Brazil

Bigelow turns lens south

By Peter Krupa | Published: March 9, 2010

Terrifying.

Fresh off her Best Picture win for The Hurt Locker, director Kathryn Bigelow is talking about her next movie. It’s called Triple Frontier, a mistranslation of Triple Frontera, which is the border region shared by Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. The area is famous for being a no-man’s land, where anything goes, legally speaking.

It’s also famous for getting the stink-eye from the U.S. government for fostering terrorism boogies. Wrote MSNBC in a totally objective, non-panic-inducing article from 2007:

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials and police agencies across the continent.

In the minds of geography-challenged Americans, South America is practically Mexico, which is practically Tucson, so, you know, run for your lives. The U.S. military sent troops to Paraguay in 2005, ostensibly for “joint military exercises,” but more likely to supervise some extra-judicial killing and torture, like in the good old days.

Since Bigelow says Triple Frontier is being written by the same journalist who wrote The Hurt Locker, I imagine it’ll have something to do with terrorism and U.S. military operations in the border region, rather than the piles and piles of other things that happen in Latin America, which again just goes to show that Americans are only interested in the rest of the world insofar as they can view it through the narrow lens of their own domestic preoccupations.

Also posted in Argentina, Arts and Culture, History, Paraguay | Tagged | Leave a comment

Too sexy for Brazil

By Peter Krupa | Published: March 1, 2010

This ad is causing outrage. In Brazil. Yeah, I don’t get it either.

(h/t The Latin Americanist.)

Also posted in Odd | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

By Peter Krupa | Published: February 24, 2010

The region’s two biggest economies – Mexico and Brazil – are going to start talks on a possible free trade agreement.

Also posted in Mexico, Side notes, Trade | Leave a comment

Want one

By Peter Krupa | Published: February 24, 2010

Zoom zoom. (Via La Verdad Dominicana.)

If I could have a warplane, it would be an Embraer Super Tucano. The Brazilian-made planes are sharp, versatile, tough, and – at a cost of a mere US$9 million – a great deal. Apparently, many Latin American countries feel the same way. The LA Times is reporting that the Super Tucano is a hit with the drug-busting air forces of the region, and is gaining an international profile:

Chile and the Dominican Republic have bought Super Tucanos. An Embraer spokesman declined to comment on reports that Indonesia and Peru have also placed orders.

The Pentagon is considering buying 200 of the aircraft, and Britain’s Royal Air Force is weighing the possibility of replacing its fleet of Harrier vertical takeoff jets with Super Tucanos instead of Lockheed Martin F-35Bs, which cost 10 times as much.

If the Pentagon buys the planes — 100 each for the Navy and Air Force, according to reports — the order would equal the total number of Super Tucanos that have been sold to date.

The principal customers have been the air forces of Brazil, with 99, and Colombia, which bought 25.

On the other hand, war planes are dangerous. Here’s a video of what sounds like a Peruvian Tucano in action, shooting down a planeload of missionaries with the help of the CIA. Nice job, guys:

Also posted in War on drugs | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The littlest samba queen

By Peter Krupa | Published: February 15, 2010

That 7-year-old samba queen got her moment in the spotlight at Carnival this weekend. And she burst into tears. Too many photographers, it seems. It’s not clear whether she did the whole parade, but her father held her hand across the finish line. Some people still seem upset about the whole thing. I, for one, hope Julia Lira can someday look back on this from the pinnacle of a brilliant career and laugh.

Also posted in Arts and Culture, Odd | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The kid can dance

By Peter Krupa | Published: February 7, 2010

Julia Lira

Can a 7-year-old be Rio’s Carnival Queen? A Brazilian judge is thinking about saying “no,” on the grounds that it sexualizes children. Her father, on the other hand, said, ”Any man who looks at a 7-year-old child and feels any sort of excitement should go see a doctor.”

He kind of has a point. Just let the kid be a kid, and I bet everyone will have a great time. On the other hand, while I’ve never been to Carnival, I have the impression that sexual debauchery is kind of the whole point. On the other other hand, can a 7-year-old really dance samba for eighty minutes? Try doing it for 10 minutes. I dare you.

Apparently the Brazilians are pretty hardcore about introducing controversy to their celebration:

The competition among the 12 top-tier samba groups is fierce, and the winners are hailed by fans across Brazil. Viradouro, which won the title in 1997, is no stranger to controversy. In 2008, a judge blocked the group’s use of a dancer dressed as Hitler on a float loaded with naked people representing Holocaust victims after the display caused an international outcry.

The same people went on to produce a very successful musical.

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  • DAILY LINKS

    • The Nation has a long, wonky, wonderful article on Mexican maize cultivation, the effects of NAFTA, and the dangers of genetically-modified seeds. Author Peter Canby backs up his excellent writing with piles and piles of meticulous research. Not to be missed. [link, via SM] (Image from Joel Penner.)

    • Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas ended his hunger strike yesterday after 134 days. Farinas decided to end his strike after the Cuban government said it would release political prisoners rounded up in the "Black Spring" crackdown of 2003. Get well soon. [link]

    • The Uruguayan selection, which has made it to the quarter finals of the World Cup, just received a shipment of half a ton of fine cuts of beef for the mother of all asados in preparation for a contest against Ghana on Friday: "450 kilos of lomo, 200 of entrecot, 75 of vacío, 75 of colita de cuadril, 150 of ojo de bife and 50 kg of picaña." [link]

    • Hitmen have assassinated the PRI candidate for governor of Tamaulipas State, Rodolfo Torre Cantú. Torre was gunned down along with six others at about 10:30 this morning on a highway on the way to a campaign event. Drug mafias are assumed to be responsible. [link]

    • From the days when coups were something of a regional sport, new documents detail a famous British ballerina's role in a plot to topple the government of Panama. The plan was to use her yacht to gather men and arms, then "land somewhere and collect in the hills." It didn't work. [link]

    • Mexico's Attorney General's Office has posted on its web site irrefutable evidence that gold-plated AR-15s and diamond-studded pistol grips are not nearly as cool-looking as they sound. The deadly knick-knack collection is said to belong to Valencia Cartel leader El Lobo. [link]

    • Two Brazilian ranchers were sentenced to 30 years in prison apiece for ordering the killing of an environmentalist nun: "Prosecutors said the pair offered to pay a gunman $25,000 to kill the 73-year-old [Dorothy] Stang because she had prevented them from stealing a piece of land that the government had granted to a group of poor farmers." [link]


    • This video of a kidnapping and car chase in Mexico is notable mainly for the bad-assitude of the TV journalists who were on this like white on rice. Well done, gentlemen.

    • The Economist takes a peak at the Mockus phenomenon in Colombia: "His moustacheless beard gives him the air of a Baltic pastor... He is financing his campaign with a bank overdraft. His supporters rely on Facebook and make their own posters; street vendors sell unofficial campaign T-shirts." [link]

    • Some cruise lines will cease traveling to Antarctica after this cruise season, as a ban on the use and carriage of heavy fuel oil goes into effect next year. The ban came after a 2007 incident when a Gap Adventures ship got punctured by ice and sank, causing a mess. [link]