At the center of this story is another state-run company, Eletrobras, and its Angra III project, a nuclear power plant tucked into a bay with jungle-covered islands that have become something of a playground for Brazil's rich and famous.
Latin America has been plagued by corruption for centuries, ever since it emerged from what the Mexican poet Octavio Paz called the “patrimonialist” nature of Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule. What is different today is the response to it, with societies and institutions refusing to remain complicit in corruption, or resigning themselves to its inevitability.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has lost support from Senate Chief Renan Calheiros and his lower-house counterpart, Eduardo Cunha, amid growing discontent with a recession and a corruption probe into legislators.
Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings have dished out 93 corporate downgrades since Jan. 1, already more than in any full year since 2002, and they may not be done. Speculation is mounting that Moody's -- which met with officials in Brazil last week -- will lower the country's rating.
China Development Bank and the Asian country's export credit financing agency agreed to provide a total of $7 billion in financing for Brazil's state-run energy company Petroleo Brasileiro. And Tianjin Airlines signed a contract to buy 22 jets from São Paulo-based Embraer.
BRASILIA, Brazil — Police arrested the treasurer of Brazil's ruling Workers' Party on Wednesday, bringing the country's largest corruption scandal a step closer to President Dilma Rousseff's government.
State capitalism and protection go hand in hand here. In 1998, the Carajas National Forest reserve was created as much to isolate the mine area from squatters as protect it from the deforestation that has devastated so much of this southern corner of the Amazon.
"The Salt of the Earth" is directed by Wim Wenders and Salgado's son, Juliano, and the two men trade off narrating what amounts to an unabashed love letter to the man they both idolize.
