Paulo Rebêlo Wired News January 2001 Considering Brazil has the world’s sixth largest television audience, it wasn’t surprising the Brazilian government mentioned the medium’s 50th anniversary on its homepage. “Remove TV from Brazil and Brazil disappears,” journalist Eugenio Bucci says on Brazil’s official website. But what kind of TV they’re getting has been a sore spot for those hoping the digital revolution would have conquered Brazil by now. While DTVs are slowly but surely making their way into living rooms in the United States, Europe and Japan, it will take years before Brazilians can even purchase them in stores. The problem is there is no standard in Brazil to transmit and receive digital signals. And coming up with one has proven troublesome. Transmitting signals through cable is not an option because most Brazilians cannot afford to order cable services. National cable companies aren’t even turning up profits. Most countries have conducted tests and picked the transmission standard that best suits their broadcasting infrastructure. But Brazil can’t afford to roll out DTV on its own, so it must team up with other countries for support –- which means adopting standards not necessarily compatible with its own infrastructure. The National Association of
Categoria: English
Paulo Rebêlo Wired News January 2001 When the Spanish bank Santander bought the debt-ridden, state-owned Banespa Bank in São Paulo, it was another indicator the Spaniards were re-conquering the New World. Only this time, they’re buying it. In the last few years the Brazilian economy has fattened up with investments –- and renewed interest –- from Spanish companies. Spain is now the second-largest foreign investor in Brazil after the United States. Though Spanish companies invest almost $4 billion less than U.S. companies, their investments are 20 times more than they were in 1995. Spanish companies invested $20.4 billion this year in Brazilian ventures while U.S. investments totaled $23.9 billion, according to the Spanish Council of Commerce in Brazil. Still, Spain is way ahead of Holland, which is in third place with investments totaling $8.8 billion. France is next on the list with $7.8 billion and Portugal at $7 billion. The Spanish invested only $251 million in 1995. These Spanish companies, which have popped up in every sector in Brazil, see room for growth, whereas their home country is witnessing “shakeouts” such as those occurring in the U.S. dot-com world. Santander bought Banespa for $4 billion and became the fourth largest
Brazzil Magazine May 1999 The Brazilian central bank burned more than a billion dollars for nothing. A Parliamentary Inquiry Commission was established, but there’s little hope that anything will change or that anybody will be punished. Paulo Rebêlo In the past month, Brazilian citizens became so excited about the possibility of having an increase in their minimum wage that they all seemed to forget the economic and “image” problems the government was facing with its own electors and, as usual, the international investors. The country has summoned the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (PIC) in order to investigate supposed corruption between Banco Central do Brasil (Central Bank of Brazil) and two other minor banks, which could have earned millions of dollars atypically via a strange secret transaction. The Real (Brazilian currency) was devaluated in the beginning of 1999 because Central Bank wasn’t able to hold the currency value against ferocious investors anymore. This left those people whose contracts were based on the American dollar in trouble, not to mention taxes, including importing and exporting actions. Up until this point, one dollar (US$1.00) had a value of almost one Real (R$1.00)—about $1.20 Reals for each dollar. In only a few days, the currency