Seth Kugel's Notebook:

Brazil enters recession on an up note

The long-awaited results are in, and it’s finally official: Brazil is in recession. GDP fell 0.8 percent in in the first quarter of 2009, after diving 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 (both compared with the corresponding quarter of the previous year). That’s actually not so bad — and in fact is far better than most economists thought would happen. Many had predicted a steep drop, followed by a slow recovery starting later in the year; now it looks like the recovery is coming sooner than expected.

“Actually Not So Bad” could be the title of a book on Brazil during the international financial crisis. Unemployment is up, but actually not so bad. Industrial production is down, but actually not so bad. Etc., etc. The not-so-badness, by the way, is bringing lots of foreign investment into the Brazilian stock market and strengthening the real against the dollar. That has spooked exporters and caused Central Bank President Henrique Mireilles to proclaim this week, “The international market runs the risk of being a little too euphoric about Brazil.”  In other words, it’s actually not so good, either.

Brrrrrrrrr

I'm freezing.

It's hard to evoke much sympathy from friends back in the States when you complain about how cold it is in Brazil. And actually, average temperatures during Southern Hemisphere winter in Sao Paulo don't seem bad at all. The average June low is 54 degrees Fahrenheit. I know, boo-hoo.

So why am I shivering? First, of all, it's been getting down to the high 30s at night here these days.  Yeah, I hear those of you who suffered through winter this year in New York or Michigan or Maine. Boo-hoo again.

For a few days, I was mystified myself. I used to dash around New York without a winter coat in January, and it never bothered me.  But I figured out why: In New York, you can escape from the cold. Easily. Enter any building. There's heat. There's insulation. Sometimes, there's even a roaring fireplace. As a last resort, there's soup. Everywhere. People know how to do winter.

Sao Paulo has heard of soup, but it doesn't go much beyond that. The vast majority of buildings — including the most important building, mine — don't have heat. Windows are far from sealed; a few of the windows in my apartment don't even close fully. Hot water is a la carte: Installing some form of heater for the shower is common, but hot water from sinks remains a rarity.

So that's the problem with the cold: There's no getting away from it. Friends have recommended an electric space heater, which is a good idea.

Hmm, I just noticed, while I've been writing this, that the sun has come out, and we're into the low 60s. So I'm going to go outside, sprawl on a park bench like an urban lizard, and stop complaining. 

Goldman Case: Update from Supreme Court

The Brazilian Supreme Court justice who blocked David Goldman from taking his son Sean back to the United States this afternoon said the entire court would take up the matter sometime next week, possibly as early as Wednesday, according to the Supreme Court's website.  The justice, Marco Aurelio Mello, noted that the stay did not indicate he would vote in favor of the child's Brazilian family, but that there were enough doubts that he felt the Sean should not be allowed to leave the country until the Supreme Court had considered the case.

Sean Goldman case: Child ordered to return to US — no, strike that

It looked like the five-year custody case that had risen to the highest levels of the Brazilian and American governments was drawing to a close. On Monday, a federal judge issued a sweeping ruling that ordered the Brazilian family of 9-year-old Sean Goldman to deliver him to the American consulate in Rio de Janeiro by 2 p.m. today. His American father, David Goldman, flew to Brazil almost as soon as he heard the news. The Brazilian family — the stepfather, Sean’s maternal grandparents, and other relatives — would have the right to come with the boy to New Jersey and spend the next month with the boy as he adjusted to his new environment. (Sean’s mother, Bruna Bianchi, died while giving birth to Sean’s half-sister last year.) Eventual custody arrangements would be decided by New Jersey courts, as prescribed by the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction.

But it was not to be, at least not yet: Tuesday night a Supreme Court justice, Marco Aurelio, stayed the order at the request of a minor political party. According to an article published on the Supreme Court’s website, “The sentence in question interpreted the Hague Convention in detriment to the fundamental rights of the 9-year-old Brazilian minor, given the search and seizure order determined to send the child immediately to the United States, in contradiction to decisions made in other concrete cases. Fundamental rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution of 1988 are violated by the ruling, such as a child’s and adolescent’s rights to protection of family.”

The justice’s ruling is in utter contrast with the 81-page lower court’s ruling written by judge Rafael de Souza Pereira Pinto. Pereira Pinto’s ruling [Download in Portuguese: PDF Part I — Part II] was a systematic dismantling of pretty much every argument put forth by Sean’s Brazilian family. It ruled the family was in violation of the Hague Convention both when Sean’s mother retained him outside the United States and, once more after she died, when the stepfather kept him in Brazil; that it was probable they had acted to prevent visitation by David Goldman over the years, alienating Sean from his father; that arguments that Brazil was now the “habitual residence” of the child were invalid because that residence was based on illicit act (but even if they were valid, the father’s rights still had priority), and so on.

He also refuted what has recently been the Brazilian family’s main argument: that Sean wants to stay in Brazil. “Sean is not capable of deciding what he really wants,” reads the decision [this is my quick translation], “either because of the inherent limitations of maturity at his tender age, or because of the fragility of his emotional state, or because he has been subject to the process of parental alienation by the Brazilian family.” It goes on to note that in an evaluation by a team of psychologists, Sean’s initial response to the question of where he wants to live was actually “Tanto faz.” (That’s Portuguese for “Whatever.”) Questioned again by his mother's family's representative on the team, he said he preferred to stay in Brazil, according to the ruling.

In many spots, the decision takes on a harsh tone. Here’s a typical passage:

“... it is not reasonable — in fact, it reaches the level of surrealism — to admit that a given person, without family rights over the minor — a third party — opposes the handing over of the child to the father, or mother, or both, under the argument that the minor is integrated into his new environment.

"To allow this possibility means opening dangerous breaches capable of consecrating true absurdity. And absurdity, as it is well known, cannot find support in the Judiciary Branch.”

Many Brazilians might object to that last statement, saying absurdity (or “nonsense,” to use another possible translation) does indeed often find its way in Brazilian judiciary proceedings. David Goldman, who flew from New Jersey to Rio on Monday night thinking he'd be picking up his son today at 2 p.m., almost certainly feels that way.
 

Air France's missing jet: the view from Rio de Janeiro

RIO DE JANEIRO —  There was an eerie backdrop to the dozens of Brazilian reporters who crowded the area behind the Air France counter in Galeao International Airport’s Terminal 1 today hungry for any speck of information: a long line of passengers checking in for Air France Flight 733, departing for Paris at 4:20 p.m.

They had to make do with interviewing those passengers, because family members of the missing Flight 447 who arrived at the airport to meet with counselors and await what was almost sure to be terrible news were escorted straight into a hall in the airport’s administrative building.

The mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, made an early appearance, for a sad reason: his chief of staff, Marcelo Parente had been on the flight with his wife. Names leaked out over the course of the day: Luiz Roberto Anastacio, president of Michelin for Latin America, Pedro Luiz de Orleans e Bragança, a member of Brazil’s no-longer-in-power royal family, a direct descendant of Emperor Dom Pedro II. It was not a surprise that so many important names were traveling on the flight: even with the Brazilian currency ever stronger, traveling to Europe is beyond the means of the vast majority of Brazilians.

The flight was, it turned out, less than half Brazilian. One mid-afternoon count had citizens of 31 countries on board, as disparate as the Philippines, Iceland, Angola and Hungary. This was truly an international flight.

First, it was reported that six Americans were on board; then one; then the number settled on two.  No names were released.

Late in the day, the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sergio Cabral, Jr., and the vice president of Brazil, Jose Alencar, arrived at the airport and met with family members.  (Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was traveling in Central America.) Cabral had previously declared three days of official mourning.

The vice president told a throng of reporters that the family members “were demonstrating much serenity, much calm, much faith in God,” The governor added that families had asked how long before the search would be called off; he replied that even if weeks were needed, it would not be called off before people had answers.

They left, and the press bubble deflated; some sat down to file their reports; others took off into the night. I booked an 11:20 p.m. flight back to Sao Paulo.
 

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