in Venezuela has some serious dirt on Colombia: report

Fugitive politician held in Venezuela has some serious dirt on Colombia: report
by Adriaan Alsema
February 4, 2020

President Ivan Duque‘s could pay a heavy price for his refusal to resume consular ties with Venezuela as a fugitive coalition politician held in Caracas would know about a plot to rig the 2018 election.

Duque’s Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro offered to reestablish diplomatic ties last week, but not without warning that fugitive Senator-elect Aida Merlano “was telling everything about Colombia’s ruling class.”

The Colombian president rejected the “blackmail” last week while Venezuelan intelligence agency Cebin was extracting information from the politician.

Merlano is a member of the Gerlein clan and an associate of the Char clan, who wield tremendous power inside respectively the Conservative Party and the Radical Change Party and are both notoriously corrupt.

According to newspaper El Tiempo, which is owned by Duque’s financial patron, the politician does not only have inside information about these two clans, but knows about an alleged conspiracy to rig the 2018 presidential election that was won by Duque.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/fugitive-politician-held-in-venezuela-has-some-serious-dirt-on-colombia-report/





Fugitive Colombian senator Aída Merlano captured in Venezuela
28 January 2020

. . .

Merlano, who was serving a 15-year sentence for vote buying, gave prison guards the slip in October.

She slid down a rope a second-storey dental surgery where she was undergoing orthodontic treatment and an accomplice whisked her away on a motorcycle as passers-by looked on.

Her escape was a great embarrassment for the Colombian prison system.

CCTV footage of her sliding down a red rope and landing on the pavement went viral. Many Colombians questioned why she had been allowed to leave the prison and why the guards had not entered the surgery with her.

More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51279806

February 2, 2020

Google and Prosecutors Fight in Court over User Data in Marielle Case

Google does not want to give up info about cars that circulated in Rio
Jan.31.2020 12:30PM

RIO DE JANEIRO
Rio de Janeiro prosecutors and Google are engaged in a legal dispute over access to data on users of the platform that can assist in the investigation of the death of councilor Marielle Franco (PSOL) and her driver Anderson Gomes.

The American company appealed to the STJ (Superior Court of Justice) not to give the Prosecutor's Office data on all users who circulated at the Transolímpica within a 15-minute interval on the night of December 2, 2018.

This was the last time that traffic monitoring cameras identified the city presence of the silver Cobalt plate KPA-5923 used in the crime.

With the data, the prosecutors want to identify who was using the vehicle nine months after the crime.



More:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2020/01/google-and-prosecutors-fight-in-court-over-user-data-in-marielle-case.shtml?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsen












Marielle's driver and body guard, Anderson Gomez, his wife, and new baby born shortly before his murder.