Aula 01 (1) Ingles juridico

Prévia do material em texto

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STF 2013 
Inglês 
César Lira 
1 
The US needs to take the hint from Dilma 
Rousseff's 
snub 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Brazilian president's cancelled visit, over 
NSA spying, ought to jolt the US out of its 
arrogant disrespect for Latin America 
Tuesday's cancellation of Brazilian President 
Dilma Rousseff's state visit to the White House, 
scheduled for next month, came as little 
surprise. Documents leaked by Edward 
Snowden, and reported by Glenn Greenwald 
and TV Globo, had caused an uproar in Brazil. 
According to the documents and reports, the 
US government had spied on Dilma's personal 
communications, and had targeted the 
computer systems of Brazil's Petrobras, the big 
oil company that is majority-owned by the state. 
TV Globo's report indicated that there was 
information in the targeted Petrobas computer 
network that could be very valuable to foreign 
oil companies. Former President Lula da Silva 
said that Obama should "personally apologize 
to the world"; and Dilma also demanded a full 
public apology – which was not forthcoming. 
The rift with Brazil comes at a time of 
worsening US relations with Latin America, and 
especially South America. It is indicative of a 
much deeper problem. 
The Obama administration's refusal to 
recognize the results of the Venezuelan 
elections in April of this year, despite the lack of 
doubt about the results and in stark opposition 
to the rest of the region, displayed an 
aggressiveness that Washington hadn't shown 
since it aided the 2002 coup. It brought a sharp 
rebuke from South America, including Lula and 
Dilma. 
When several European governments, clearly 
acting on behalf of the United States, forced 
down President Evo Morales' plane in July. 
President Cristina Kirchner tweeted "They've 
definitely gone crazy,", and UNASUR (the 
Union of South American Nations) issued a 
strong denunciation. The gross violation of 
international law and diplomatic norms was 
another flamboyant display of Washington's 
lack of respect for the region. 
There are structural reasons for the Obama 
administration's repeated failures to accept the 
new reality of independent governments in the 
region. Although President Obama may want 
better relations, he is willing to spend about $2 
in political capital to accomplish this. And that is 
not enough. When he tried to appoint an 
ambassador to Venezuela in 2010, for 
example, Republicans (including the office of 
then Senator Richard Lugar) successfully 
scuttled it. 
For President Obama, there are generally no 
electoral consequences from having bad 
relations with Latin America. Unlike 
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, or other areas of 
armed conflict or potential war, there is no 
imminent danger that something could blow up 
in his face, and cause political harm to his 
administration or party. 
The region's independence is not going to be 
reversed and unfortunately, Washington has 
not yet reached this conclusion about Latin 
America, and especially South America, whose 
"second independence" is perhaps one of the 
most important geopolitical changes in the 
world over the past 15 years. There is virtually 
no recognition among the foreign policy 
establishment in DC – both inside and outside 
of government – that something important has 
changed, and that the US government must 
accept these changes and alter its policy 
accordingly. 
Until that happens, don't expect US-Latin 
American relations to get much warmer 
 
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/201
3/sep/18/us-hint-nsa-dilma-rousseff-snub 
 
1. Based on the text above, judge the items 
below 
1. Brazilian President, Dilma Roussef was 
supposed to visit the UN next month. 
2. Dilma´s decision will certainly not affect the 
US. 
3. The documents leaked by Snowden caused 
turmoil in Brazil. 
4. Petrobras is controlled only by the Brazilian 
government. 
5. Not only Dilma but also a major Brazilian 
company was spied by the NSA. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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2. Based on the text above, judge the items 
below 
6. Brazilian ex-president Lula, said that 
Obama should apologize to the Brazilian 
government. 
7. Obama himself apologize to the world. 
8. American relations with South America is 
better than ever 
9. Obama and his ally in South America didn´t 
recognize the Venezuela election. 
10. 11 years ago the American administration 
helped the putsch in Venezuela. 
 
3. Judge the items below based on the text 
above. 
11. Bolivian´s president´s plane was forced to 
land by European Governments last July. 
12. Argentina´s President showed repudiation 
towards the attitude taken on behalf of US 
administration. 
13. Obama is not predisposed to spend political 
capital to achieve a better relationship with 
Latin America. 
14. Obama is willing to spend money to 
accomplish better relations with South 
America. 
15. There are no consequences from bad 
relations whit Latin America countries, 
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. 
16. South America´s independence has no 
going back and Washington hasn´t 
recognized this yet. 
17. America´s relations with Latin America will 
get better regardless its recognition of 
South america´s ¨second independence¨ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Brazil Auctioning 
Off Huge Oil 
Block Amid 
Protest 
 
 
 
 
National Guard officers clash with 
demonstrators, top, protesting the auction of 
the Libra oil field near the Windsor hotel where 
the auction is taking place, on Barra da Tijuca 
beach in Rio de Janeiro, Oct. 21, 2013 
 
(RIO DE JANEIRO) — Brazil’s government was 
set to announce the result of an auction of its 
massive Libra offshore oil block Monday under 
new rules giving state-run petroleum company 
Petrobras more control over reserves. 
Hundreds of protesters wanting to halt the 
auction clashed with police outside the luxury 
hotel where the auction results were to be 
announced, with security officials firing tear gas 
and rubber bullets at demonstrators. 
Oil industry analysts decried the new 
production-sharing rules for auctioning offshore 
reserves discovered in recent years, which 
could hold upward of 100 billion barrels of oil 
and make Brazil one of the globe’s largest 
exporters. Libra itself could hold up to 12 billion 
barrels. 
The new rules mandate that Brazil’s state-run 
oil company Petrobras be the sole operator of 
the fields and hold a minimum 30 percent stake 
in them. Many say that will reduce the profit for 
private oil companies and delay the 
development of Brazil’s fields by making them 
less attractive for outside investors. 
Adriano Pires, one of Brazil’s top energy 
analysts, called the new rules “very 
interventionist” and said the auction was 
already a big disappointment, with just 11 
companies taking part, while the government 
had hoped to attract 40. He chalked that up to 
the new rules for ultra-deep oil that will be 
expensive to produce. 
“We are talking about non-conventional oil 
located 6,000 to 7,000 meters deep,” he said. 
“The $500 billion that will have to be invested 
over the next 12 to 15 years made companies 
conclude that the rate of return made 
participating in the auction unattractive.” 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Brazilian officials are counting on the oil riches 
to quickly catapult the nation to developed-
world status. State officials are locked in 
arguments about how to split royalties that 
haven’t surfaced, the Navy is buying 
submarines to protect the fields and left-wing 
protesters like those demonstrating Monday 
demand that the entire industry be nationalized 
so Brazil doesn’t share a drop of the wealth. 
But the technology hurdles to reaching the 
riches are intensely challenging, even for 
Petrobras, considered a world leader in 
offshore development. 
The deep-water reservoirs lie some 185 miles 
(300 kilometers) offshore in the Atlantic, more 
than a mile (kilometer) belowthe ocean’s 
surface and under another 2.5 miles (4 
kilometers) of earth and corrosive salt. The salt 
beds can break loose and shear off piping, 
making it one of the toughest substances to 
drill. 
With a slowing economy and delays in 
producing that offshore oil, some say the 
Brazilian government will loosen rules to make 
them more business friendly when the next 
auction is held in two to three years. 
The New York-based Eurasia Group said in a 
research note that Petrobras’ “growing 
operational and financial constraints” along with 
government pressure to stoke a lagging 
national economy means changes are 
expected at the next auction. 
“Allowing international oil companies to develop 
the pre-salt side by side with Petrobras would 
kill two birds with one stone,” Eurasia Group 
wrote. “It would lead to a quicker pace of 
production in the pre-salt with more 
investments, and provide needed relief to 
Petrobras.” 
It added that “it isn’t lost on government officials 
that the shale gas and tight oil technological 
revolution in North America has reduced 
Brazil’s leverage to attract capital.” 
About 300 protesters hoping to halt the oil 
auction tossed tear gas canisters back at police 
and overturned the car of one local TV channel, 
setting it aflame. Among the demonstrators 
were the masked, black-clad “Black Bloc” 
anarchists who have a growing role in Brazil’s 
steady drumbeat of protests. 
The demonstration was originally called by 
striking oil workers, whose union has long been 
against any foreign involvement in Brazil’s 
petroleum production 
 
Readmore: http://world.time.com/2013/10/21/br
azil-auctioning-off-huge-oil-block-amid-
protest/#ixzz2ifn9BUId 
 
4. Based on the text above, judge the 
items below 
18. Demonstrators were trying to stop the 
auction. 
19. It was a pacific with no need to confront 
the police. 
20. Protesters fired tear gas and rubber 
bullets. 
21. Oil industry analysts approved the new 
production-sharing rules. 
22. Just discovered a few years ago, the oil 
reserves auctioned could hold up 
upward of 100 million barrels. 
23. Petrobras holds up 30% stake and will 
share fields operation with others state-
run companies. 
24. The fact of Petrobras be the only field 
operator and hold a 30% minimum 
stake, many reduce the profit for other 
companies and make the action less 
attractive. 
25. The costly price to extract the oil was 
one of the reasons that less than 30% of 
the companies expected by the 
Brazilian government participated took 
part of the auction. 
26. Brazilia hopes the money oil to raise the 
country to developed-world status. 
27. The technology aids to reach the riches 
very easily since Petrobras is a world 
leader in offshore development. 
28. Due to the difficulty to extract the oil, 
Brazil will tighten the rules to make 
more money. 
29. The next auction will happen in 2 to 3 
year, and according to all analysts, 
under the same rules. 
30. Due to the shale gas and tight oil 
technological revolution, Brazil has lost 
its bargain power. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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A ripple begets a flood 
 
A politically inspired surge in lending is 
weakening state-owned banks in Latin 
America’s biggest economy 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
IN 2008 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, then Brazil’s 
president, boasted that by the time the 
“tsunami” unleashed by Lehman Brothers’ 
collapse hit his country’s shores it would 
dwindle to a “little ripple”. The stimulus 
programme he put in place helped to carry 
Brazil through the credit crunch relatively 
unscathed. But five years later public money is 
still pumping into its economy, with ever more 
negative consequences. Public debt is rising. 
State banks are taking more of the credit 
market. And the government is warping 
accounting standards in its attempts to disguise 
all this. 
Concerned that consumers are overstretched, 
private banks have held back on lending in 
recent years. But since 2008 the corporate loan 
book of BNDES, the national development 
bank, has grown by 24% annually, far above 
nominal-GDP growth of 11%. Caixa Econômica 
Federal, a state retail bank, has expanded 
lending by 42% annually for the past three 
years (see chart). By June state banks had 
50.3% of all outstanding credit, up from 33% in 
2008—the first time they passed the halfway 
mark since a wave of bank privatisations in 
1999. 
Caixa’s retail borrowers are often first-timers of 
unknown creditworthiness. The early months 
after taking a loan should be the least fraught, 
meaning the bank’s big expansion should have 
cut the share of loans in arrears. That it did not 
suggests trouble for the future. More risks come 
from a government-subsidised scheme giving 
poor Brazilians cheap loans to buy computers, 
furniture and white goods. Leaked documents 
show that Caixa’s analysts think default rates 
will be 30-50%. 
In March Moody’s, a ratings agency, 
downgraded both BNDES and Caixa to match 
Brazil’s sovereign debt. Their stand-alone 
ratings, which assume implicit government 
support, are now below investment grade. The 
reason, says Alexandre Albuquerque, a 
Moody’s analyst, is that both have become 
entwined with government economic policy: 
“They are no longer a better risk than public 
debt.” 
Much of the state banks’ lending is at rates 
lower than the government’s own funding costs. 
The difference is borne by the treasury. 
Mansueto Almeida of IPEA, a government-
funded think-tank, estimates that it will reach 24 
billion reais this year—about the same as 
the Bolsa Família anti-poverty programme, 
which tops up the income of nearly 14m very 
poor families. 
BNDES was set up to increase investment. But 
even as its loan book has ballooned, Brazil’s 
overall investment rate has stagnated. 
Burdensome paperwork and its fondness for 
national champions mean that much of its 
lending goes to firms big enough to seek 
private funding rather than small ones that are 
starved of credit. Its subsidised rates crowd out 
private loans. “BNDES loans have replaced 
some investment from companies’ own 
resources,” says Gabriel Leal de Barros of the 
Fundação Getúlio Vargas, a research institute. 
“The subsidies mean it can be cheaper to 
borrow than to self-fund.” 
The desire to mask the consequences of 
increased state lending has tempted the 
government to fudge both its own and the 
banks’ accounts. Even the government seems 
at last to realise that the flood of public money 
gushing through Brazil’s state banks must slow. 
In April Luciano Coutinho, the president of 
BNDES, said the bank had been so successful 
in creating national champions that it could now 
ease off. On October 14th Guido Mantega, the 
finance minister, said the treasury would cut 
transfers to BNDES over the next few years. 
But putting such good intentions into practice 
collides with other aims of the government. 
Though Caixa’s consumer loans make for bad 
risks, they are vote-winners for the president, 
Dilma Rousseff, who is seeking re-election next 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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year. And her plans to upgrade Brazil’s skimpy 
transport links by auctioning concessions to 
build and run infrastructure will stretch BNDES 
as never before. It is supposed to be funding 
around 70% of the costs—170 billion reais over 
the next five years