Draft Brasil

Olympics affirms Brazil's rise, Lula legacy
Reuters
By Stuart Grudgings - Analysis

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Rio de Janeiro's successful bid to host the Olympics in 2016 crowns Brazil's remarkable rise over the past decade from a near basket case to an economic and diplomatic heavyweight.

Just as the Beijing Olympics of 2008 marked China's revival as a world power, Rio 2016 may be seen as a stamp of approval on the South American giant's coming of age.

After decades of underachievement, Latin America's largest country in recent years has finally made good on the immense promise of its abundant natural resources, vibrant democracy and vast consumer market of 190 million people.

Rio's Olympics victory may be the most spectacular sign of Brazil's surging profile under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the country's first working-class leader who nurtured an economic boom that has lifted millions of people out of poverty and made him one of the world's most popular leaders.

Even the global economic crisis was unable to knock Brazil off its stride for long as the economy swiftly emerged from recession and returned to growth this year.

"All those people who thought we had no ability to govern this country will now learn that we can host the Olympics," a tearful Lula said after Rio's landslide win in the Olympic voting in Copenhagen on Friday.

"The world has recognized that the time has come for Brazil."

Rio's victory may add to a feel-good factor before October 2010 elections in which Lula is aiming to have Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff elected to succeed him, said Ricardo Ribeiro, a political analyst at MCM Consultores in Sao Paulo.

"I think it's exaggerated to say that this will significantly alter the presidential race next year," he said.

The 63-year-old former union leader is constitutionally barred from standing for a third straight term, but he has not ruled out returning to the presidency in 2014.

Brazil's seeming inability to live up to its promise was long summed up by the joke that "Brazil is the country of the future -- and always will be."

That largely held true during the dark days of the 1965-84 military dictatorship and the years of runaway inflation and economic crises in the 1980s and 1990s.

The country was still struggling in 2002 when, as Lula was poised for the presidency, financial markets crumbled on fears Brazil would go the way of crisis-hit Argentina with Lula and his leftist Workers' Party at the reins.

Since then, years of robust growth and Lula's earthy charm, which plays as well at world summits as in Rio slums, have lifted Brazil to economic and diplomatic respectability.

By 2006, Brazil had paid off its International Monetary Fund loans early and this year pledged to lend the IMF $10 billion. It has won three coveted investment-grade ratings in the past 18 months and has increasingly taken its place as an equal among major diplomatic powers on issues ranging from world trade talks to climate-change negotiations.

Major companies like oil firm Petrobras and mining giant Vale have flourished, helping spread Brazilian investments and influence throughout Latin America and beyond.

NEW PLAYER ON GLOBAL STAGE

In the wake of the financial crisis, Brazil has been at the forefront in pushing for more clout for developing nations in international decision-making, raising the profile of the G20 as well as the BRIC group of big emerging markets, made up of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Lula's appeal for South America's first Olympics followed a similar line: rich countries have enjoyed more than their fair share of the Games' spectacle and prestige.

Brazil's rise has cleared a path out of poverty for about 20 million people, with help from Lula's generous welfare programs.

A run of luck also has worked in Brazil's favor, from the commodities price boom that boosted its exports of raw materials such as iron ore and soybeans to one of the world's largest recent oil finds off Rio's coast in 2007.

The government hopes that discovery will help lift Brazil into the elite club of developed nations.

Yet plenty of challenges lie ahead.

Brazil's schools suffer from chronic underinvestment and the country has no world-class universities, leaving business leaders worried about a lack of qualified labor. Its creaking infrastructure also threatens to cramp growth.

Despite its multiracial identity, racism remains a severe but widely ignored barrier to education and jobs for blacks and indigenous Indians. And, for all its economic progress, Brazil remains one of the world's most unequal countries with widespread poverty, lawlessness and illiteracy in its northeast region and the vast Amazon rain forest area.

(Reporting by Ana Nicolaci da Costa in Brasilia; Editing by Todd Benson, Kieran Murray and Doina Chiacu)

sonicman escreveu:Uma das coisas mais tristes é que, provavelmente, vão acabar de uma vez com Jacarepaguá agora.

Automobilismo brasileiro foi pra casa do chapéu, hora de chamar o Marcel pra fazer um funk.

Jumpman23 escreveu:Agora já era, o Brasil vai sediar dois mega eventos em pouco espaço de tempo, espero que não se queimem bonito, é lindo o Lula falar nós podemos, sendo que o Congresso Nacional ta uma zona, e a gente sabe como são as coisas por aqui, infelizmente. Espero que tudo corra bem, a Copa vai ser um termometro, se bem que Olimpíadas na minha opinião é bem mais complicado de se conduzir, espero que deixem isso na mão de pessoas competentes e não apenas por troca de favores etc, etc. Globo marcando jogos do Brasil na hora do almoço pra não mudar a grade deles fuuuu...

On Olympics, Told You So
Washington Post
Eugene Robinson

I wrote earlier this week that President Obama's trip to Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago's Olympics bid could be futile or even counterproductive. Obama-mania notwithstanding, the U.S. president is always seen at international gatherings as the ultimate Bigfoot, and nobody likes to be Bigfooted. Chicago used the Powell doctrine of "overwhelming force" to try to win, but in this context the deployment of presidential power and charisma only served to invite a comeuppance.

The Olympics movement is a strange culture with its own etiquette and mores. I don't think Chicago would have won the games if Obama had stayed home, but, clearly, his going didn't help. The International Olympic Committee likes a little humility, and -- almost by definition -- no POTUS can be convincingly humble. The first lady would have had a better shot on her own.

I have to be happy for Rio de Janeiro and all of Brazil, though. Rio is one of the world's great cities -- a place where sea, mountains and urban electricity all meet in a setting so beautiful it melts your heart. The city knows how to throw a party -- carnaval happens every year, and it's the greatest show on earth. Parabens, cariocas!

Texano escreveu:Toda opinião é valida, mas dai pra dizer que a opinião é mais "brasileira"... se mata fabiofa!

fabiofa escreveu:Outro ponto positivo, o basquete brasileiro tá garantido em 2016. De lá não passa.