Brazil

Flying electric car prototype unveiled in Brazil, bringing Uber-like aerial ride-sharing closer to reality

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SAO PAULO, Brazil – Embraer, the Brazilian aerospace giant that produces commercial, military, executive, and agricultural aircraft is now taking the next step in unveiling a prototype for an electric flying car aimed at the passenger market as part of its project to develop an air urban mobility ecosystem.

The working prototype took to the air at Embraer’s headquarters in Gavião Peixoto, São Paulo, last week. The vertical take-off vehicle looks like an oversized drone, with 10 propellers - 8 horizontal and 2 vertical - and is designed to transport passengers in what will eventually be totally autonomous flight, said the company.

The long road to prepare it for market includes obtaining certification for electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOL) and the full development of solutions for urban air traffic management.

Uber is already working with Embraer on this future-focused project. “Embraer’s team focused on the customer experience with their latest vehicle concept, using built-in redundant systems to achieve optimal safety, while also achieving low noise output with an eight rotor system, which enables span-wise lift,” said Mark Moore, Engineering Director of Aviation, Uber. “Our team looks forward to continued collaboration with the Embraer team to achieve a quiet, green, and safe, aerial ridesharing vehicle.”

By Milan Sime Martinic

Fully automated convenience stores open in São Paulo

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SÃO PAULO – French multinational Carrefour, an operator of retail and grocery stores in Brazil, announced this week the launch of its first two autonomous neighborhood markets.

The convenience stores will operate without humans at checkout counters and without customer service, a model that goes a step beyond Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology which runs partially automated stores in some US and UK cities.

The Brazilian stores do not have employees to assist with purchases nor automatic cashiers. Instead, clients use an app to enter the stores and customers pay as if on an e-commerce website and receive a code to leave the store.

The stores have been operating since mid-December, but have just now been announced, according to the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.

By Milan Sime Martinic

Brazilian court orders Bolsonaro to pay damages to reporter for sex proposition claims

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SAO PAOLO, Brazil – The president of the Republic of Brazil has been sanctioned by a court and ordered to pay indemnification for “moral damages” stemming from his use of sexual innuendo to discredit the veracity of reports by Folha de S. Paulo journalist Patricia Campos Mello, repeating an accusation that she had offered sex in exchange for damaging information about him. In Brazil, such a charge, when unfounded, is considered a sexual harassment offense.

Campos Mello’s report pointed out that digital marketing company Yacows’ possible participation in a message-triggering scheme through WhatsApp during the elections that fraudulently issued national identification numbers to generate texts in names of politicians, disseminating fake news. A former Yacows employee first made the accusation against Campos Mello without presenting any proof.

The reporter sued, asking for R$50k–about $8700–in damages for pain and suffering.

The judge’s ruling said, “It remained evident that the defendant’s individual exercise of the right to freedom of expression violated the plaintiff’s honor, causing her moral damage, and should therefore be held responsible.”

Bolsonaro was ordered to pay a $3,500 fine plus court and attorney fees. He has 15 days to appeal.

“It is a great day for women journalists. A great day for professional journalism,” said the Brazilian group Journalists Against Harassment, in a tweet.

By Milan Sime Martinic

Policy paper by US-Brazil think tank recommends Biden cut ties with Bolsonaro

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Recommendations arriving at the White House this week from NGOs and experts comprising the US Network for Democracy in Brazil, USNDB, request the Biden administration suspend all political and economic agreements, negotiations, and alliances made with the Bolsonario regime.

In a 31-page document, written by professors from 10 universities, directors of NGOs such as Greenpeace and Amazon Watch, and endorsed by 100 academics from universities, organizations, and activists, USNDB supports the recommendations with high criticism of the authoritarian tendencies of Presidents Donald Trump and Bolsonaro. The paper also advises the US to restrict imports of wood, soy, and meat from Brazil, until it can be confirmed are not linked to deforestation and human rights abuses.

By Milan Sime Martinic

India turning to the Americas for oil, aiming to cut reliance on Middle East

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The world’s third-largest oil importer is diversifying oil imports away from the Middle East and is buying crude from North and South America, according to various reports. A first cargo of Brazil’s grade Tupi was booked by Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd., reported Bloomberg.

State-run Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd, have also placed a recent order from Guyana, reported Reuters noting that in February the United States became India’s second-largest crude supplier, bumping Saudi Arabia, and just behind Iraq.

By Milan Sime Martinic

Latin American projected GDP growth held back by Brazilian problems

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Projected Gross Domestic Product growth for Latin America and the Caribbean is put at 3.2% for 2021-2023, according to projections of the Inter-American Development Bank, while Brazil’s expected growth is 2.7%. When Brazil is excluded, projected growth for the Southern Cone countries–Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay –is 3.5%.

“Brazil has significant challenges –it needs to enact a set of pro-growth reforms, as well as adopt a fiscal policy that maintains confidence and ensures fiscal sustainability, stabilizes rising public sector debt, and gradually reduces debt levels,” said IDB’s Chief Economic Adviser Andrew Powell, speaking about the lackluster expectations for Latin America’s largest country.

By Milan Sime Martinic

Brazil becomes first country in Latin America to approve a cryptocoin-based EFT

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SAO PAOLO, Brazil – The Comissão de Valores Mobiliários do Brasil has approved blockchain investment EFTs to trade the Sao Paulo-based B3 exchange. The move follows the approval of 3 similar funds in Canada in the last months. Rio-based QR Asset Management will make its first offering of $100m for qualified investors in June.

By Milan Sime Martinic

Brazil’s new supersonic fighter jet already in test phase

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SAO PAOLO, Brazil – The skies over Sao Paulo state are roaring with low-altitude flights of the Saab-designed Gripen-E military aircraft being built by the Swedish company but completed and serviced at a nearby Embraer plant and Brazil’s National Aircraft Development Center.

The airplanes are part of a $4.5 billion order for 36 aircraft by the Brazilian Air Force, of which 15 will be fully produced by Embraer.

The flights are at times at an altitude of only 15 feet over flat, sparsely in order to minimize the effect of the sonic booms on people on the ground, says Saab, but the company does not report the speeds attained on test flights.

By Milan Sime Martinic

Latin American Leftists not-so-hot on global warming

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Unlike in the US and Europe, the political left in South America is often mum on climate change, says an analysis by Americas Quarterly, which identifies a trend of diverging goals between leftist leaders and environmentalists in the region.

The report notes how Bolivia’s Evo Morales opened up the Tipnis Protected Area for energy exploration, and how in 2019 his country matched Brazil’s pro-deforestation record of President Bolsonaro with massive torchings inthe Amazon. Mexico’s Lopez Obrador and Venezuela’s Maduro are singled out as actively indifferent to environmental concerns, and former far-left Brazilian president Lula’s lack of criticism of Bolsonaro’s active deforestation. In all cases, says the report, environmental conditions have worsened considerably over the last years.

By Milan Sime Martinic

Downed Brazilian pilot rescued after given up for dead in Amazon jungle

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SAO PAULO  -  Antonio Sera survived 36 days in the thick jungle along the Para River in Brazil’s lower Amazonia after his plane crashed and burned January 28. Government rescuers found no trace of him and gave up after a week. He told the Folha of Sao Paulo that he survived by eating fruit that he saw that monkeys would eat. The 36-year-old walked through the thick bush to safety and was 26 kilos lighter when found by Brazil nut farmers.

By Milan Sime Martinic

Brazil’s leftist ex-president da Silva can run again

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SAO PAULO, Brazil – A judge in the country’s Supreme Court declared the corruption trials against former President Lula da Silva invalid and thus the conviction for which he served time in prison also invalid. Further, it means he can run in the presidential elections of 2022.

Lula, Brazil’s leftist icon, would challenge right-wing populist incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, suspected to have engineered the investigation that convicted Lula on corruption charges, which judges and prosecutors now agree was manipulated and is questionable.

The former union leader ran the country from 2003 to 2011 and still enjoys great support, especially among the poor in Brazil. During Lula da Silva’s tenure, Brazil experienced a boom, but in 2018 the conviction made his candidacy impossible. Despite polls showing he was likely to win the election, he was sent to prison and taken off the ballot, Bolsonaro then won the elections and took the presidency. The 75 year-old Lula has not indicated whether he wants to run again, but his supporters are already celebrating.

According to recent polls, if the elections were held today, he would have more votes than Bolsonaro.

By Milan Sime Martinic

Refugee crisis on Brazil-Peru border expands to a third country

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Territorial incursions, bridge blockades, and now an ongoing encampment of mostly Haitian refugees that blocks passage over the Friendship Bridge that connects the two nations are growing into an unsustainable impasse, and the situation is fast-turning into a 3-country crisis, say authorities in Brazil’s far west state of Acre.

More than 400 refugees are stranded near the Brazil-Peru-Bolivia border creating a humanitarian crisis of its own, with lack of resources and even proper sanitation facilities for them, but some 60 Haitians have been demanding passage into Peru so they may make their way north, and they have set up camp on the bridge itself. Authorities in both countries have been unable to find a solution to the problem.

The crisis is made worse by “coyotes,” food shortages, health issues, and some 60 trucks on each side, loaded with food and fuel stalled along the borders, a situation that compromises the transport of goods to communities in all 3 countries, but crucial to the city of Cobija in Bolivia, a regional capital mostly unconnected to the rest of Bolivia by road. Authorities there are concerned about shortages at gas stations and food suppliers. The area also supplies the cities of Brasilea and Epitaciolandia in Brazil.

By Milan Sime Martinic