What did Brazil do right?

From EL Universal.com.mx:

¿QUÉ HIZO BIEN BRASIL? Hace 15 años, Brasil estaba peor que México. Hoy, el país amazónico se ha convertido en la potencia regional, y en una de las economías más prometedoras del planeta | Ver nota

Troubles in Rio

This picture caught my eye: see how casually the four civilians hang out, as, mere inches away, an armored soldier point his automatic weapon.

• Page One
• August 15, 2009

Foreign Talent Loads the Bases in Minor Leagues

More Visas Spur Deals From Haiti to India; Korean Teen Scores Big

By JOEL MILLMAN

BOISE, Idaho -- Like many teenagers spending this summer abroad, Hak-Ju Lee is immersing himself in a foreign culture, making friends and tasting exotic food like moose stew. Unlike most teens, however, he's getting paid three-quarters of a million dollars to do it.

Mr. Lee, 18 years old, is a shortstop, and the culture he is experiencing is American minor-league baseball, where major-league teams develop their talent in small towns across the country.

For decades, minor-league rosters seemed the essence of America's heartland. But thanks to growing numbers of foreign players like Mr. Lee, the minors are fast turning into a veritable United Nations.

The Boise Hawks' Imported Talent

View Slideshow

Sean Flanigan for the Wall Street Journal

Hak-Ju Lee is one of 18 international players on the Boise baseball roster.

The gangly infielder is one of three South Koreans playing this summer for the Boise Hawks, an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. The Hawks' opening-day roster boasted 18 of 25 players from abroad -- mostly Venezuela and the Dominican Republic -- making it one of the most "imported" of all minor-league teams.

Recent changes in U.S. immigration law and growing competition in baseball for raw talent have allowed the minor-league farm system to flourish with imported players. It has been a home run for globalization, but bad news for U.S.-born players, who suddenly have much more competition. Across the minor and major leagues, the total number of foreign-born players is growing fast, to almost 3,500 of the 8,532 players under contract this summer, from 2,964 three years ago.

Boise Hawks' hitting instructor, Ricardo Medina, a native of Panama who translates at team meetings in what has become almost a bilingual program, notes that Mr. Lee and his Korean teammates are getting something else from their summer in Idaho. "I think they may be learning more Spanish than English," he jokes.

The three South Koreans on the Hawks' roster matches the total number playing at the major-league level. Today, 19 Koreans play in the minor leagues, compared with just seven five years ago.

This summer's crop of foreign players in the minors includes baseball's first-ever pros from India, two of them on the Pittsburgh Pirates' Gulf Coast league team. That league's rosters include players from Honduras, Haiti, Russia and the Czech Republic.

Minor League Baseball Becomes Melting Pot

2:33

As a result of unlimited work visas, minor league baseball is seeing a new influx of international players. Joel Millman reports from Boise, Idaho.

Eight teams have minor leaguers from Brazil, including Fábio Murakami, an outfielder for the Philadelphia Phillies' Williamsport, Pa., minor-league team, the Crosscutters. Mr. Murakami is one of several South Americans of Japanese descent in the minors, a list that includes Claudio Fukunaga and Lucas Nakandakare, both from Argentina and under contract to Tampa Bay.

One Red Sox farm team boasts an even more exotic tandem: the brothers Crew Tipene Moanaroa, called "Boss," and Hohua Moanaroa, called "Moko." Born in New South Wales, Australia, the Moanaroas are believed to be the first members of New Zealand's Maori tribe to play baseball professionally in the U.S. "Boss" is a first baseman. "Moko" plays outfield.

New Zealand's representative in the minors is Scott Campbell. He plays third base for the Blue Jays' Eastern League affiliate, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

The surge of young foreign players into the U.S. minor leagues began in 2007, a few months after then-president and former major-league team owner George W. Bush signed the Creating Opportunities for Minor League Professionals, Entertainers and Teams Act, known as the Compete Act. It freed the farm systems of major-league teams from having to compete with all U.S. employers seeking H2B work visas for foreign employees, the supply of which usually was exhausted each year by February. Now, teams can import as many prospects as they want.

"There is no longer a limit on work visas," explains Oneri Fleita, the Florida-born director of minor-league development for the Cubs. "So, yeah, you might see more foreign players getting an opportunity."

The Cubs, who signed Korea's Hak-Ju Lee right out of high school, have become one of the most aggressive signers of foreign players. In 2006, 86 players in the Cubs' major and minor-league system were foreign-born. This year, 142 Cubs are imports.

The changes pose a challenge to American teens hoping to make the big leagues. Instead of signing hundreds of U.S. amateurs out of high school -- the traditional business model for stocking minor-league rosters -- teams are drafting fewer U.S. kids and signing more so-called nondraft free agents, the vast majority of them teenagers from Latin America.

Foreign Exchange

See the statistics of the players mentioned in this story:

Hak-Ju Lee (South Korea), Boise Hawks

Fabio Murakami (Brazil), Williamsport Crosscutters

Claudio Fukunaga (Argentina), Gulf Coast League Rays

Lucas Nakandakare (Argentina), Gulf Coast League Rays

Crew Tipene Moanaroa (Australia), Gulf Coast League Red Sox

Hohua Moanaroa (Australia), Gulf Coast League Red Sox

Scott Campbell (New Zealand), New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Eduardo Figueroa (Venezuela), Boise Hawks

George Matheus (Venezuela), Boise Hawks

Eric Gonzalez (Canary Islands), Lake Elsinore Storm

This summer, major-league teams spent over $70 million signing nondraft free agents from outside the country. That is up from $54 million last year, and just under $30 million in 2006, the last year before the Compete Act.

Economics plays a huge role. U.S.-born players drafted out of high school rarely sign a contract to turn pro without a cash bonus, most in excess of $100,000. This summer, the Cubs have forked out more than $6 million in signing bonuses to 26 U.S. prospects, an average of nearly a quarter million apiece.

While some foreign players like Mr. Lee got hefty signing bonuses, the majority do not. Latin players in particular can be had for a lot less -- just $10,000 in the case of Venezuelan pitcher Eduardo Figueroa, one of Mr. Lee's teammates. Third baseman George Matheus, another Hawk from Venezuela, received $15,000 for signing.

Lifting visa limits creates an opportunity for players like Eric Gonzalez, a 22-year-old Spaniard in the San Diego Padres' farm system. Mr. Gonzalez was the last player drafted by the Atlanta Braves in 2005, when he was a 17-year-old high-schooler in the Canary Islands. But under the work-visa cap then prevailing in baseball, the Braves would have had to release another foreign prospect to sign him, Mr. Gonzalez explains, "or else send me somewhere overseas to play, probably Australia."

So Mr. Gonzalez didn't get a shot, and instead polished his skills at the University of South Alabama. Signed by the Padres after graduating last year, he has already whipped through one level of minor-league competition, winning a promotion from the Fort Wayne TinCaps to the Lake Elsinore Storm in July. But the cash rewards will have to wait. "I signed for $1,000, before taxes," laughs Mr. Gonzales, one of two Spaniards in the minors this year. "Basically, I signed in exchange for a plane ticket and a work visa."

In the past, visa restrictions meant many foreign prospects were sent to play for sister teams in places like the Dominican Republic and Australia, where they tried to get enough visibility to fill a coveted visa spot. Nowadays, teams figure they can train foreign talent personally, and give youngsters a chance to learn English and assimilate with U.S.-born teammates.

On both counts, South Korea's Mr. Lee is an enthusiastic student. "Stolen base! Slider! Fastball! Right down the middle!" the teenager recently shouted with a smile, demonstrating the English terms he's mastered since arriving in Idaho.

Much like in an exchange-student program, local families host foreign ballplayers, getting season tickets in return. Mr. Lee lives in a suburban home festooned with heads of antelope and deer and other hunting trophies. He has learned to play Rock Band with his 17-year-old host-family "brother," a ballplayer who is entering his senior year in high school.

His typical teenage observation about life in America: lack of sleep. "Bus ride after game from Vancouver?" he groans, feigning fatigue. "Thirteen hours! Oh, my God. Tired!"

Álvaro Uribe

Presidents Álvaro Uribe of Colombia, left, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil met for more than two hours this week.



August 8, 2009
Colombia President, on South America Tour, Defends U.S. Military Role
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

BRASÍLIA —President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia wrapped up a seven-country tour of South America this week seeking to calm skeptical neighbors about a proposal to allow an increased American military presence in Colombian territory.

On Thursday, Mr. Uribe met for more than two hours here with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, who requested guarantees from Mr. Uribe that the military cooperation with the United States would not spill over Colombia’s borders, Celso Amorim, Brazil’s foreign minister, told reporters.

Mr. Uribe took to the road on his diplomatic offensive this week after some countries — including Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua — denounced the plans to allow for increased American troop levels. Others, like Brazil, expressed concern about the agreement, which Colombian and American officials insisted would only extend and formalize a continuing counternarcotics program between the countries.

The concerns — and Mr. Uribe’s hastily organized diplomatic road show — underscore contrasting views about threats to the region’s security. For the Colombian president, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, remain the primordial threat, not only to Colombia but to the entire region, said Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a research group in Washington.

“Other governments don’t quite see it that way,” Mr. Shifter said. “Most are sympathetic to Uribe, but they view the FARC as essentially Colombia’s problem. They are more worried about any decisions regarding U.S. military presence in the region, which remains a highly sensitive issue that continues to arouse suspicions.”

Those sentiments were on display this week as Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, said that the move amounted to preparations for an invasion of Venezuela by a “Yankee military force.”Mr. da Silva said last week that the proposal was unsettling and that leaders in the region should have been contacted beforehand. He also reiterated his concerns about the Fourth Fleet, which the United States reactivated last year in the Americas, and its ships’ ability to range over waters where Brazil would be developing large deep-water oil fields.

Mr. Amorim said little about the substance of the talks on Thursday with the Colombian leader, which he said were continuing. “Our concerns were expressed, and Uribe clarified for us what he felt he should about the agreement with the United States,” Mr. Amorim said.

Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet, said last week that countries in the region were “unnerved” by the plan to increase the number of American troops and that the issue should be addressed at Monday’s meeting in Ecuador of the Union of South American Nations. Mr. Uribe does not plan to attend the meeting, Mr. Amorim confirmed. Ecuador and Colombia broke off diplomatic relations last year after Colombia’s military assassinated a rebel leader of the FARC in Ecuadorean territory.

After meeting with Mr. Uribe, the presidents of Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay said that Colombia’s sovereignty should be respected. Peru’s leader, Alan García, who is allied with the United States in its efforts to curb narco-trafficking, emphatically supported the Colombian proposal.

But other leaders criticized Colombia. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina’s president, said Mr. Uribe needed to “reduce the conflict in the region” and that “the installation of the bases didn’t fit with that objective,” the Argentine state news agency reported.

Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president and a staunch ally of Mr. Chávez’s, called it a threat to the region and said he would press for a resolution at the Ecuador meeting to veto the presence of foreign bases in the region.

But the strongest reaction came from Venezuela and Ecuador, which have maintained tense relations with their neighbor since last year. Mr. Chávez, already fuming over reports claiming that Venezuelan arms had ended up in the hands of FARC rebels, withdrew his diplomats from Bogotá last week.

On Wednesday he said his government planned to buy “several tank battalions” to boost its defenses in light of Colombia’s enhanced military cooperation with the United States. The Venezuelan leader also said he would halt imports of some 10,000 cars from Colombia — purchases he said would shift to Argentina and Brazil.

“Just when it seemed that relations between Colombia and Venezuela couldn’t get any worse, they have reached another low point,” Mr. Shifter said.

Some analysts said Mr. Uribe was forced to defend his negotiations with the United States because of confusion in the region about whether he had agreed to allow the establishment of American bases in Colombian territory, which is not part of the proposal. The proposal instead calls for a potential increase in American troop levels at at least five Colombian-controlled bases.

The United States has been negotiating the increase of military operations in Colombia in recent weeks in light of Ecuador’s decision to end a decade-long agreement allowing American surveillance planes to operate from a base on Ecuador’s Pacific Coast.

While American antidrug surveillance flights would sharply increase in Colombia, the world’s top producer of cocaine, the agreement would not allow American personnel to take part in combat operations in the country.

The United States, which currently has about 250 members of the military in Colombia, would continue to be limited to 800 military personnel and 600 military contractors, said Charles Luoma-Overstreet, a State Department spokesman.

Colombia has already received more than $5 billion in military and antidrug aid from the United States this decade.

“There is no military offensive nature to this,” Mr. Luoma-Overstreet said. “This is about assisting the government of Colombia to combat transnational crime and narco-trafficking within their borders.”

An OEA without US and Canada

Impulsa México `una OEA´ sin EU En la cumbre de presidentes en Brasil, Felipe Calderón propuso crear para 2010 una Organización de Estados Latinoamericanos y del Caribe (sin EU ni Canadá) que haga valer su propia identidad, su propia fuerza y sus propias potencialidades


President Calderón proposes the formation of an Organization of Latin American and Caribbean states. He sees it having its own identity, its own power, and its own promise. It would, pointedly, exclude the US and Canada.

Interestingly, he dismisses the creation of a regional army to fight narco-criminals.

Calderón dice no a ejército regional
Desde su perspectiva, en la lucha contra el crimen organizado se requiere que los países tengan una misma política en el tema, además de “una clara y abierta cooperación que permita derrotar a un enemigo multinacional”

SALVADOR DE BAHÍA, Brasil.— En una virtual respuesta al mandatario guatemalteco, el presidente Felipe Calderón rechazó la posibilidad de que México participe o avale la creación de un ejército regional para combatir al narcotráfico.

Desde su perspectiva, en la lucha contra el crimen organizado se requiere que los países tengan una misma política en el tema, además de “una clara y abierta cooperación que permita derrotar a un enemigo multinacional”.

Antes de crear una fuerza militar regional debemos agotar los mecanismos de cooperación, destacó Calderón. Actualmente, agregó, la delincuencia ha sido enfrentada con respuestas aisladas.

Dijo que su gobierno pondrá a disposición de los países con problemas de inseguridad la base de datos contenida en la llamada Plataforma México.

El martes este diario publicó que el presidente de Guatemala, Álvaro Colom, impulsa el proyecto de crear una fuerza militar multinacional en América Latina.

Nascimento and Jobim's Heirs

Politics and finance aside for a while, it is nice to be able to write about music. Great music.

Like Thelonious Monk's compositions, Jobim's songs are so familiar and distinct, they are more easily identified by their melodies than by their titles.

Indian Leader Survives Vote; Onus Now on U.S. Congress

India’s government survived a no-confidence vote, providing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with a much-needed political boost ahead of a general election and the backing to secure a nuclear deal with the U.S.

Now the US Congress has to act. This seems a good deal to approve. India is an important ally in all terms: geopolitically, it is strategically important; it is the world's most populous democracy, and a natural US ally.

Now the Indian leader's victory puts the onus on the U.S. Congress, which must approve the pact. U.S. businesses that see a big market in India have pinned high hopes on ratification. However, a short, packed calendar on Capitol Hill means a vote is likely to be put off until next year. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have suggested they favor the deal.

That's positive. India is a far better ally than Pakistan.

India has emerged over the last decade as one of Asia's rising economic powers, nearly rivaling China in its influence on global business. While U.S. and European companies are counting on Indian demand to cushion a slowdown at home, fast-rising prices are threatening India's economy. Wholesale-price inflation has been hovering at more than 11%, a 13-year high. The Indian central bank has raised interest rates and taken other tightening measures. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said in Parliament Tuesday that economic growth in the year ending March 31, 2009, is likely to come in at 7% to 8%, a marked slowdown from an average of almost 9% over the past five years.

Imagine, slowing down to a 7% growth rate. Still, India's economy is only developing. In 25 years it will be quite a tiger; I think in the long run it may even surpass China. In any case, it will be one of the 5 top countries in the world, I think: India, China, Russia, Brazil, the BRIC countries, are poised to being 4 of the strongest economies in the world.

Foreign investors and local businesspeople generally welcomed the confidence vote. Political uncertainty is among the factors that have driven the nation's benchmark stock index down more than 30% this year.
The Sensex was above 20,000 at one point (actually, 20, 873, on 8 January 2008); it is now 14,942. That's down 5,931 points (28.4%) in six months. Similarly, my India mutual fund, Matthews India (MINDX) is down to 16.12, from 25.07 on 7 January (having recovered from 14.69 on 1 July). That's down 8.95, or 35.7% (10.38, or 41.4%).

Cellphone Data Track Our Migration Patterns

Fascinating story highlighting the efficacy and ease of using available data, as well as its dangers and potential abuses. I particularly enjoy that the focal point is Flushing.

The one stat that jumps out at me is how significant the percentage of calls to Porto, Portugal is: 9% of calls from Flushing.

Cellphone users are spiders of the electromagnetic spectrum, spinning intricate, invisible threads of data about themselves as they walk and talk throughout the day.

Physicists, urban planners and social scientists are eagerly weaving millions of these electronic threads into patterns of people on the move, through studies that until now were all but impossible.

What makes things possible is that all calls are in the phone companies records: number dialing, number called, minutes spoken. The phone company also knows who owns the calling number, and might known the called number, too.

More than 3.3 billion wireless-phone subscribers world-wide have, in effect, voluntarily adopted devices that record their daily movements in the same way satellite sensors monitor migrating birds, whales, bears and other wildlife. Such precise positioning data, automatically collected by cellphone companies, makes privacy advocates queasy but has social scientists dazzled by the research possibilities.


3.3 billion people voluntarily, perhaps unknowingly or oblivious or indifferent to the consequences of their calling habits being known, allow their privacy to be available. It does, surely, also provide intriguing possibilities.

Amazonian tribe "found"

Found this picture in El Universal - Mexico. Una tribu que no ha tenido contacto con la 'civilización' hasta ahora, fue descubierta en la selva del Amazonas, en los límites entre los países sudamericanos de Brasil y Perú (Foto: AP) Ver nota Fotogalería


The organization Survival International, "The Movement for Tribal People", terms it Uncontacted Tribe photographed near Brazil-Peru border. Ebrl Universal's story has it Hallan tribu desconocida en el Amazonas (Unknown tribe found in the Amazons)

Imbalances of Power

This is quite discouraging. One writer's opinion, but he is a smart one.

There has been much debate in this campaign about which of our enemies the next U.S. president should deign to talk to. The real story, the next president may discover, though, is how few countries are waiting around for us to call. It is hard to remember a time when more shifts in the global balance of power are happening at once — with so few in America’s favor.

Keen insight; I agree. Bush and his cohorts acted as if what the US decides is simply going to be accepted. Those days are over.

Let’s start with the most profound one: More and more, I am convinced that the big foreign policy failure that will be pinned on this administration is not the failure to make Iraq work, as devastating as that has been. It will be one with much broader balance-of-power implications — the failure after 9/11 to put in place an effective energy policy.

Bush is not the only president to fail to put in place an effective energy policy, of course.

It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 miles an hour, buy more fuel-efficient cars or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our “addiction to oil.”

Speak of perceptions: the US president goes to see the Saudis twice (bad enough), and they rebuff him twice.

Friedman writes of two books: Superclass: the global power elite and the world they are making, by David Rothkopf; and The post-American world, by Fareed Zakaria.

Mr. Zakaria’s central thesis is that while the U.S. still has many unique assets, “the rise of the rest” — the Chinas, the Indias, the Brazils and even smaller nonstate actors — is creating a world where many other countries are slowly moving up to America’s level of economic clout and self-assertion, in every realm. “Today, India has 18 all-news channels of its own,” notes Zakaria. “And the perspectives they provide are very different from those you will get in the Western media. The rest now has the confidence to present its own narrative, where it is at the center.”

Mr. Rothkopf’s book argues that on many of the most critical issues of our time, the influence of all nation-states is waning, the system for addressing global issues among nation-states is more ineffective than ever, and therefore a power void is being created. This void is often being filled by a small group of players — “the superclass” — a new global elite, who are much better suited to operating on the global stage and influencing global outcomes than the vast majority of national political leaders.

“Call it the triple deficit,” said Mr. Rothkopf. “A fiscal deficit that will soon have us choosing between rationed health care, sufficient education, adequate infrastructure and traditional levels of defense spending, a trade deficit that has us borrowing from our rivals to the point of real vulnerability, and a geopolitical deficit that is a legacy of Iraq, which may result in hesitancy to take strong stands where we must.”

A very bleak picture, indeed.

Allure of Cachaça Spreads to U.S. From Brazil

If people in the United States have ever tried cachaça — fermented and distilled sugar cane juice — it’s probably when it has provided the punch for a caipirinha cocktail made with lime and sugar, mixed with a more heavy-handed mass-produced brand.