www.billingsgazette.com Friday, January 31, 2003

Ireland's government to ban smoking in pubs DUBLIN, Ireland -- A once unthinkable change is coming to one of the social hubs of Ireland: The pub is going smoke free. Bowing to health concerns, the government said Thursday that it will ban smoking from all workplaces including pubs, where a pint and a cigarette have long gone hand in hand. "This ban will mean a massive cultural change for people right around this country," said Health Minister Micheal Martin in announcing the new rules. In fact, the change is so significant that the government has given the public 11 months notice before enforcing the ban: the new law takes effect Jan. 1, 2004. In announcing the ban, Martin released a study that links second-hand smoke to cancer and heart disease in workplaces. Brazil starts project to feed 1.5M families BRASILIA, Brazil -- Brazil's new president launched his anti-hunger program Thursday with a move to provide $14 a month to 1.5 million families, most from the country's poverty-stricken northeast. While the stipend may seem insignificant, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's hunger task force estimated 46 million of the country's 175 million citizens survive on less than $1 a day. "The struggle against hunger is a fundamental step toward overcoming misery, poverty, a lack of opportunities and social inequality," said Silva, who as a boy dropped out of grade school to help support his family. He made hunger eradication his top priority during his Jan. 1 inauguration speech. "We are going to create the conditions so that everyone in our country can eat a decent meal three times a day, every day, without needing donations from anyone," he said. Rembrandt self-portrait found under painting AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- Art researchers have identified a Rembrandt self-portrait that was altered more than 300 years ago into the likeness of a Russian nobleman, the Rembrandt House Museum said Thursday. The restored portrait shows the Dutch master with medium-length curly hair, a slightly upturned mustache and a beret. In it, Rembrandt's portrait has the familiar round chin and gentle eyes of many other self studies. The original portrait from 1634, painted when Rembrandt was 28, was later painted over, apparently by a student in Rembrandt's studio. The student added earrings, a goatee, shoulder-length hair and a velvet cap to make it appear to be a Russian aristocrat, said museum spokeswoman Anna Brolsma. Commuter train derails in Australia; 9 killed SYDNEY, Australia -- A train packed with commuters derailed during rush hour Friday morning outside Sydney, killing at least nine people and trapping others in the wreckage. All four of the train's cars lay crumpled or toppled along the tracks. Rescue workers were trying to extricate passengers from the cars in the rough terrain of a ravine 20 miles south of downtown Sydney. Nine people were confirmed dead and more were trapped in the wreckage, said New South Wales state Premier Bob Carr who visited the scene. The train, heading out of Sydney with about 70 people on board, was likely going about 50 mph when it jumped the rails near the village of Waterfall at about 7:30 a.m., emergency workers said.

www.thestar.com Jan. 31, 2003. 01:00 AM

Estela Bravo blazed way for Michael Moore Filmmaker's career full of historical figures

SUSAN WALKER ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER

Fidel: The Untold Story is the film that Estela Bravo was destined to make. As much as the documentary sums up the Cuban leader's life so far, it reflects the life-long concerns of the 70-year-old documentarian.

Born in Brooklyn, Bravo was the youngest of three daughters whose parents were union organizers. Her mother died when she was 12, but she grew up instilled with father's internationalist politics. As a member of Students for a Peaceful World at Brooklyn College, she was sent to a 1953 student congress in Poland, where she met her husband, Ernesto Bravo. He was an Argentinean medical student who had been imprisoned and tortured on charges of organizing students against the government of Juan Perón. In 1956 they married in Argentina and remained there for the next eight years. After Ernesto was invited to Cuba to teach in the medical school, the family (they have three children) moved there. Bravo became a fierce Cuban patriot

Her conversation is peppered with the names of political activists and leaders she has known. She met Nelson Mandela through South African anti-apartheid activist Joe Slovo; she knew Paul Robeson; she interviewed Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva long before he became president of Brazil. In terms of political documentary-making, she could be considered a godmother to Michael Moore.

She didn't make a film until she was 47. Since then, she's made 30 documentaries, including The Missing Children, about children who disappeared in Argentina, Children In Debt, about the effects of foreign debt on the Third World, and Cuba/South Africa: After the Battle.

Bravo staunchly defends her homage to the 76-year-old Cuban leader as the story of Cuba that Americans never hear. She had uncommon access to Castro, even though he initially refused permission to have a film made about him.

"The unguarded moments — that's what I really wanted in the film," she says. To put him in a historic context, she delved into a wealth of material in the Cuban state archives, including footage of what took place in Cuba during the abortive Bay of Pigs operation.

After 10 years work on Fidel, Bravo is ready to move on.

"At my age, you have to do in one year what you used to do in 10," says Bravo, who's hard at work on her next film, Operation Peter Pan, about the fates of some of the 14,000 children who were transported from Cuba to the U.S. by the Catholic Church right after the Cuban revolution.

Estella Bravo will introduce Fidel: The Untold Story in person at the 7 p.m. screening tonight at the Carlton.

www.voanews.com VOA News 31 Jan 2003, 03:19 UTC

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has started a new program to eliminate hunger in South America's largest country.

The president Thursday implemented his new "Zero Hunger" program, with the goal of feeding the 46 million Brazilians who survive on less than $1 per day.

Under the program, two pilot projects will be implemented in the coming days in the northeastern Piaui region, one of the poorest in the nation of 170 million people. Plans call for more than 700 families each to receive $14 in aid per month, which they may withdraw using a debit card.

The government says the money cannot be used to purchase cigarettes, alcohol or soft drinks.

Organizers hope to expand the program to help 1.5 million families, most from the country's poverty-stricken northeast.

President da Silva took office January first, pledging to fight hunger and create jobs.

www.globeandmail.com Friday, January 31 Associated Press

Brasilia — Brazil's new president launched his anti-hunger program Thursday with a move to provide $14 (U.S.) a month to 1.5 million families, most from the country's poverty-stricken northeast.

While the stipend may seem insignificant, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's hunger task force estimated 46 million of the country's 175 million citizens survive on less than $1 a day.

"The struggle against hunger is a fundamental step toward overcoming misery, poverty, a lack of opportunities and social inequality," said Mr. da Silva, who dropped out of grade school to help support his family.

He made hunger eradication his top priority during his Jan. 1 inauguration speech.

"We are going to create the conditions so that everyone in our country can eat a decent meal three times a day, every day, without needing donations from anyone," he said.

But Mr. da Silva, Brazil's first elected leftist president, cautioned that there were no quick fixes to eliminate hunger in Brazil, which has the world's fifth-largest population.

"Hunger cannot be vanquished from one day to another, or with some isolated government measures," he said. "Conquering hunger will demand a lot of effort, a lot of persistence, a lot of courage and dedication from all of us during the next four years."

Brazil will spend $514-million this year on its food program, and the first payments start next week when 1,000 poor families in the arid northeastern state of Piaui receive their $14. All the 1.5 million families will be enrolled by the end of the year.

Eligible families living in towns and cities will get a kind of debit card to draw funds from a state-owned bank, while coupons similar to food stamps will be used in remote regions without banks.

Families can buy almost anything except tobacco, alcohol or soft drinks and must produce some kind of proof of purchase, said Jose Graziano, the federal secretary of food security.

Theologian Frei Betto, a member of the hunger task force, said children in poor communities would be trained to visit local families and teach them about nutrition — an idea modeled after Brazil's highly successful Health Agents program.

Still, the launch of the program has been burdened with controversy.

Inexplicably, Maranhao — which borders Piaui — was left off the initial list of participating states. And Maranhao ranks second worst of Brazil's 26 states on a human development index that measures income, illiteracy, life expectancy and school enrollment.

It is also the home state of former Brazilian president Jose Sarney, who backed Mr. da Silva during his presidential campaign. Andre Singer, a spokesman for the President, would say only that Maranhao would be discussed at a press conference scheduled for Thursday evening.

The government also says it will maintain anti-hunger programs developed by Mr. da Silva's predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, including a project that gives families up to $13 per month for food as long as their children stay in school.

Another program gives up to $13 a month to poor families with pregnant women or breast-feeding mothers.

Earlier this week, Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen opened Sao Paulo Fashion Week in Brazil's largest city by donating $29,000 to Mr. da Silva's anti-hunger effort.

The program has also received a little over 3 tonnes of donated food — including milk, soybean oil, rice, beans, wheat, flour and corn, said Luiz Roberto Baggio, a program co-ordinator. Guidelines are not in place yet for how to distribute those goods.

After he was inaugurated, Mr. da Silva delayed putting in place a plan to spend $400-million on new jet fighters to upgrade Brazil's antiquated air force planes. His aides said anti-poverty programs were more important.

www.upi.com By Bradley Brooks UPI Business Correspondent From the Business & Economics Desk Published 1/30/2003 6:42 PM

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- Brazil's new leader cut his political teeth as a union negotiator facing up to this country's military dictatorship in the late 1970s. Now, he is trying to use the tactics he learned there in trade talks with developed nations.

As he takes the reins of national power, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is beginning to show some of that negotiating acumen -- namely in his attempts to play the European Union off the United States when it comes to a free trade deal.

During a trip to the World Economic Forum and subsequent travels around Europe earlier this week, Lula railed against the agricultural protectionism of the United States while also giving winks to EU leaders that a deal with the Mercosur trade bloc could be in the works.

Securing a deal with Mercosur -- the trade bloc made up of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay -- before the United States is able to push through its Free Trade Area of the Americas pact, or FTAA, would be a coup for Europe.

Yet according to some analysts, such a scenario might not be all that unhealthy for the FTAA, either.

"My own view is that if the EU reaches a deal with Mercosur before we conclude the FTAA, that it would in fact stimulate the FTAA, at least on the part of the United States," said Sidney Weintraub, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"A lot of the congressional opposition that builds up with these things would dissipate if they saw the U.S. exporters being discriminated against in the Mercosur market."

Pascal Lamy, the EU's top trade official, landed in Brazil on Wednesday.

He was holding talks with the country's top business leaders Thursday, explaining why signing a deal with the EU prior to closing the FTAA is a good thing. On Friday, he meets with Lula.

Analysts expect some loud statements coming from the meeting, pronouncements sure to be directed toward Washington as Lula positions Brazil -- and Latin America as a whole -- heading in to talks on the FTAA.

The Bush administration is hoping to conclude the FTAA by 2005. The agreement would create a free-trade zone from Alaska to the tip of South America and include 34 countries, 800 million people and some $3.4 trillion in trade.

"We don't think it's possible to accept the protectionist measures that were approved by the American Congress, to even begin talking about the implementation of the FTAA," Lula said at a joint news conference with French President Jacques Chirac in Paris earlier this week.

Chirac joined the fray, touching on the most sensitive issue when it comes to trade in Latin America. Chirac said the idea that Europe gives more subsidies to its farmers than the United States "is more propaganda than reality."

Weintraub -- and most economists -- see it differently.

"That's nonsense," Weintraub said, referring to Chirac's statement. "That's not true. The only thing you might argue is that the EU perhaps tries to make its subsidies to be less objectionable in the sense that they don't encourage more production."

For his part, Lamy is aggressively touting the EU's trade plan with Mercosur during his trip in Brazil, saying it is more ambitious than "a simple free trade agreement."

Lamy is telling any Brazilian official who will listen that the country must take the lead in pushing an EU-Mercosur trade agreement.

He is also highlighting that the EU's ideas on trade deals include advancements in the social sector, right in line with Lula's priorities.

"A government inspired by solidarity -- like (Brazil's) current one -- could win since the agreement would increase economic cooperation, along with education and health programs," Lamy said.

But Weintraub thinks that the EU has a tough row to hoe in swaying Mercosur -- namely because of its own agricultural protectionism.

"I've always thought that reaching an agreement with Mercosur was going to be hard for the EU, because it's difficult for me to see what they are going to offer Argentina, let alone Brazil (in the agricultural sector)," he said.

Analysts say the big hurdle for both the United States and the EU in quickly clinching a trade deal with Latin America is that neither wants to negotiate agricultural issues only with the region.

"The biggest problem (the FTAA) faces is the desire of the United States to do the agriculture negotiations in the World Trade Organization, so that if it gives up its subsidies, it can get the Europeans to do the same," Weintraub said.

Lula and Brazil's negotiators -- long the most vocal opponents of agricultural subsidies in the developing world -- are certainly aware of this.

But they have little choice, analysts say, but to use the negotiating tactics at their disposal, however impotent they may be.

Yet, looking at history, Lula was able in the late 1970s to bring about the first wave of industrial strikes in Brazil, the first real blow against an iron-fisted dictatorship.

Despite having significant odds stacked against him, those who know Lula's history wouldn't be surprised if he is somehow able to squeeze water from the proverbial stones of trade negotiations with the EU and the United States.