thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
fundamentally in agreement that India should allow more US-produced beef and seed into the country. The only point of contention was how much more.But the two negotiators were placed under too much pressure from the home front. The United States is in the middle of an election campaign. And India's trade minister had to fly home for a short time during the negotiations to fend off a motion of no confidence against the government.Still, the real reason for the failed negotiations runs deeper. Concerns about globalization have become greater than the hopes it engenders, even in the industrialized nations and the successful emerging economies. Lamy is now referring to last Tuesday's debacle a "collective failure."Forcing Others to Make Concessions The roots of the problem lie in the prevailing ascendancy of national egotism and territorialism. Even the representatives of the European Union were incapable of agreeing on a common position. Theoretically, all countries are in favor of reducing trade barriers. But in practice countries are more interested in reducing the barriers of other countries, not their own. The game is that of forcing others to make concessions without having to make any sacrifices yourself.The United States, for example, wants to sell its agricultural products to the rising economies of India and China, and to do so with as few barriers as possible. But at the same time the Americans refuse to drastically reduce subsidies to their own farmers and, for example, to permit increases in the importation of cotton from countries like Burkina Faso and other West African nations.Brazil likes to pose as an advocate of the poor and especially of vulnerable developing countries, but in reality has long been one of the world's biggest exporters of agricultural products. Japan wants to supply the entire world with its cars, but closes its borders to rice imports. And the supposedly progressive European Union imposes a duty of 176 ($273) on every ton of bananas coming into the EU -- unless they come from countries colonized by Europe in the past. The result is a de-facto penalty for those countries that were never victims of colonization.In fact, it was EU representatives who fuelled one of the most grotesque disputes at the recent round of WTO talks. The issue was cold cuts. Italian makers of the original Parma ham are upset by the fact that meat factories abroad use their regional designation for ordinary ham from the United States. Some Italian negotiators called for an immediate ban on such brand name piracy.Some Europeans were strongly in favor of the Italian effort. French red wine lobbyists were quickly won over. The Hungarians also spontaneously joined the anti-WTO movement. Other delegates attempted, in vain, to point out to their counterparts that the Italian shoe industry would suffer the most if the negotiations failed.Death of a Grand Idea In the end, even the Germans failed to muster the necessary enthusiasm for further liberalization. Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer, a member of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), is in the middle of Bavarian state parliamentary elections and wants the
support of Bavarian farmers, who tend to oppose the lowering of trade barriers.The result is the death of a grand idea. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many gravitated to the idea of opening up the markets of industrialized nations to underdeveloped countries as a way of mollifying the anger of their dissatisfied citizenries. Now, the true price of the failure will only begin to become clear in the fall. China and the United States, in particular, as well as some representatives of the EU, have quietly expected the global trade talks to fail for some time -- and they are now dusting off plan B. In the coming months, experts expect to see a sharp increase in the number of bilateral negotiations aimed at setting up mini trade alliances. Officially the EU looks askance at such a strategy. And last week the German government insisted, once again, that bilateral agreements are not an alternative. But the reality is that concrete preparations are already underway.By this fall, the EU could very well have signed a free trade agreement with South Korea and another agreement with the Gulf states. Many of the details have already been agreed upon. For instance, the only unresolved issue with South Korea is whether the import duty for cars should be eliminated immediately or reduced gradually.The Europeans would have preferred a negotiated solution under the auspices of the WTO conference. But now they see themselves forces to accept an abbreviated version.Because the Americans and, in particular, the Chinese are developing regional alliances, some fear that the EU could be excluded from increasingly important markets in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. Japan has already entered into a partnership agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).No Cathedral, No Monastery Of course, the bilateral agreements are of little use to the world economy. On the contrary, trade privileges for some are detrimental to others. And bureaucracy becomes even more difficult to negotiate. Managers of companies dependent on exports have long been irritated by the myriad regulations, standards and forms they are required to observe.The countries most in need of economic recovery are also negatively affected. The weaker a country is economically, the less leverage it has in bilateral negotiations. But even the industrialized nations face hard times ahead. The collapse of the WTO talks means an end to the trade-war truce agreed to by countries around the world. Experts anticipate that the current conflicts between aviation giants Boeing and Airbus could now lead to a trade war between the United States and Europe."We wanted to build a cathedral," said one disappointed German delegate as he was leaving Geneva last week. "Instead, we didn't even manage to erect a monastery."Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan Gremio Recreativo e Cultural Escola de Samba Vai-Vai, Musa Valquiria Ribeiro, Rainha de Bateria e Musa do Caldeirao e Princesa da Corte Renata Souza, Bailarina e Rainha da Bateria Ivi Mesquita:Tati Lira, Diva Persi, Ivi Mesquita sao dancarinas da Pacha, a maior balada de eletronico do Brasil.Down.
Up, Down.Sobe a classe media (The middle class is rising),aka, Classe media numa boa (Middle class on a roll).All of this on or about Dia Mundial do Orgasmo / International Orgasm Day, July 31.(Tive orgasmo uma vez e vou casar com ele. Estou largando isso aqui. / I had an orgasm one time and I am going to marry him. I'm leaving this.)1. Opiniao - Classe media numa boa, Jose Sarney, 8 agosto.2. OUR RAVAGED SEAS, Thomas Schulz, August 8.3. Trawler 'Atlantic Peace'.4. Corpo-a-corpo na Vila Mimosa, Marcelo Migliaccio, 01 de agosto de 2008.5. Rio Prostitution, photos of Vila Mimosa by Lorenzo Moscia.6. Tasering of disabled native decried, Terri Theodore, May 30.7. Decapitated bus passenger, man was 'totally calm', Joe Friesen, July 31.8. Eye-witness accounts of bus slaying, Cody Olmstead & Garnet Caton, July 31.9. Beheading victim 'never got into a single fight ...', August 1.10. Beheaded man identified, Gabrielle Giroday and Ian Hitchen, July 31.11. Alleged bus butcher quiet in court, Joe Friesen, August 1.12. Suspect called friendly, reliable employee, Josh Wingrove, August 1.13. 'Please kill me,' accused pleads, Joe Friesen, August 5.Malvados - Andre Dahmer:Children in the suburbs killed like cockroaches. Poverty becomes a crime and the State has to come out and hunt them.But even in times of horror the middle class fulfills their historical role ...... and stand firm, collecting their little cups of cream cheeze.Everybody wants into the middle class. Chinese, Brasilians, everybody's lining up. There's probably not enough to go around anyway, and what there is will vacuumed up and gone within a few generations so the people standing in line may not get any, oh well, ho hum. They may get upset. There may be wars, but then maybe it's relative. Perceptions and expectations change more quickly than you think. Within a generation or two whatever is going on will seem normal however nasty it may look from here. All good.Meanwhile I would be quite happy to be out of the middle class, or at least away from it. Outside shitter, bit of a well for water, garden to dig in ...(Coming up on post #500, also coming up on 30,000 visitors. I think it's going to stop.)Jose Sarney is no better than the nitwit who said to me once, "Well, you can't stand in the way of progress." No, you can't, more's the pity. The guy was a town councillor and I was asking who benefitted from covering all the farm lanes with asphalt. Luddite.Sarney says, "O passaporte definitivo para o bem-estar e para o desenvolvimento de nosso pais passa pela educacao e pelo melhor consumo de cultura." / The definitive passport to well-being and development of our country is through education and better consumption of culture. Nevermind that the sentence is nonsense - it embeds the myth of development sold to an eager and expanding middle class - ai ai ai!And if you do take the time to read the story about the fish disappearing soon - keep in mind that this Captain Hartmann, pitiful exhausted Sensitive New Age Guy, is running a
DRAGGER - this boat called 'Atlantic Peace' is a fucking DRAGGER! Someone may come here and see these things that I post and perhaps think that I somehow agree or concur or some such thing but quite often the sensibility appalls me, and I post it here as an object lesson.Maybe a look at the gritty grimy streets and tiny rooms of Vila Mimosa will tweak your sensibility, or the story of Aeron Hall.Or, finally, the story of Tim McLean & Vince Weiguang Li, a beheading on the Trans k-k-Canada Highway.*************************************************************Opiniao - Classe media numa boa, Jose Sarney (ex-presidente da Republica), 8 agosto.Entre as noticias de crise no mundo inteiro, com os Estados Unidos comandando os receios de recessao, o Ipea e a Fundacao Getulio Vargas trazem as boas noticias de que a classe media ja e maioria na populacao brasileira, chegando a 51,89% das pessoas, e que 3 milhoes de brasileiros deixaram a faixa da pobreza absoluta. E uma importante etapa vencida e uma grande mudanca, causada pela queda do desemprego, pelo aumento do numero de trabalhadores com carteira assinada, pela melhoria do salario minimo e pelos grandes programas sociais.Como a unanimidade nao existe parafraseando o nosso sempre lembrado Nelson Rodrigues, de irresistivel memoria alguns economistas de uma universidade do Rio de Janeiro reconhecem que houve melhoria de renda, mas afirmam que o processo de afericao dos numeros divulgados nao e tao confiavel.Vamos ficar com o bom senso e reconhecer que, com metodos de pesquisa confiaveis ou nem tanto, a vida melhorou e a melhor pesquisa esta nos nossos olhos. A demanda aumentou, come-se melhor e cada vez mais gente ingressa no mundo da seducao dos anuncios de produtos sofisticados, outrora fora do alcance das pessoas. Lula agora colhe o que plantou.Fala-se numa nova classe media, a exemplo do que Clinton diagnosticou, ao designar como nova economia o advento da bolha das companhias pontocom. E entao somos chamados a pensar o que essa mudanca significa para o Brasil. Primeiro, viramos um pais de classe media, como sentenciou um grande jornal brasileiro. Segundo, a classe media sempre foi uma forca social e uma alavanca para insatisfacoes e desejos. Seu primeiro sonho, ao ganhar mais dinheiro, e render-se ao consumismo hedonista e incorporar a seus habitos celular, carro, viagens, grifes e toda essa parafernalia milagrosa que e anunciada nas polishops. Outro sonho e possuir uma conta bancaria que desfrute de status especial, fora da vala comum dos depositantes que sao perseguidos pelo vermelho. Para nao falar daquele que e um dos habitos historicos da classe media: malhar o governo.Mas com a diminuicao das classes D e E, a boa noticia tambem chega para os ricos, que cresceram em numero de 11,61% para 15,52% da populacao e passam a sonhar, nao com carros, mas com lanchas e temporadas de esqui nos Alpes Suicos. Pelos dados divulgados da economia, estamos no melhor dos mundos. Mas nao soltemos foguetes. Os numeros dizem muito e mostram pouco. Escondem o flagelo da inseguranca, o medo da sociedade acuada pelos bandidos e o desespero das filas da saude. O
passaporte definitivo para o bem-estar e para o desenvolvimento de nosso pais passa pela educacao e pelo melhor consumo de cultura.*************************************************************OUR RAVAGED SEAS, Thomas Schulz, August 8.Part 1: Globalization Is Destroying the World's OceansThe oceans are a primary source of food for mankind, and fishing provides 200 million people with income, as meager as it may be. But growing demand and the industrial-scale exploitation of the seas are destroying global fish populations. The European Union's quota system is partly to blame.Dawn creeps across the horizon as the Pinkis brothers' cutter returns to the harbor at Kuhlungsborn. The Baltic is still calm, but wind from the northeast has already picked up sharply, a sign of the storms in the evening forecast. The Pinkis brothers and their crew have been out since 2 a.m., 10 nautical miles off the coast of northeast Germany's Mecklenburg region, in a spot where they had staked hundreds of nets into the sea floor the previous afternoon, hoping the fish would come.The brothers' cutter is small, less than 10 meters (33 feet) long, with a tiny bridge on top and a large fish tank in the hold below. Two stake-net fishermen stand on the deck, wearing bright orange oilcloth clothing. The boat has hardly docked at the wharf before they begin shoveling the catch from the hold, mostly flounder and codfish, even a lone turbot. The catch amounts to 200 kilograms (440 lbs), the fruits of a day's labor -- a day that can sometimes last 20 hours. Six days a week.They're the only fishermen docked in Kuhlungsborn harbor this morning, a lone cutter among sailboats and yachts. The fishing harbors along Germany's coast have been emptied. There are about 3,700 ocean fishermen left in Germany today, many of them getting on in years. The Pinkis brothers are among the youngest members of the Wismarbucht fishing cooperative. Uwe Pinkis is 45, and his brother Klaus is 42. Fishing, in Germany, is a dying profession.When Klaus Pinkis is asked whether it's possible to make a living from 200 kilos of fish a day, he puts down his dip net, pushes his cap up from his forehead and takes a deep breath. He looks at his brother for a long moment and says: "We're doing well, but there are others, many, in fact, who are getting really nervous and are on the verge of qualifying for welfare." The Pinkis brothers are their own supply chain. They catch, process and sell the fish themselves in the courtyard behind their tidy little house just off the beach in Rerik, a town in the Salzhaff region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the northeasten corner of Germany. "The more you do, the more you keep," says Klaus Pinkis. His brother nods. The two men are proud of what they do for a living.Together, they gross 60,000 ($93,000) a year. No one does this just for the money, says Uwe Pinkis. The work is too grueling, especially in bad weather, when the cutter "rocks back and forth like crazy all day long" and when the brothers "consume
nothing but magnesium all evening" to deal with cramps in their calves. Fishing is not just a dying profession but a difficult one.Overfished, Overexploited About one-fourth of all known fish populations are already overfished to the brink of extinction, including once-abundant species cod and tuna. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), another 50 percent are considered completely exploited. No one can, or is even willing, to predict the consequences for the complex ecosystem, and yet it is clear that the oceans are gradually being ravaged. Is this all just fear-mongering? Environmentalist propaganda? No, not at all.German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel soberly expressed what scientists have been convinced about for years: If the oceans continue to be ransacked the way they are today, fish populations, and fishing along with them, will disappear -- completely, worldwide -- by the middle of the century. The news from last week alone was alarming: US authorities had, for the first time ever, imposed a ban on salmon fishing along the country's entire Pacific coast. The European Union also banned tuna fishing in the Mediterranean, while experts recommended banning cod fishing in the North Sea.Even the Institute of the German Economy, not exactly a leftist bastion of environmentalism, has issued urgent warnings that an entire "branch of industry is literally threatened with extinction."Billions of people depend on fish as a staple food and need it to survive, especially in parts of the Third World, where fish makes up 20 percent of the diet and is thus the key source of animal protein. Fishing provides an income for close to 200 million people.The demand for fish has been rising steadily and steeply for decades, and fisherman do nothing but satisfy that demand. As boats have become larger and more efficient, the worldwide catch volume has grown more than sevenfold between 1950 and 2005, to more than 140 million tons a year. The consequences were recognizable early on, especially in the waters of industrialized nations, with their well-equipped fleets and well-heeled consumers. In the North Sea and Baltic Sea, for example, herring populations were in dramatic decline by the 1960s.Germans, in particular, have felt the effects. Today there are only half as many ocean fishermen in a united Germany as there were in West Germany alone in 1970. In the '80s, fewer than 30 deep-sea fishing vessels from Germany ventured to Greenland (instead of fishing off the North Sea and Baltic Sea coastlines). Today there are seven, and only one is not owned by foreign corporations. That vessel, the "Atlantic Peace," is 57 meters (187 feet) long, has a crew of 24, and is currently wedged between two container ships along the quay wall. Streaks of rust mar the ship's once gleaming, blue-and-white paint finish. This last German deep-sea fishing boat is no attractive cutter, but a steel vessel so powerful that its crew can even work in eight-meter (26-foot) waves.The morning lights of Reykjavik shimmer through wisps of fog in the background. It took the "Atlantic Peace" two days to struggle back from its fishing
grounds to the Icelandic capital, the base for North Atlantic fishing vessels, in storm-force winds. Captain Klaus Hartmann, his face showing signs of exhaustion, stands on the bridge. It is six a.m. and raining heavily. "When is the container finally going to get here?" he asks, staring at the rear deck. A crane lifts pallets from the hold, each tightly packed with boxes full of black halibut. The catch totals more than 400,000 fish, cleaned and trimmed, frozen and packaged for sale. The "Atlantic Peace" is a factory ship.It was at sea for 70 days, a highly efficient catching and processing machine that only docks in the harbor to spit out cargo as quickly as possible. It will sail again in three days, headed for fishing zone XIVb off the coast of Greenland once again, where the Germans have traditionally had large quotas.Why Greenland, of all places? "Because Germans have always fished there," says Hartmann. The European Union pays Greenland more than 40 million ($61 million) each year so that they can continue to do so.Documented catches from earlier days are the basis of the quota system. Because the British caught the most cod in the North Sea before there were any regulations, the EU assigns them the largest quotas each year. And because the Spaniards have always fished for anchovies in the Mediterranean, they are permitted to do so today.When a fish species suddenly turns up in ocean regions where there was no quota for that species in the past, it sets off a mad rush. Last year, for example, a new ocean perch population was discovered northeast of Iceland. The relevant regulatory agency issued a quota for 15,000 tons. Then the race began. It's called "Olympic fishing." Whoever manages to catch the most fish as quickly as possible emerges as the winner -- two times over, because future quotas for individual ships are based on this first catch.Part 2: 'Everything Was Gone'More than 70 boats descended on the schools of ocean perch. "Everything was gone within two weeks," says Hartmann, who disapproves of the practice.Hartmann is also the chairman of the Association of German Deep-Sea Fisheries. He is familiar with the problems surrounding the current reputation of fishermen, including their supposedly relentless greed for the catch and their lack of concern for the environment.This is why he spends a lot of time talking about fishing practices designed to preserve populations and about the need to cooperate with scientists and environmentalists. He says restrictions are indispensable, "for reasons of conscience," but also for economic reasons. "I still want to have this job in 20 years. That'll only happen if there are still fish."When he talks about such changes, Hartmann uses expressions like "paradigm shift" and "ethical necessity." He is not your stereotypical seaman, not someone who, with a deeply tanned face and hands battered by the elements, likes to tell fishermen's yarns. Sometimes he seems almost out of place on the bridge, peering at his laptop through his angular designer glasses. There is a stark contrast between Hartmann and his surroundings