De fato, desde o ínicio de seu governo, Lula tem sido alvo de grandes críticas quanto a sua maneira peculiar de comunicar as posições presidenciais a seus co-cidadãos. Segundo Dines, a crítica não deveria se referir ao nível de erudição da mensagem em s, mas antes, devia atentar ao fato de que o discurso serviria mais para confundir do que para explicar.

A loquacidade do presidente Lula não é para ser levada a sério. O próprio presidente sabe disso, por isso contraria os assessores mais prudentes e solta o verbo. Suas improvisações retóricas não se destinam à posteridade, servem para uso imediato – no máximo as manchetes do dia seguinte.

MARKINGS 94 agradece a colaboração de Jenny P.

So to say, President Obama’s recent visit to Russia is not going as expected. At least in two ways. The New York Times reports that in Russian soil the enthousiasm is far less extravagant when it comes to the newly ellected American President.

“We don’t really understand why Obama is such a star,” said Kirill Zagorodnov, 25, one of the graduates [at the New Economic School]. “It’s a question of trust, how he behaves, how he positions himself, that typical charisma, which in Russia is often parodied. Russians really are not accustomed to it. It is like he is trying to manipulate the public.”

Mr. Obama should, therefore, try other techniques because Washington wants to move forward on nuclear arms control, a traditionally difficult issue on the agenda.

On the global level, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is on the way to be fine-tuned, some say, completely reformed. In 2010, States prepare for the Review Conference on the NPT. For the United States, the new arrangement is one  important tool to deter Iran and North Korea. But without Russia’s cooperation results will not be relevant. The United States and Russia together have 95% of world’s nuclear weapons, Russia can be the alone the greatest ally to deter proliferation. 

And there is a lot of work to be done. The Bush Administration signed the Moscow treaty in 2002. It allowed for the deployment of between 1,700 and 2,200 long-range nuclear weapons for each country. According to Arms Control, an NGO focused on non-proliferation, the numbers are still impressive and the US should push for further reductions. Some disagree:

But John R. Bolton, who was ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, said Mr. Obama was going too far. “The number they are proposing for delivery vehicles is shockingly low,” he said.

Relations are not in a good moment either. After Russia’s war with Georgia last year, relations became rather tense. Moscow not only defied international law by recognizing the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but it also suggested that the country has expansionist aspirations. On the other hand, the American plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe simply makes the Russians very uncomfortable .

For these reasons, Mr. Obama should exert all his charisma. And everything else available.

Tudo indica que as informações do CV Lattes da Ministra Dilma Rousseff, ministra-chefe da Casa Civil, e de seu colega Celso Amorim das Relações Exteriores sofreram uma “repaginada”. Lá constam formações acadêmicas as quais os “doutos” ministros não conquistaram.

A título de informação vale dizer que a Plataforma Lattes é uma base de dados acadêmicos, mantida pelo CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico). O sistema todo é muito simples: cada acadêmico cria para si uma conta (an account) e recebe uma senha que lhe dá acesso ao sistema. La voce pode montar um Curriculum Vitae virtual de modo que ele sirva como referência para seus trabalhos acadêmicos ou não.

A repórter Malu Gaspar revelou que, ao contrário do que informava o Itamaraty, o chanceler Celso Amorim jamais teve título de doutor em ciências políticas e econômicas pela London School of Economics.

Pior: a biografia oficial de Dilma Rousseff, ministra-chefe da Casa Civil, candidata à Presidência da República, informava que ela é “mestre em teoria econômica” e doutoranda em economia monetária e financeira pela Unicamp.

A Plataforma Lattes, do CNPq, registrou que ela obteve o mestrado com uma dissertação sobre “Modelo Energético do Rio Grande do Sul”. Falso.

O repórter Luiz Maklouf Carvalho revelou que, segundo a Unicamp, não há registro de matrícula de Dilma Rousseff no seu curso de mestrado. Só ela tem a senha que permite mexer nos dados da página com seu currículo no Lattes.

Dilma e Amorim não preencheram o requisito essencial para obtenção do título de doutor, que é a apresentação de uma tese.

According to Foreign Policy’s Minxin Pei, we might end up eating pizza in Shangai. The highlights:

“Power Is Shifting from West to East”

Not Really. (…) Asia is nowhere near closing its economic and military gap with the West. The region produces roughly 30 percent of global economic output, but because of its huge population, its per capita gdp is only $5,800, compared with $48,000 in the United States. Asian countries are furiously upgrading their militaries, but their combined military spending in 2008 was still only a third that of the United States. Even at current torrid rates of growth, it will take the average Asian 77 years to reach the income of the average American. The Chinese need 47 years. For Indians, the figure is 123 years. And Asia’s combined military budget won’t equal that of the United States for 72 years.

“Asia’s Rise Is Unstoppable”

Don’t Bet on It. (…) Given Asia’s relatively low per capita income, its growth rate will indeed outpace the West’s for the foreseeable future. But the region faces enormous demographic hurdles in the decades ahead. More than 20 percent of Asians will be elderly by 2050. Aging is a principal cause of Japan’s stagnation. China’s elderly population will soar in the middle of the next decade. (…) The current economic crisis, moreover, will lead to huge overcapacity as Western demand evaporates. Asian companies, facing anemic consumer demand at home, will not be able to sell their products in the region.

“Asia Will Lead the World in Innovation.”

Not in Our Lifetime. (…) Reports of the death of America’s technological leadership are, to paraphrase Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated. Although Asia’s advanced economies, such as Japan and South Korea, are closing the gap, the United States’ lead remains huge. In 2008, American inventors were awarded 92,000 U.S. patents, twice the combined total given to South Korean and Japanese inventors. Asia’s two giants, China and India, still lag far behind. (…) China supposedly graduates 600,000 engineering majors each year, India another 350,000. The United States trails with only 70,000 engineering graduates annually. Although these numbers suggest an Asian edge in generating brainpower, they are thoroughly misleading. Half of China’s engineering graduates and two thirds of India’s have associate degrees. Once quality is factored in, Asia’s lead disappears altogether. A much-cited 2005 McKinsey Global Institute study reports that human resource managers in multinational companies consider only 10 percent of Chinese engineers and 25 percent of Indian engineers as even “employable,” compared with 81 percent of American engineers.

O Banco Mundial divulgou recentemente que o Brasil não avançou significativamente no que tange a seus mecanismos de controle de corrupção. A metodologia considera os  últimos 12 anos.A cobertura é de Veja.

Considerando a nota máxima +2,50 e a mínima -2,50, com margem de erro de 0,14, o Brasil atingiu apenas -0,03. No ranking de países da América Latina, ficou atrás do Chile (+1,31) e do Uruguai (+1,02), e empatado tecnicamente com o Peru (+0,02). A Dinamarca atingiu a melhor nota global, com +2,32.

“Faut-il interdire dans l’espace public la présence d’insignes religieux ?” Le thème agite à nouveau les médias belges, certains, moins hypocrites, résumant le débat à la seule question qui se pose en réalité : “Faut-il, partout, interdire le voile islamique ?”

He argues that the Ahmadinejad remains in power because he can afford it. As oil prices increase, the Ayatollah’s regime can resist UN sanctions and finance support for the regime. On the other hand, as soon as the West becomes independent from oil the Iranian economy will suffer and force the regime to open up.

I believe in “The First Law of Petro-Politics,” which stipulates that the price of oil and the pace of freedom in petrolist states — states totally dependent on oil exports to run their economies — operate in an inverse correlation. As the price of oil goes down, the pace of freedom goes up because leaders have to educate and unleash their people to innovate and trade. As the price of oil goes up, the pace of freedom goes down because leaders just have to stick a pipe in the ground to stay in power.

In the last weeks, Iran had a most controversial election process and – without discussing the merits – a great number of citizens there feel they had their civil rights disrespected. They claim the elections were not fair and, considering that the regime is of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is anything but popular, people went to streets to demonstrate. The press is doing a great effort to cover the events there, but censorship in Iran is severe. Iranians are extremely suspicious about the governmental monitoring of individual communication devices such as telephone and internet. Who would not?

MARKINGS’ 94 proudly has an “informal correspondent” in Tehran. As communication becomes increasingly difficult, solidarity goes in the form of popular music.

For Brazilians, 1969 was not a good year. At all. The military dictatorship was strongly established, but the goverment of President Medici took steps to further restrict individual liberties. Little he knew that young people always find creative ways of expressing themselves. Francisco Buarque de Holanda, nicknamed Chico (you read “Ch” as in “sh” in show) was already a relatively famous compositor at the time. His father was an internationally acclaimed historian and sociologist and he was destined to be an architect. He said later, however, that he loved books to much… and women even more… Arguably, he is the greatest Brazilian compositor still alive.

This Canadian disciple of Isaiah Berlin has made great contributions in the fields of political philosophy, philosophy of social sciences, but he is particularly known for his works on religion and secularism. Recently in the Netherlands for a lecture at the University of Utrecht, he discussed the impact of religion in modern societies. The interesting (and provocative) point he makes is that modernisation and secularisation are not the same thing.

A video recording of his lecture can be found here.

So what I want to do is examine our society as secular in this third sense, which I could perhaps encapsulate in this way: the change I want to define and trace is one which takes us from a society in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is one human possibility among others. I may find it inconceivable that I would abandon my faith, but there are others, including possibly some very close to me, whose way of living I cannot in all honesty just dismiss as depraved, or blind, or unworthy, who have no faith (at least not in God, or the transcendent). Belief in God is no longer axiomatic. There are alternatives. And this will also likely mean that at least in certain milieux, it may be hard to sustain one’s faith.

from A Secular Age, Harvard University Press.

It is a bit surprising but one can read The Economist say “Vive la differénce” . According to the British magazine, the French are much better off than their counterparts in England and America during these times of crisis. Arguably, the strong state presence in the French economy has a positive impact in daily life:

Yet at lunchtime on a warm spring day, tables at the pavement cafés in the town centre, near the scaffolding-clad cathedral, are all taken. Municipal flowerbeds, where cornflower-blue lupins nestle next to ornamental cabbages, are well stocked and tended. The car park at the local hypermarket is packed. Traffic at the nearby low-cost airport, a big employer, is still busy. And local electronics and perfume factories are holding up well. “This is not a rich town,” says Caroline Cayeux, the centre-right mayor. “But having the French social system enables people to keep their heads above water.”

It is particularly interesting to note the initiatives taken on infrastructure and energy production. In their dirigiste tradition, the French do employ a lot of resources to improve public services and – consequently – the government pushes de demand.

Of course, France´s political economy has a lot to improve. Unemployment and enterpreunership do need a push-up. But, in dark times as these….  they seem to have something to teach to the world.