Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Brazil: Criminal charges keep piling on Lula

The photo is from a year ago, but 2016 has brought former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva a list of corruption and money laundering charges:
Lula da Silva, Ex-Brazil President, Hit With New Criminal Charges. Prosecutors in Car Wash probe also file new charges against former leader’s wife and construction magnate Marcelo Odebrecht

Brazilian prosecutors filed new charges against former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday, accusing him of further instances of corruption and money laundering as part of the Operation Car Wash anticorruption investigation.

A judge will now examine the charges and decide whether or not to put Mr. da Silva on trial. A spokesman for Mr. da Silva denied any illegal acts by the former president or his wife, Marisa Letícia Lula da Silva, who was also charged with money laundering.

Mr. da Silva, who led Brazil between 2003 and 2010, already faces trial in three criminal cases linked to the Car Wash probe involving alleged embezzlement and influence peddling. The vast investigation is centered on state-controlled oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras.

It’ll be interesting to see how many of these charges get to trial.

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Cuba: Brazil, Odebrecht, & Lula

What do they all have in common?
Capitol Hill Cubans explain:

Brazil’s state development bank (“BNDES”) has frozen loan disbursements for Cuba’s Mariel port and “special economic development zone” (“SEDZ”), as part of a major corruption investigation.

As we all know, the Mariel port and SEDZ project was built pursuant to a shady deal between Cuban dictator Raul Castro and former Brazilian president Lula da Silva.

Pursuant to the deal, Brazilian engineering firm Odebrecht would receive nearly $800 million in financing from BNDES, in partnership with a shadow company of the Cuban military called Almacenes Universales, S.A.

This past Monday, Brazilian prosecutors charged Lula da Silva; Odebrecht CEO Marcelo Odebrecht, who is already serving a 19-year sentence for separate corruption charges; and nine others over allegations that Lula secured BNDES funding for Odebrecht projects in Angola. In return, prosecutors said, Odebrecht bribed Lula and some people close to him.

Have no doubt, Cuba’s Mariel project will be next.

Go to the link for more, as CHP has been following this story for years.

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Brazil: More corruption charges filed against Lula

The prosecutors are charging Lula, his nephew, and Odebrecht:

Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva Faces New Corruption Charges. Prosecutors say he used influence to get loans for construction company Odebrecht in kickback scheme

A judge in Brasília would have to accept the charges for Mr. da Silva to face trial. He is already a defendant in two other federal cases on charges of attempted obstruction of justice, corruption and money laundering in connection with a sprawling embezzlement scheme at the state-run oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, known as Petrobras.

Prosecutors on Monday said Mr. da Silva arranged loans from the country’s development bank, known as BNDES, to help Odebrecht SA win public works projects in the African nation of Angola. In return, Odebrecht allegedly paid bribes of more than 30 million reais ($9.3 million), funneled mostly through a firm owned by Mr. da Silva’s nephew, Taiguara Rodrigues dos Santos, according to documents released Monday by prosecutors.
For decades the Left has maintained that Lula, while heading one of the most corrupt countries in the world, was not personally corrupt, yet another lie.

More and more evidence keeps turning up showing that he is.

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Lula and Bill: Looking back in anger

In Brazil, former president Lula is

saying criminal charges leveled against him are aimed at reversing gains made by working people under 13 years of rule by his leftist Workers’ Party.
. . .
Authorities said Mr. da Silva directed a “criminal orchestra” that skimmed $6.2 billion reais ($1.9 billion) from inflated contracts at Petróleo Brasileiro SA, funneling the money to the Workers’ Party and its allies to personally enrich themselves and to sway votes in Congress to keep a lock on power.

Lula says so because by now prosecutors labeled him the kingpin at the center of Brazil’s largest-ever corruption scandal, and things are not looking good.

Considering the amounts of money involved, the sheer volume of the corruption, and the length of time it lasted, it is amazing that Lula’s prosecution got this far. Lula’s probably the most amazed of all.

Meanwhile, here in the USA,

Last night I was waiting for the Ray Donovan season finale when I came across The Circus, Showtime’s political “reporter” (read: Dem idolatry) show, where Bill Clinton promised that “making America great again” meant going back to what Arkansas was like in his benighted “white male” childhood. The Washington Times reports

During a campaign event Wednesday for his wife Hillary Clinton, the 42nd president said Mr. Trump’s rallying cry to “Make America Great Again” is a racist dog whistle to white Southerners.

“That message where ‘I’ll give you America great again’ is if you’re a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don’t you?” Mr. Clintonsaid. “What it means is ‘I’ll give you an economy you had 50 years ago, and I’ll move you back up on the social totem pole and other people down.’”

Bill, who not only used the “Make America Great Again” when convenient, who forgets it was the Dems who filibustered the Civil Rights Act, and whose Clinton Foundation only spends 5.7% of its $92million budget on grants, is probably as astounded as Lula that his wife’s presidential campaign is not looking good.

What is not surprising is that, having run out of arguments, both characters are now in panic mode.

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Brazil: Cunha out, Lula charged, Temer wants to privatize

Three headlines from Brazil this week,

1. Brazilian politician who led Rousseff impeachment is expelled from office. Eduardo Cunha, former speaker of the lower house, loses his seat and is barred from politics for eight years amid perjury and corruption claims

Cunha’s overwhelming defeat – by 450 votes to 10 with nine abstentions – strips him of parliamentary immunity and may be followed by criminal charges for his involvement in thebribery and kickback scandal at state-oil company Petrobras. He has also been banned from politics for eight years, a punishment more severe than that of Rousseff, who was ejected from office but maintains her political rights.

2. Federal prosecutors in Brazil have asked a judge to file corruption charges against former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. (emphasis added)

They accused him of being the “boss” of a huge corruption scheme that cost the state oil company, Petrobras, an estimated $12.6bn (£9.5bn) in losses.

Prosecutors had been investigating whether Lula and his wife failed to declare ownership of a luxury flat.

He has denied owning the penthouse and says the case is politically motivated.

A criminal conviction would bar him from running for president in 2018.

3. Brazil launches privatization plan to rescue economy

The government will sell operating licenses for airports in the cities of Porto Alegre, Salvador, Florianopolis and Fortaleza by the first quarter of 2017. It also plans to sell rights to operate federal roads in the center-west and south regions later next year.

Center-right President Michel Temer has vowed to shift economic policy away from the interventionist policies of his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff, that marred investors’ confidence in the once-booming economy.
. . .
The program includes the concession of railway projects that have already been built as well as the long-delayed auction of rights in oil fields and hydroelectric plants in the first and second half of 2017.

The government will also privatize six power distributors owned by state-run power holding company Eletrobras in the north and northeastern regions.

Who knows? All of this may point to real change, which the country needs.

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The last Monday in August Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

The big news of the week: The announcement that the FARC and the Colombian government had finalized a peace agreement, which, from the looks of it, will not be signed by the president of Colombia or the FARC’s top leader.

Almost unnoticed: Iran’s LatAm tour.

ARGENTINA
Vile: Argentinian pupils wearing Nazi armbands attack Jewish students in ‘Mengele village’

BOLIVIA
Bolivian miners lift roadblock after deputy minister beaten to death

BRAZIL
Spats in Brazil Senate Slow Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff. Insult-slinging lawmakers impede process before suspended president takes the stand next week

Brazil Police Seek Charges Against Ex-President Lula da Silva and His Wife. Prosecutors to decide on asking judge to indict the couple over alleged corruption

How USA Today unraveled Ryan Lochte’s Rio drama; US swimmer Lochte ‘won’t respond’ to Brazil false claim charge. Cynics would say that Lochte provides a useful distraction.

CHILE
Chile’s pensions:The perils of not saving. A pioneering system, now in need of reform

COLOMBIA
Colombia’s opposition paints apocalyptic picture of post-conflict, for good reason.

CUBA
Iranian press gloats over Iran’s new Latrine sphere of influence

Chávez y la brujería: cómo Castro llenó Venezuela de espías-babalawos Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/venezuela-es/article98079552.html#storylink=cpy

Captive Nations Presentation: Cuba, Human Rights and U.S. Policy

ECUADOR
Iran, Ecuador discuss ways to strengthen oil prices

HAITI
Latest Email Leaks Keep Exposing Clinton Foundation Corruption. Still more evidence that the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s State Department were one and the same

When Clinton was secretary of state, donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation correlated to large increases in weapons exports from the U.S. to the countries which donated. With Clinton’s help, Clinton Foundation donor Claudio Osorio won a $10 million loan in 2010 from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation meant to be used to build houses in Haiti. Corrupt Venezuelan banker Gonzalo Tirado hired Jonathan Mantz, a Clinton fundraiser, and made a donation to the Clinton Foundation in order to avoid being extradited to Venezuela.

MEXICO
Morelos: Mexican state buries over 100 people in mass grave, including torture victims

Of the 117 bodies found, 17 could not be identified as they were either too badly decomposed or because they had been decapitated or were missing other body parts. Four of the 84 showing signs of having suffered violent deaths had bullet holes in their skulls.

Records Debunk Mexican First Lady’s Story in Miami Condo Scandal. New Investigation Suggests Nieto’s Wife Paid Taxes Legally

According to an investigation by Univision, Rivera asked Pierdant to pay her taxes on the property as “a favor between friends.”

An information request to the Miami-Dade County Tax Office revealed the actress actually hired two law firms to cover those taxes, including during the years of 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015.

PANAMA
The Lost Girls of Panama: The Full Story. The mysterious deaths of two young tourists in Panama puzzled examiners and shocked nations on both sides of the Atlantic; now secretly leaked documents reveal what happened.

PERU
Ayahuasca: a brain-altering chemical, rife with dangerous side-effects, taken in an isolated locations, what could possibly go wrong? Filipino tourist dies in hallucinogenic ritual in Peru.

PUERTO RICO
Last person out, please turn off the lights: Puerto Rico: An island’s exodus

ST. KITTS
ATIP docs for [Justin] Trudeau’s St. Kitts trip reveal undisclosed costs for “Tour Manager”

Not only were taxpayers on the hook for the costs of bringing the government-funded nanny—even though she didn’t appear on one version of the flight manifest—but also thousands of dollars for Trudeau’s tour manager to tag along, even though it wasn’t an official trip of any kind.

URUGUAY
Not very high times: Weeks From Selling Pot, Uruguay Producer Sees Future in Hemp

Weeks before selling its first ounce of pot at pharmacies, International Cannabis Corp. is already betting that hemp – a variety of cannabis – will be a much bigger market than selling the psychoactive part of the plant, according to Chief Executive Officer Guillermo Delmonte. Hemp and its extracts can be used in food, cosmetics and medicine

VENEZUELA
American Joshua Holt now a political prisoner in Venezuela

Venezuela ex-mayor Ceballos sent to prison from house arrest

Venezuela’s Inflation Rate Now Approaching Lunacy Levels

FARC soon to a Venezuelan arepera near you

Venezuela opts for cardboard coffins as wooden caskets become unaffordable. The country is adopting bio-coffins that come at one-fourth the cost of traditional caskets. “Bio-coffins.”



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Brazil: Why Olympics can be destructive

You know things are bad when the guy in charge of security got mugged at knifepoint outside the opening ceremony.

Two articles shed some light on Brazil’s problems:
The Olympic ‘movement’ has become a destructive force for Brazilians outside the arenas, as people were displaced from the favelas at huge expense (emphasis added)

At one point Da Penha was offered about $600,000 for the three-story house where she lived with her husband, mother and daughter for more than 20 years. She turned it down — and became a leading local activist who took her fight to the IOC and the United Nations. Municipal guards — a city security force — broke her nose during one fight, when the residents tried to form a cordon preventing demolition. Her home was finally knocked down in March, and she and her family now reside in one of the stark white utilitarian cottages with no vestige of the past, boxes of belongings still stacked in a small front room.

Behind the push and the enormous expense was Lula:

The 2016 Olympics were supposed to showcase the socialist paradise he had cultivated: an urban utopia mixing affordable housing, national industrial champions and orderly public-transportation networks to provide a tranquil—and environmentally approved—living experience.

Mary O’Grady is right to say that Lula conned the world:

Brazil’s politicians aspire to first-world grandeur but insist on preserving third-world institutions. It’s not because they don’t understand the effectiveness of independent institutions and checks and balances. It’s because they do understand it.
. . .
Under Lula and later Ms. Rousseff—who won elections in 2010 and 2014—the commitment to fiscal discipline gradually eroded. The government-owned bank Caixa Econômica Federal and the national development bank (BNDES) rapidly expanded credit. This was inflationary and risky, but the central bank ignored the problem.

While Lula and later Dilma were hawking Brazil as a world-class player, they did little to reduce the burden of government on entrepreneurs. The 2016 World Bank “Doing Business” survey, which studies the relative ease of entrepreneurship in 189 economies, ranks Brazil 174th in “starting a business,” 169th in “dealing with construction permits,” 130th in “registering property,” 178th in “paying taxes” and 145th in “trading across borders.” That doesn’t sound like the stuff of an economic superpower.

Neither does Brazil’s deeply entrenched corruption.

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The post-conventions Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

The RNC and the DNC had their conventions in two consecutive weeks, and after their monopolizing media attention, we’re glad they are over.

Almost unnoticed, however, was the story of the Syrian terrorist released from Guantanamo to Uruguay, who supposedly needs crutches to get around, was missing for several weeks, to eventually turn up some 4,600 miles away from Montevideo (a little under the distance from New York to Moscow), in Venezuela, of all places, just so he can petition the Uruguayan consulate – which he could do in Montevideo – to “ask for assistance to fly to Turkey or some other country to be reunited with his family.” Which gave him plenty of time to do all sorts of things.

ARGENTINA
New species of dinosaur discovered in Argentina

BOLIVIA
Bolivia’s president isn’t lowering his sights despite a scandal worthy of a telenovela

Record-setting dinosaur footprint discovered in Bolivia

BRAZIL
Brazil’s Lula faces trial over Petrobras

Four terror suspects ‘tried to travel to Brazil for Olympics’

Rio’s ‘wall of shame’ between its ghettos and shiny Olympic image

Rio 2016: Athletes warned to keep mouths closed while in faeces-infested water. All efforts by the government to clean the Rio waters seem to have failed

Stelberto Soares, a municipal engineer who has worked on Rio sanitation issues for decades, said that the government’s efforts to clean the waters were superficial at best.

“They can try to block big items like sofas and dead bodies, but these rivers are pure sludge,” he said, “so the bacteria and viruses are going to just pass through.”

Headlines from Drudge:

Brazil Preps for Olympics With Warships, Troops…

Athletes told ‘keep mouths closed’ in feces-infested water…

Rio Murders Rise…

Muslim female athletes compete while covered…

Fire in Olympic Village…

CHILE
Watch Chilean police bust $12 million worth of cocaine that was headed to Europe

15 Reasons To Put Chile On The Top Of Your Travel List

COLOMBIA
Colombian Courts Greenlight Controversial FARC Peace Referendum. Colombia’s Constitutional Court Issues Regulations for Yes/No Vote on Guerilla Peace Talks

The FARC made them an offer they couldn’t refuse: Colombia Indian Community Made Peace with FARC 20 Years before the Government

Colombia Town Anxious Ahead of Peace Plan's Experiment in Coca Substitution

Colombia Town Anxious Ahead of Peace Plan’s Experiment in Coca Substitution

CUBA
Military and family remittances, a well-kept secret

ECUADOR
Everything You Need to Know About the DNC’s WikiLeaks Scandal. Emails Released by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks Reveals Democratic FoulPlay During Primary Season

Ecuador Ends One Chevron Battle. What Does It Mean for the War?

GUATEMALA
Who Killed Guatemala’s Prison ‘King’ Byron Lima? (Part I)

MEXICO
Rafael Caro Quintero, Fugitive godfather of Mexico’s drug trade speaks out from hiding to deny he is back in business

Criminal Groups Benefit from Mexico’s Crackdown on Migrants

NICARAGUA
Nicaragua Electoral Authority Unseats Opposition Lawmakers

Nicaragua’s top electoral authority decimated the country’s political opposition on Friday by unseating practically all of its remaining lawmakers in congress as President Daniel Ortega prepares to seek a third term.

The Supreme Electoral Council ousted 16 opposition legislators from the Liberal Independent Party and its ally the Sandinista Renovation Movement Friday for not recognizing their officially sanctioned leader. That leader, Pedro Reyes, had recently been given that authority by the Supreme Court, which removed the opposition party’s previous leader following a long-running political dispute. Reyes is seen by some within his own party as a tool of Ortega.

PANAMA
First LNG Carrier Transits the Expanded Panama Canal

PARAGUAY
Brazilian Drug Lord Found Serving Time in Paraguay Prison ‘VIP’ Suite

PERU
Peru’s new president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski sworn in

PUERTO RICO
CDC: Zika could affect 10000 pregnancies in Puerto Rico by year’s end

More Defaults Likely to Come: What Puerto Rico Owes on Aug. 1
– Sales-tax payment of $256 million expected to be made
– Island owes $1.3 million of interest on general obligations

The commonwealth and its agencies owe about $346 million in bond payments on Aug. 1, most of which goes toward repaying sales-tax supported debt. The deadline follows the island’s July 1 default on nearly $1 billion of principal and interest, the largest such payment failure in the history of the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market.

URUGUAY
Uruguay Formally Ends its Presidency of Mercosur Trade Bloc

VENEZUELA
NO ARRIVALS: THE VISIBLE ISOLATION OF CARACAS

Chavistas Demand That Venezuelan Legislature Be Outlawed

From Socialist Utopia To Slave-Nation – Venezuela Unveils Shocking “Forced Labor” Law

Venezuela’s new decree



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