After a long period of dictatorship, and since the political liberalization of the 80’s, Brazilians have learned to value freedom of expression as a key democratic right. But the last weeks have shown that some issues such as marijuana legalization still don’t hold the status of being entitled to a legally sanctioned public debate. This year’s edition of the Marijuana March was prohibited by courts in 9 capital cities across the country due to allegations of illegal promotion of drug use. The theme provoked responses by many local bloggers.

While in some countries marijuana use is accepted with restrictions, in Brazil the debate on the issue is not even permitted. Talking about marijuana has turned into a taboo, as the march was prohibited by the Public Ministry a few days before scheduled date, leaving no chance for appeals due to the lack of available time. It becomes clear the country is unable to allow its citizens to debate their relationship with some of the problems we have around here. Should we label a demonstration for legal reform as drug use promotion? To debate necessarily means to influence? There are some terms that are not well defined in the heads of the justices, which results in hindering the citizens from claiming their right: the freedom to express themselves.
Tropical Fascism - Obrog!!!

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Twisted information about the discovery of what may possibly be the third largest oil field in the world turned into a hot issue on the Brazilian blogosphere this week. The trigger was a comment from the head of Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency [ANP], Haroldo Lima, mentioning that the recently found Carioca [or Sugar Loaf] field in Brazil’s offshore Santos Basin could potentially contain reserves of up to 33 billion barrels of oil and gas. The comment was amplified by the media as an official announcement, which caused a wave of excitement through investor markets from Brazil to New York for Petrobrás [Brazil's state-run oil company] and its partners Repsol-YPF and the BG Group.

Petrobras officials quickly reacted saying that 3 months of further drilling would be needed before any meaningful estimate of volumes could be made. Yet, the day-after local media headlines took on the ‘announcement’ as a deliberate act to boost Brazilian markets and Petrobras’ share price, and speculated about the legal consequences the company could face for making such groundless comments. Meanwhile bloggers found a new gusher of opinions in the theme.

Haroldo Lima, director of National Petroleum Agency, has firmly denied having made any public announcement related to the Santos Basin’s find. He would have just made a comment based in articles published in a specialized American magazine. But the word of the director of a regulatory agency has weight not only over the sector regulated by it, but also over financial markets. Therefore it is not his role to make any inference. The weight of the word of an oil sector manager is much bigger than the opinion or an article of a journalist.
The weight of the word and the responsability - Leandro Vieira

The media, which in its overwhelming majority is opposed to the president Luis Inacio da Silva, the “Lula”, has tried to characterize Haroldo Lima as irresponsible, and the oppositionist CVM (Securities and Exchange Commission) says it will “investigate” him for having shared information with the public before an official announcement from Petrobras. That was an evident demonstration of spite, envy and hatred from the Brazilian right against the President Lula. That’s what we can translate from the attempt to disqualify the remarks of Haroldo Lima — a respectable public Brazilian figure. In its sordid ways, the media has tried to sensationalize the context of Lima’s comments, which were made in a closed event, as if he had made an announcement in a public plaza with a megaphone, aiming to reach the whole population. In fact, the information about the Carioca field was already known by oil specialists, and it had already been reported in the US by the “World Oil Magazine”.
Media roars against - Tribuna Petista

Lula: … tell Petrobras to make up another oil field,
so that I can get away from the latest scandals, heck!!!

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The abrupt dimissal of the journalist Paulo Henrique Amorim — or PHA as he is referred too — from his anchor-like position at the IG portal has fueled this week’s blogs debate. The humorous and opinionated style used by PHA in his ‘Conversa Afiada‘ blog to attack what he called the ‘PIG’ — an acronym for Portuguese words meaning, ‘the party of the coup-plotting mass media’ — was an outlet for ‘left bloggers’, and many posts were quick to denounce IG’s surprising move as censorship.

Luiz Carlos Azenha’s website says that Paulo Henrique Amorim was dismissed from IG on Tuesday, by fax. What first calls our attention is the suddenness of the portal’s decision. If it was not for Azenha, we would be accessing PHA’s site without reaching it, and not knowing why… It’s almost impossible not to speculate about possible political meddling. We wait for an explanation from IG. While waiting for it, we can speculate and worry about a media witch-hunt that may be starting, promoted by the big media companies and by the politicians who control it, the ones already known to all.
PHA’s Dismissal - Cidadania.com

It is important to mention that IG differentiates itself from the rest of the big Internet outlets by its sympathetic approach to the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. This perspective adds intrigue to the plot, as it is not so easy to identify the forces driving behind PHA’s release.

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A new arena is gathering steam and significance in the Brazilian Internet space: the football blogs. It should be no surprise given how natives are impassioned for the game, and how the latest results of the many championships become part of the casual chit-chat everywhere. Day by day, fervent fans are finding out that blogs and other media possibilities — podcasts, webcasts, foruns and chats — are invaluable tools to display, promote and exchange opinions about the many games, and also to express their passion for their favorite football club teams.

The most evident feature brought by the wave of new entrants in the sports chronicle on the web is the customized report and commentary produced by teams’ fans. Since TV transmissions of football games started in Brazil, referees are not the only ones to be sujected to biased scrutiny of the fans. The obligatory account of the games by speakers and commentators from major TV networks, regular owners of exclusive broadcasting rights, also suffer the sharp analysis — and fiery reactions — from the opinionated crowd of the many clubs’ supporters.

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Two of the biggest media companies in Brazil are currently involved is court cases that similarly raise the issue of freedom of speech and press even though the media finds itself on opposite sides of the issue in the two cases. The influential newspaper ‘Folha de SP’ is facing a series of lawsuits filed by followers of an evangelical church, while Veja, the top weekly magazine, and some of its main editors are going after a blogger through another series of lawsuits. Taking the larger view, the Brazilian blogosphere is uniquely pointing out the similarity and contradictions revealed by the connectedness of both situations.

Folha’s problems started a week ago when Elvira Lobato, a reporter who is now facing about 50 individual suits, published an article about the finances of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God - IURD, and its connections with tax havens. The piece lists the TV network (2nd national audience), 23 TV and 40 radio stations, besides the other 19 companies — 2 newspapers included — that forms the church’s ‘empire’, but the suits actually complain about IURD being portrayed as a ’sect’.

The issue has called RSF’s attention, and the ABI [Brazilian Press Association] has released a note [pt] describing IURD’s reaction as an ‘unprecedented coercive campaign in Brazilian media history’. While the suits against Folha has generated such compelling response from traditional media and its backers, a very different approach is being adopted towards the legal dispute between Veja magazine and the journalist-turned-into-blogger Luis Nassif. As expected, the blogosphere has much to say about that.

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A traditional Brazilian newspaper launched an advertising campaign to promote its new website, and the core message of all video and visual pieces was based on a humorous approach of blogs as bad sources of information. One video piece went far enough as comparing bloggers with monkeys. As expected, the local blogosphere took it personally.

On its website, Talent Agency explains its new campaign to advertise Estadão’s website as follows: “The campaign exposes, in a playful way, the risks of searching sites on the Internet, managing to impart the newspaper’s website novelties“. I should say that it is a case of questionable sense of humor, to coarsely compare bloggers with… monkeys.
Estadão against blogs? - Pensar Enlouquece

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A blame game seemed to start as soon as Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath walked out of the G4 talks with their counterparts from the US and the EU Thursday in Postdam, Germany. The meeting between these four key players in the World Trade Organization was formulated as an attempt to salvage global trade talks from a six year stalemate on the issues of farm subsidies and open markets. It turned into a fiasco and now charges over who or what caused the failure has become an open dispute, which is evoking interesting reactions from the media. Brazilian bloggers are trying to understand what’s going on… and they too are offering explanations.

In Washington on Thursday (21 June), the White House spokesman declared that President Bush was ‘disappointed’ with the collapse of the talks in Postdam. The US President blamed Brazil and India for the meeting’s failure. “The president is disappointed with some countries that are blocking an opportunity to expand global commerce”, remarked the White House spokesman, Tony Fratto. “Big economies as Brazil and India should not stand in the way of the progress of small nations, the poor developing countries — but that seems to be what happened in Germany this week”, Fratto said.
Lula culpa ricos por fracasso em Doha; Bush critica o Brasil - Mercosul e CPLP

No, Mr. Bush. That was not exactly what happened in the city of Postdam, in Germany, where the G4 met. In fact, the powerful nations seem to be opposed to the growth of the less affluent countries, but this kind of relationship is not what happens between Brazil, India and the poorer countries. This pattern exists between the US, the EU and the poorer countries. The core issue seems clear to me — the rich countries refuse to cut the agriculture subsidies to their farmers, and this situation can’t be seen as fair “commerce”. End. Brazil and India properly left the talks. The Europeans said that the emerging countries were not ready to make concessions, and I should ask: what more do they want? Meantime leaders are still thinking that social policies are to be restricted to national borders, we won’t have any development in the “better world” project. The attitude of the Lula Government in the case of the Bolivian refineries was, in my view, iconic. It would be indecent if the Brazilian president cared only for the national interests [of Brazil]. The well being of a Bolivian citizen is worth the same as mine or yours, dear reader. But this is not the line of thought of Europeans and Anglo-Americans. That is the reason why the Doha Round is dwindling. Just like Mercosur, Alca, etc.
Às favas com o comércio justo - Expressão Literária

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