GEOPOLÍTICA

[FCarvalho]

abs

[Bourne]

Como disse, o bolivianismo aparece mais na propaganda da veja e maluquinhos da direita do que nos próprios países de origem. A suposta luta ideológica desinflou.

Dentro do esperado. A região é diversa demais e existem tipos de esquerdas e dinâmicas internas bem diferentes para hegemonia do bolivarismo. Só garganta não faz nada.

Parece que nem maduro seria a encarnação do líder da revolução bolivariana. As diretrizes de políticas públicas do governo mudaram como resposta a crise da queda do preço internacional do petróleo. Talvez, seja apenas um presidente de transição na política venezuelana para alguém bem mais moderado.

A decadência da Alba

Fonte http://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2014/12 ... 96490.html

A visita de Hugo Chávez a Havana que completa 10 anos ficou longe do que se esperava. Poucos pensavam que o ato político realizado no teatro Karl Marx fosse além de uma encenação dos laços entre o então presidente venezuelano e o líder cubano, Fidel Castro. Ambos, no entanto, surpreenderam com a assinatura de um convênio que acabava com as tarifas alfandegárias para as importações entre os dois países e concedia a Cuba investimentos e petróleo subsidiado por parte da Venezuela. “A ALCA morreu”, afirmou Chávez em referência à Área de Livre Comércio das Américas, promovida pelos Estados Unidos. Nascia, em 14 de dezembro de 2004, a ALBA (Alternativa Bolivariana para os Povos da Nossa América), um organismo que cresceu graças ao petróleo, cuja queda no preço faz hoje com que definhe.

Os tempos mudaram. Junto à baixa do petróleo se soma a morte de Chávez, em março de 2013, e a saída de cena pública de Fidel, que deixaram sem liderança o organismo, ao qual se uniram Bolívia, Equador e Nicarágua. O atual presidente venezuelano, Nicolás Maduro, não tem o carisma de seu antecessor, e outros mandatários, como o boliviano Evo Morales, o equatoriano Rafael Correa ou Raúl Castro, em Cuba, optaram por diversificar suas políticas externas com a participação em outros organismos, como a Unasul (União de Nações Sul-Americanas) ou a Celac (Comunidade de Estados da América Latina e Caribe), “mais pragmáticos do que ideológicos ou doutrinários, como a ALBA”, segundo Rafael Rojas. “A diversidade ideológica da esquerda ibero-americana acabou se impondo sobre o projeto hegemônico bolivariano”, afirma o historiador cubano.

“A maior conquista foi conseguir a coesão do bloco bolivariano, introduzindo uma visão propriamente política da integração frente às visões mais comerciais e pró-mercado”, diz o analista argentino Pablo Stefanoni, que acrescenta: “O problema foi que sua força e seus limites estavam associados à diplomacia petroleira venezuelana. A ALBA era uma extensão da energia política de Chávez, e de seu petróleo, e não se pôde avançar em sua institucionalização real, nem desembarcar seus horizontes ideológicos em políticas de integração concretas.”

A parceira de Cuba e Venezuela, pedra angular para a ALBA desde 2004, segue organizada em torno deste intercâmbio: Caracas entrega petróleo e derivados com grandes facilidades e descontos para os cubanos, e Havana responde com bens e serviços sobrevalorizados. Cálculos independentes avaliam em 100.000 barris por dia o aporte de hidrocarbonetos que a Venezuela faz para Cuba, o suficiente para cobrir a demanda interna da ilha e permitir a venda de carregamentos sobressalentes no mercado internacional –algo que nenhuma das duas partes reconhece. Os poderes petroleiro e financeiro da Venezuela, agora em dúvida, exerciam um influxo magnético na ALBA.

Além de pactos bilaterais e do Petrocaribe, um clube de consumidores de petróleo criado por Hugo Chávez para projetar sua própria influência política nas Antilhas, dizer sim à ALBA era o meio mais fácil de obter acesso a combustível barato, a eliminação de tarifas entre alguns países e facilitar alianças regionais. As exportações venezuelanas aos sócios tiveram média de quatro bilhões de dólares (10,6 bilhões de reais) por ano no último quinquênio.

Se o petróleo venezuelano era a argamassa para a aliança, esta agora corre o risco de ruir. A produção de petróleo na Venezuela está em queda. Hoje ronda os dois milhões de barris por dia, prejudicada pela falta de investimentos e a hemorragia de especialistas sofrida pela petroleira estatal PDVSA. O Governo de Nicolás Maduro, sob pressão pela queda na receita da venda de petróleo, se vê obrigado a revisar sua diplomacia de hidrocarbonetos baratos para seus aliados do hemisfério.

Há duas semanas, o chanceler venezuelano, Rafael Ramírez, afirmou, em referência ao Petrocaribe, que, apesar da queda dos preços internacionais, seus compromissos de fornecimento de combustíveis em condições preferenciais são “perfeitamente sustentáveis ao longo do tempo”. A afirmação é coerente com o princípio chavista de dar prioridade à política. Mas em nada satisfaz às demandas internas de cortar esses subsídios, que reduzem os recursos locais enquanto financiam reconhecidos casos de corrupção, como o da Albanisa, na Nicarágua. A empresa encarregada no país de administrar as doações petroleiras da Venezuela desviou esse dinheiro para negócios particulares, segundo investigações jornalísticas.

“A falta de transparência e de prestação de contas da ALBA representa uma fonte inesgotável de corrupção, mas isso não parece preocupar os venezuelanos. A premissa fundamental desta cooperação não é a eficiência econômica ou o desenvolvimento, mas a política: que [o presidente Daniel] Ortega se mantenha no poder”, diz o jornalista Carlos F. Chamorro. Entre 2008 e 2014, a Nicarágua recebeu quase quatro bilhões de dólares graças ao convênio de cooperação com a ALBA, mas os recursos foram administrados por meio de empresas privadas. Isso representa 550 milhões de dólares por ano, um orçamento paralelo equivalente a 5% do PIB, ou 20% da receita orçamentária do país da América Central.

Se o futuro da ALBA está vinculado ao do petróleo, o Caribe parece ser a única zona de crescimento. “No fundo é um projeto venezuelano, por isso a dificuldade de encontrar relevância. Sua dinâmica está associada também ao Socialismo do Século XXI, que está bastante debilitado como horizonte”, afirma Stefanoni.

Nem Equador nem Bolívia são potências petroleiras. Além disso, Correa e Morales, como Chávez em seus inícios, agora participam de fóruns distintos e veem a Unasul como um motor de integração econômica com um horizonte mais claro do que a ALBA. “Há muito poucas opções de que cresça como plataforma ideológica”, diz Rojas: “A Venezuela está saturada de problemas internos. Perdeu muita liderança regional”.

[Bourne]

Fim do bolivianismo - Parte II

Lembram do Evo Morales? observem como anda calado e comportado nos últimos anos. Na verdade tende a virar o queridinho do banco mundial e FMi. essas duas entidades representantes do imperialismo.

Evo Morales has proved that socialism doesn’t damage economies
Bolivia’s re-elected president has dumbfounded critics in Washington, the World Bank and the IMF. There are lessons for Britain’s left here

The socialist Evo Morales, who yesterday was re-elected to serve a third term as president of Bolivia, has long been cast as a figure of fun by the media in the global north. Much like the now deceased Hugo Chávez, Morales is often depicted as a buffoonish populist whose flamboyant denouncements of the United States belie his incompetence. And so, reports of his landslide win inevitably focused on his announcement that it was “a victory for anti-imperialism”, as though anti-US sentiment is the only thing Morales has given to Bolivia in his eight years in government.

More likely, Morales’s enduring popularity is a result of his extraordinary socio-economic reforms, which – according to the New York Times – have transformed Bolivia from an “economic basket case” into a country that receives praise from such unlikely contenders as the World Bank and the IMF – an irony considering the country’s success is the result of the socialist administration casting off the recommendations of the IMF in the first place.

According to a report by the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, “Bolivia has grown much faster over the last eight years than in any period over the past three and a half decades.” The benefits of such growth have been felt by the Bolivian people: under Morales, poverty has declined by 25% and extreme poverty has declined by 43%; social spending has increased by more than 45%; the real minimum wage has increased by 87.7%; and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean has praised Bolivia for being “one of the few countries that has reduced inequality”. In this respect, the re-election of Morales is really very simple: people like to be economically secure – so if you reduce poverty, they’ll probably vote for you.

It’s true that Morales has made enemies in the White House, but this is probably less to do with rhetoric than the fact that he consistently calls for the international legalisation of the coca leaf, which is chewed as part of Bolivian culture but can also be refined into cocaine (via a truly disgusting chemical process). Before Morales was first elected, the Telegraph reported: “Decriminalisation would probably increase supply of the leaf, which is processed into cocaine, providing drug traffickers with more of the profitable illicit substance.” In fact the opposite has happened – in the past two years, coca cultivation has been falling in Bolivia. This inconvenient fact is a source of great consternation to the US government, which has poured billions of dollars into its totally ineffective and highly militaristic war on drugs in Latin America. Morales has – accurately in my view – previously implied that the war on drugs is used by the US as an excuse to meddle in the region’s politics.

Having said this, it would be dishonest to argue that Morales’s tenure has been perfect. Earlier this year the Bolivian government drew criticism from human rights groups for reducing the legal working age to 10. But what most news outlets neglected to mention is that the government was responding to a campaign from the children’s trade union, Unatsbo, which sees the change in legislation as a first step to protecting Bolivia’s 850,000 working children from the exploitation that comes with clandestine employment. Although Bolivia has made massive strides in reducing poverty, more than a million of its citizens still live on 75p a day – a legacy of the excruciating poverty of Bolivia before Morales took office.

Nevertheless, Morales must make reducing the number of child workers a priority during his third term. Not doing so will be a serious failure of his progressive project. In terms of social reforms, Morales should heed recent calls from the public advocate of Bolivia, Rolando Villena, to legalise same-sex civil unions and pave the way for equal marriage. He should also follow the lead of Uruguay’s president, José Mujica, and completely liberalise abortion, which would be a good first step to tackling the country’s high rates of maternal mortality. And Morales must also address the criticism of indigenous leaders who accuse him of failing to honour his commitments to protect indigenous people and the environment.

But however Morales uses his third term, it’s clear that what he’s done already has been remarkable. He has defied the conventional wisdom that says leftwing policies damage economic growth, that working-class people can’t run successful economies, and that politics can’t be transformative – and he’s done all of this in the face of enormous political pressure from the IMF, the international business community and the US government. In the success of Morales, important political lessons can be found – and perhaps we could all do with learning them.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... es-bolivia

Turnabout in Bolivia as Economy Rises From Instability

Fonte http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/world ... .html?_r=0

LA PAZ, Bolivia — Argentina’s currency has plunged, setting off global worries about developing economies. Brazil is struggling to shake concerns over years of sluggish growth. Venezuela, which sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves, has one of the world’s highest inflation rates. Farther afield, countries like Turkey and South Africa have watched their currencies suffer as investors search for safer returns elsewhere.

And then there is Bolivia.

Tucked away in the shadow of its more populous and more prosperous neighbors, tiny, impoverished Bolivia, once a perennial economic basket case, has suddenly become a different kind of exception — this time in a good way.

Its economy grew an estimated 6.5 percent last year, among the strongest rates in the region. Inflation has been kept in check. The budget is balanced, and once-crippling government debt has been slashed. And the country has a rainy-day fund of foreign reserves so large — for the size of its economy — that it could be the envy of nearly every other country in the world.

“Bolivia has been in a way an outlier,” said Ana Corbacho, the International Monetary Fund’s chief of mission here, adding that falling commodity prices and other factors have downgraded economic expectations throughout the region. “The general trend is we have been revising down our growth forecast, except for Bolivia we have been revising upward.”

Bolivia has taken an unlikely path to becoming the darling of international financial institutions like the monetary fund, not least because the high praise today is coming from some of the same institutions that the country’s socialist president, Evo Morales, loves to berate.

Mr. Morales often speaks harshly of capitalism and some of its most ardent defenders, like big corporations, the United States, the monetary fund and the World Bank. He nationalized the oil and gas sector after taking office in 2006, and he has expropriated more than 20 private companies in a variety of industries.

Yet while Mr. Morales calls himself a revolutionary, others have begun using a very different word to describe him: “prudent.”

Both the monetary fund and the World Bank, in recent reports, praised what they called Mr. Morales’s “prudent” macroeconomic policies. Fitch Ratings, a major credit rating agency, cited his “prudent fiscal management.”

While Mr. Morales remains firmly in Latin America’s leftist camp, on many economic matters he fits within a broader trend away from ideological rigidity in the region.

In Peru, President Ollanta Humala went from ardent leftist to centrist. In Colombia, President Juan Manuel Santos, a former defense minister, now plays the role of peacemaker, negotiating with the country’s largest guerrilla group. In El Salvador, presidential candidates from left and right moved toward the center to woo voters. In Uruguay, President José Mujica, a leftist and a former Marxist guerrilla, has carried out business-friendly economic policies.

“There’s definitely an underappreciated element of pragmatism” in the region, said Maxwell A. Cameron, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia.

Not long ago, Bolivia was a focal point of political and economic instability, and while it remains South America’s poorest country, much has changed.

Economic growth last year was the strongest in at least three decades, according to the monetary fund, and it continued a string of several years of healthy growth. The portion of the population living in extreme poverty fell to 24 percent in 2011, down from 38 percent in 2005, the year before Mr. Morales took office.

Though there is still much misery, the economic transformation is widely visible, in thriving urban markets or in the new tractors tilling land where farm animals pulled plows not long ago. In El Alto, a working-class city perched above the capital, the newly wealthy flaunt their success in the form of brightly colored mansions. Another recent addition: the proliferation of bakeries selling elaborate cakes, a sign that even those of more modest means have extra cash to spend.

One of the most surprising developments is the way that Bolivia has amassed foreign currency, salting away a rainy-day fund of about $14 billion, equal to more than half of its gross domestic product, or 17 months of imports, that can help it get through economic hard times.

According to the monetary fund, Bolivia has the highest ratio in the world of international reserves to the size of its economy, having recently surpassed China in that regard.

“We are showing the entire world that you can have socialist policies with macroeconomic equilibrium,” said Economy and Finance Minister Luis Arce. “Everything we are going to do is directed at benefiting the poor. But you have to do it applying economic science.”

The country is doing well thanks to relatively high prices for natural gas — its most important export — during Mr. Morales’s presidency. That enabled Mr. Morales to order in November that all government and many private sector workers get double the customary year-end bonus of a full month’s salary.

It was a populist move that critics linked to the coming election season — Mr. Morales will run for a new term in October. But it is consistent with a broader effort to redistribute wealth and direct some of the country’s natural gas income directly into people’s pockets.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say these are mainstream economic policies,” Ms. Corbacho said. “What we have assessed as very positive are the outcomes they have achieved when it comes to growth, social indicators” and other criteria.

Bolivia’s turnaround is noteworthy because for many years the country was a proving ground for the kind of orthodox, free market policies long promoted by the monetary fund and other international institutions. Grappling with a host of economic problems, including hyperinflation that reached 24,000 percent in 1985, the government cut spending, eliminated fuel subsidies, partially privatized government-owned companies and fired many workers.

Critics say that while those policies tamed inflation, they also did long-term damage, exacerbating the unequal distribution of wealth, pushing newly out-of-work miners and farmers into coca farming that increased cocaine production, and ultimately contributing to the social unrest that helped usher in Mr. Morales as president.

“The Morales administration has basically cast off the recommendations of the I.M.F. and other huge international lending organizations, and for the first time, during his tenure, you see those macroeconomic indicators improve significantly, which finally gains the approval of organizations like the I.M.F.,” said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a research group based in Bolivia.

Mr. Morales has benefited by being president during a time of high commodity prices, which have driven economic growth here and in many countries throughout the region. In a highly contentious move, he nationalized the energy sector by taking a greater stake in the companies that extract the nation’s gas and demanding a bigger share of the revenues. That has greatly increased government income, giving him the money to pay for social programs like cash payments to young mothers, improved pensions and infrastructure projects.

But while the nationalization rattled foreign investors, Mr. Morales now gets generally good marks for the way he has handled the windfall.

“You could mismanage this opportunity, and the reality is they have not,” said Faris Hadad-Zervos, the resident representative of the World Bank in La Paz, who cited the large foreign reserves stock and substantial increases in government spending on infrastructure.

Not that there are no areas of concern. Both the monetary fund and the World Bank say much more should be done to encourage private investment. Bolivia has less than half the rate of private investment of most other countries in South America.

There are also worries about what will happen if natural gas prices fall significantly, and whether Bolivia is simply in the midst of the typical boom-and-bust cycle that often bedevils poor countries.

Bolivia’s gas exports go entirely to Brazil and Argentina on long-term contracts, meaning that sustained economic problems in those countries could eventually spell problems for Bolivia. But a greater concern is over a low level of investment in gas exploration, which could endanger Bolivia’s ability to maintain production levels in the future.

“This is not sustainable in the long term,” said Jose L. Valera, a lawyer based in Houston who has represented energy companies doing business in Bolivia. “The model is not designed to generate substantial profits for an oil industry that is going to then be incentivized to reinvest in Bolivia.”

Bolivia’s relations with the monetary fund and the World Bank, both based in Washington, are a sharp contrast to those of some of its leftist allies. Venezuela, Ecuador and Argentina refuse to take part in annual economic reviews by the monetary fund.

Mr. Morales’s public statements have also often been highly critical. He once said the World Bank tried to blackmail him into changing his economic policies. And in a speech in December 2012, he called for the dismantling of “the international financial system and its satellites, the I.M.F. and the World Bank.”

But his attitude toward the bank seemed to have changed in July at an event to announce a World Bank project to support quinoa farmers.

“The World Bank does not blackmail, or impose conditions, not anymore,” Mr. Morales said, according to a publication on the bank’s website. To celebrate, he played a friendly soccer game with the bank’s president, Jim Yong Kim.

[Sávio Ricardo]

[Bourne]

Isso me lembra uma francesa que tinha trabalho e qualificação de pos-graduação, mas teve tantas dificuldade de conseguir o visto para trabalhar no brasil que desistiu e pegou outro emprego na Inglaterra. Olha que era tinha interesse em fixar residencia em São Paulo.

Canadá vai ter "vistos expresso" e tem 100 mil ofertas de emprego

http://p3.publico.pt/actualidade/socied ... de-emprego

O Governo do Canadá vai desburocratizar o processo de obtenção de vistos de trabalho, tornando mais simples e rápidas as entradas no país já a partir de Janeiro do próximo ano. Com esta medida, o Governo quer atrair profissionais qualificados e tem mais de 100 mil ofertas de emprego disponíveis, algumas dirigidas especificamente a portugueses.

A obtenção do "visto expresso" vai passar pela realização de um registo electrónico e envio de certificados de comprovativo de domínio da língua, aptidão académica e profissional. Os pedidos serão armazenados numa base de dados, que pode ser acedida tanto pelo Governo como por empresas privadas, e os candidatos seleccionados recebem posteriormente respostas dos potenciais empregadores, caso sejam seleccionados.

As profissões mais procuradas variam de acordo com a região do país, mas cargos qualificados como engenheiros (áreas da informática, electrónica, ciências da computação, ambiente, civil, espacial, petróleo, minas), economistas, gestores, médicos, enfermeiros, arquitectos e biólogos são, segundo o Económico, das áreas mais precisas. A taxa anual de desemprego no Canadá é de 6,8%.

As ofertas de emprego estão listadas num site governamental e é possível consultar as ofertas disponíveis para portugueses aqui.

[Bourne]

Fim do bolivianismo - Parte III

Bolívia procura limpar sua imagem no exterior

m seu segundo mandato, o presidente da Bolívia, Evo Morales, precisou fazer malabarismos para conciliar sua retórica anticapitalista e aproximar-se do empresariado local. Agora, às vésperas do próximo mandato, que começa no início do ano, o pragmatismo leva-o a tentar recompor as relações com seu pior inimigo. Morales não deixou de aproveitar a cúpula da ALBA, celebrada no domingo em Havana, para arremeter contra os Estados Unidos. Enquanto isso, a diplomacia boliviana tenta construir pontes com Washington para, sobretudo, melhorar a imagem do país com vistas à demanda contra o Chile apresentada na Corte Internacional de Haia reivindicando uma saída para o mar.

O chanceler David Choquehuanca afirmou na quinta-feira que a Bolívia propôs aos Estados Unidos uma reunião entre os presidentes Morales e Barack Obama para recompor as relações bilaterais, rompidas desde a expulsão, em setembro de 2008, do embaixador de Washington em La Paz, Philip Goldberg, acusado de ingerência em assuntos internos. Os Estados Unidos responderam retirando o embaixador boliviano.

O secretário de negócios dos Estados Unidos em La Paz, Peter Brennan, foi o contato com a diplomacia de Morales. “Tivemos várias reuniões, na última sugerimos aos Estados Unidos organizar uma reunião no mais alto nível, propusemos um encontro entre o presidente Morales e o presidente Obama; com muito respeito”, afirmou Choquehuanca. Pouco depois da divulgação das declarações do chanceler, o presidente da Câmara de Deputados, Marcelo Elío, afirmou que “muito provavelmente será possível recolocar os embaixadores”.

“Alegra-nos o fato de o Governo da Bolívia querer melhorar as relações com os Estados Unidos. Temos de trabalhar as condições, estou aqui para tentar estabelecer uma relação de confiança”, respondeu o diplomata americano, de acordo com a imprensa local. Além disso, o Governo boliviano tem como certo que, quando a presidenta brasileira Dilma Rousseff tomar posse nos segundo mandato, voltará a enviar um embaixador a La Paz, de onde o retirou em 2013.

Tanto políticos do Executivo, como do seu partido, o Movmento ao Socialismo (MAS), têm insistido com Morales na necessidade de transmitir uma imagem de país sério e solvente, sobretudo para enfrentar o maior desafio da política externa boliviana: o litígio com o Chile por uma saída para o mar. Desde a abertura do processo em Haia, em abril de 2013, La Paz viu a presidenta Bachelet reunir-se com Obama —“é minha segunda Michelle favorita”, chegou a dizer-lhe em junho— e o chanceler Heraldo Muñoz com o secretário de Estado, John Kerry.

“Uma relação fluida com os Estados Unidos é imprescindível”, diz o ex-presidente Carlos D. Mesa (2003-2005), representante internacional da Bolívia na causa marítima. Em entrevista a este jornal na sexta-feira passada, Mesa apontou que a demanda “não é um problema de fronteiras, mas sim que o Chile está dizendo ao mundo que a Bolívia quer bagunçar o tabuleiro. E não é assim. O que queremos é que a Corte Internacional obrigue o Chile a sentar-se para negociar”. Se conseguisse a desejada saída para mar, a Bolívia ganharia, nas palavras de Mesa, “um crescimento importante do PIB, uma liberdade absoluta para estabelecer uma estratégia de importações e exportações e, o mais importante, uma presença plena na bacia do Pacífico, que é imprescindível. O futuro da economia mundial está aí”.

Além de Mesa, participou na demanda o também ex-presidente Eduardo Rodriguez Veltzé (2005-2006). Ambos críticos da gestão de Morales durante certo tempo, Mesa recorda que aceitou o encargo ao ver que no projeto de reivindicação à Corte havia “uma visão de Estado incomum, não no presidente Morales, mas na política boliviana em geral”.

http://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2014/12 ... 21708.html

[Bourne]

Fim do bolivianismo - Parte IV

Vai para cuba! Comunista

Obama Announces U.S. and Cuba Will Resume Diplomatic Relations

Fonte http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/world ... -news&_r=1

WASHINGTON — The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century after the release of an American contractor held in prison for five years, President Obama announced on Wednesday.

In a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, who hosted a final meeting at the Vatican, Mr. Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba agreed in a telephone call to put aside decades of hostility to find a new relationship between the United States and the island nation just 90 miles off the American coast.

“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” Mr. Obama said in a nationally televised statement from the White House. The deal will “begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas” and move beyond a “rigid policy that’s rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.”

The contractor, Alan P. Gross, traveled on an American government plane to the United States late Wednesday morning, and the United States sent back three Cuban spies who had been in an American prison since 2001. American officials said the Cuban spies were swapped for a United States intelligence agent who had been in a Cuban prison for nearly 20 years, and said Mr. Gross was not technically part of the swap, but was released separately on “humanitarian grounds.”

In addition, the United States will ease restrictions on remittances, travel and banking relations, and Cuba will release 53 Cuban prisoners identified as political prisoners by the United States government. Although the decades-old American embargo on Cuba will remain in place for now, the president called for an “honest and serious debate about lifting” it.

“These 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s time for a new approach.”

Addressing critics of his new approach, he said he shares their commitment to freedom. “The question is how do we uphold that commitment,” he said. “I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result.”

Mr. Castro spoke simultaneously on Cuban television, taking to the airwaves with no introduction and announcing that he had spoken by telephone with Mr. Obama. “We have been able to advance the solutions of some themes of interest to both nations,” he said. “This decision of President Obama deserves the respect and acknowledgment of our people.”

“This does not mean the principal issue has been resolved,” he added. “The blockade which causes much human and economic damage to our country should cease.”

But Mr. Castro acknowledged that Mr. Obama was easing it through his executive authority and called on the United States government to go further to “remove the obstacles that impede or restrict the links between our peoples, the families and the citizens of both our countries.”

Mr. Gross, accompanied by his wife, Judy, and three members of Congress, landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington shortly before noon. His sister, Bonnie Rubinstein, was “beyond ecstatic” at the news, according to her husband, Harold. “We are extremely grateful that he’s on his way home,” Mr. Rubinstein said by telephone from Dallas. “It’s been a long ordeal.”

Secretary of State John Kerry landed at Andrews shortly afterward and met with Mr. Gross, his wife, other members of his family and his lawyer, Scott Gilbert. While the meeting was unplanned, a State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said it gave Mr. Kerry a chance to “express his overwhelming happiness that Alan Gross is now free and reunited with his family on American soil.”

Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida and son of Cuban immigrants who may run for president in 2016, denounced the new policy as “another concession to a tyranny” and a sign that Mr. Obama’s administration is “willfully ignorant of the way the world truly works.”

“This whole new policy is based on an illusion, on a lie, the lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people,” Mr. Rubio said. “All this is going to do is give the Castro regime, which controls every aspect of Cuban life, the opportunity to manipulate these changes to stay in power.”

Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, was also sharply critical. “Let’s be clear, this was not a ‘humanitarian’ act by the Castro regime. It was a swap of convicted spies for an innocent American,” Mr. Menendez said in a written statement. “President Obama’s actions have vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government.”

Mr. Obama spoke with Mr. Castro by telephone on Tuesday to finalize the agreement in a call that lasted more than 45 minutes, the first direct contact between the leaders of the two countries in more than 50 years, American officials said.

Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba were severed in January 1961 after the rise of Fidel Castro and his Communist government. Mr. Obama has instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to immediately initiate discussions with Cuba about re-establishing diplomatic relations and to begin the process of removing Cuba from the list of states that sponsor terrorism, which it has been on since 1982, the White House said.

Officials said they would re-establish an embassy in Havana and carry out high-level exchanges and visits between the two governments within months. Mr. Obama will send an assistant secretary of state to Havana next month to lead an American delegation to the next round of talks on Cuban-American migration. The United States will also begin working with Cuba on issues like counternarcotics, environmental protection and human trafficking.

The United States will also ease travel restrictions across all 12 categories currently envisioned under limited circumstances in American law, including family visits, official visits, journalistic, professional, educational and religious activities, and public performances, officials said. Ordinary tourism, however, will remain prohibited.

Mr. Obama will also allow greater banking ties and raise the level of remittances allowed to be sent to Cuban nationals to $2,000 every three months from the current limit of $500. Intermediaries forwarding remittances will no longer require a specific license from the government. American travelers will also be allowed to import up to $400 worth of goods from Cuba, including up to $100 in tobacco and alcohol products.

“This is being done because we believe the policy of the past has not worked and we believe the best way to bring democracy and prosperity to Cuba is through a different kind of policy,” a senior administration official told reporters on a conference call under White House ground rules that did not permit the official to be identified.

But the official said the shift would not diminish the American focus on human rights in Cuba. “Our emphasis on human rights will be just as strong and we believe more effective under this policy,” the official said. “We will engage directly with the Cuban government on human rights.”

Mr. Gross’s health has been failing. He reportedly lost more than 100 pounds in prison and is losing vision in his right eye. He went on a nine-day hunger strike in April. After turning 65 in May, he told relatives that he might try to kill himself if not released soon.

Three members of Congress were on the plane that picked up Mr. Gross in Cuba on Wednesday and accompanied him back to the United States, officials said: Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, and Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.

Mr. Gross was in Cuba to deliver satellite telephone equipment that was capable of cloaking connections to the Internet when he was arrested in 2009. The Cuban authorities, who tightly control access to the Internet in their country, initially said he was a spy, and a court there convicted him of bringing in the devices without a permit as part of a subversive plot to “destroy the revolution.”

Mr. Gross’s case drew increasing attention as his health deteriorated. He grew despondent and talked of suicide, and his wife, Judy Gross, and other supporters made urgent pleas for his release, but off-and-on diplomatic talks seemed to go nowhere.

Cuba has often raised the case of three of its spies serving federal prison time in Florida, saying they had been prosecuted unjustly and urging that they be released on humanitarian grounds. State Department officials insisted that the cases were not comparable and that Mr. Gross was not an intelligence agent.

Mr. Gross worked for Development Alternatives, of Bethesda, Md., and had traveled to more than 50 countries as an international development worker. The company had a $6 million contract with the United States Agency for International Development to distribute equipment that could get around Cuba’s Internet blockade, and Mr. Gross had made four previous trips to Cuba in 2009.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the former New Mexico governor and cabinet secretary Bill Richardson and several members of Congress appealed for Mr. Gross’s release, along with Jewish advocacy groups in the United States.

After visiting Mr. Gross in November, Mr. Flake and a longtime advocate of loosening the 50-year-old American trade embargo with Cuba, said he was optimistic that the case would be resolved.

American lawmakers who have drawn attention to Mr. Gross’s case celebrated his departure from Cuba. “Today, news of Alan’s release brings great relief to his loved ones and to every American who has called for his freedom,” said Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas. “I admire Alan’s strength and that of his wife Judy, who has worked tirelessly for years to free Alan and reunite her family.”

The American government has spent $264 million over the last 18 years, much of it through the development agency, in an effort to spur democratic change in Cuba. The agency said in November that it would cease the kinds of operations that Mr. Gross was involved in when he was arrested, as well as those, disclosed by The Associated Press, that allowed a contractor to set up a Twitter-like social network that hid its ties to the United States government.

[Marino]

Aos quadrúpedes e cegos geopolíticos.
-----------
FSP -Coluna Patrícia Campos Mello

Brasil marcou um golaço ao financiar Mariel

Com o porto de Mariel e outros inúmeros investimentos em Cuba, o Brasil é um dos países que estão melhor posicionados para se beneficiar da queda do embargo americano à ilha, cuja negociação será anunciada hoje.

Alvo de críticas ferrenhas, o porto de Mariel, que recebeu cerca de US$ 800 milhões de financiamento do BNDES e foi tocado pela Odebrecht, está a apenas 200 quilômetros da costa da Florida.

Depois da dragagem, poderá receber navios grandes como os Super Post Panamax, que Dilma citou várias vezes durante a cúpula da Celac este ano, e concorrer com o porto do Panamá.

Mesmo sem a dragagem, já será concorrente de portos como o de Kingston, na Jamaica, e das Bahamas, bastante movimentados.

O raciocínio do governo brasileiro sempre foi o de "entrar antes da abertura para já estar lá quando caísse o embargo".

Essa estratégia se provou acertada.

[Túlio]

Vamos ver no que dá. Prever resultados antes de aparecerem é meio que PARCIAL, não, CMG véio?

[Bourne]

Sendo maldoso, capaz do Brasil ter feito a obra, mas quem vai se aproveitar são empresas asiáticas e americanas

O que o Brasil pode ganhar com o fim da tensão Washington-Havana?

http://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2014/12 ... 42200.html

Com a histórica normalização das relações entre Estados Unidos e Cuba, o Brasil, pelos sólidos laços com Raúl Castro, se transforma num interlocutor privilegiado e larga na frente porque está perto de ver uma aposta controversa se pagar: a construção do Porto de Mariel, nos arredores de Havana, com financiamento do banco BNDES.

O porto, construído pela Odebrecht com cerca de 700 milhões de dólares financiados pelo banco brasileiro (que apareceu nas investigações relacionadas à operação Lava Jato), é o maior investimento privado na ilha desde 1959. A Odebrecht, pelas mãos do governo brasileiro, é também a primeira empresa privada autorizada a operar uma usina de açúcar. E mais: está reformando os aeroportos da ilha.

O porto de Mariel é um entreposto estratégico no Caribe, mas, por causa do embargo econômico imposto por Washington, não pode ter seu potencial plenamente aproveitado. Todo navio que passe por portos cubanos atualmente tem de ficar numa “quarentena” de seis meses até poder atracar novamente em portos americanos. Agora, essa limitação parece estar prestes a acabar.

O governo brasileiro sempre insistiu que era preciso se apostar na obra, mesmo com a limitação, para se posicionar bem na ilha comunista antes do fim do embargo. A ideia do governo de Raúl Castro é que o Mariel, que será operado por uma empresa de Cingapura, seja parte de uma "zona especial de desenvolvimento", que receberá empresas produtivas e de logística.

Nisso o Brasil também quer ter seu quinhão e já alguns anos discute a instalação de empresas brasileiras na “zona especial”, que, guardadas as proporções, emulam as zonas que a China criou há 30 anos para atrair investimento estrangeiro.

Há conversas em tornos de uma empresa de vidros, a Fenavid, e empresas da área de biotecnologia, um setor avançado em Cuba e o governo brasileiro já demonstrou interesse em estabelecer parcerias.

Além de produzir perto de mercado americano, há o fator de mão-de-obra. Para usar as palavras do então chanceler brasileiro Celso Amorim em 2008, Cuba, por causa da escolaridade alta da população, pode se transformar num “tigre asiático” da América Latina.

Fora do campo estritamente econômico, o Brasil se torna um interlocutor importante de Cuba neste momento de mudanças quando a Venezuela, aliado carnal da ilha, enfrenta crise econômica por causa da queda do preço do petróleo. Por fim, há cerca de 11 mil médicos cubanos, parte do programa federal Mais Médicos, uma parceria fechada diretamente com o governo Raúl Castro.

[Marino]

Vamos ver no que dá. Prever resultados antes de aparecerem é meio que PARCIAL, não, CMG véio?

Eu nao prevejo resultados, podem ser zero.
Mas reconheço uma visão além dos antolhos que a maioria da população brasileira costuma usar.
Quer ver outro movimento somente hoje reconhecido?
O reconhecimento do MPLA em Angola pelo governo Geisel.
Esperemos.

[Túlio]

Esperemos, como ambos dissemos, CMG véio. Daí a chamar quem não concorda conosco de "cegos" e "quadrúpedes" não te parece meio que...deselegante? Um OS da MB?

[Marino]

Chamei os que A PRIORI condenam sem fazer o esforço de visualizar o cenário um pouco adiante somente, os que por motivos ideológicos taxaram de roubalheira e desvio de investimentos que poderiam ser feitos no Brasil, desconhecendo inclusive que se tratava de um empréstimo a ser investido em uma construtora brasileira.
Estes, Túlio velho, sao quadrúpedes e cegos.

[Túlio]

Cupincha, te reprochei? Se entendeste assim, minhas desculpas. Só não me vejo chamando outra pessoa disso e daquilo por IDEOLOGICE. E sou apenas um AP, não um OS da MB. Apenas isso, tri?

[Marino]

Nao há motivo para desculpas entre amigos.
Aqui sou um simples forista, igual a todos, e que nao consegue muitas vezes conter a decepção com o que lê em nossa grande mídia.