Summary

Agriculture – Once a powerful supplier of natural rubber, today Brazil is not a shadow of what it used to be in the days when it met almost the entire global demand. In 2012, the country produced a mere 171,000 tons, next to nothing when compared with the 11,3 million tons the sector produced over the same period on a global scale.

Environment – In 2012 Brazil generated around 1,4 million tons of the country’s fastest-growing type of waste – electronic waste –, with an average of 7 kilos per inhabitant. What is worrisome is the fact that most people, both in Brazil and abroad, still do not know how to reuse and recycle this scrap, let alone bother with their disposal.

Cities – “You are entering the world of wine.” Inscribed on the barrel-shaped, 17-meter tall portico erected at the crossroads leading to the city of Bento Gonçalves, surrounded by the cliffs and valleys of the Rio Grande do Sul sierra and 125 km away from capital city Porto Alegre, the sentence leaves no doubt. In the city the official beverage is not cold beer, even less cachaça. In Bento Gonçalves, the Brazilian grape capital, wine reigns supreme.

Professions – The process is inexorable. One by one, occupations that reigned for centuries begin to fade away from the market, succumbing to modernization and the unprecedented advance of information technology. Among so many other examples, the end has come the age of wagoners, typists, bootblacks, umbrella repairmen, blacksmiths, and dyers.

Entrepreneurship – Creativity or inventiveness? The name doesn’t matter. The fact is that examples are mounting in Brazil of entrepreneurs who have given wings to their dreams and transformed simple ideas into strong-growing businesses. This information is corroborated by research whose findings show that nearly half the Brazilian population nurtures plans of running their own lives.

Health – A problem affecting 5% of the world’s teenagers and children, regardless of country, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), is at the center of medical debates mostly because of an increase in the intake of methylphenidate (a component in medications Ritalin and Concerta). Not a few professionals complain about what they see as the “banalization” associated both with the diagnosis and the medication prescribed.

Interview – Since he graduated in medicine from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ, in Portuguese) and decided to serve the people living in the Amazon region, Pedro Chequer has dedicated his professional life to public health. Today, at the age of 63, he is one of the most respected authorities when the subject is Aids – a disease affecting some 657,000 Brazilians, according to the Ministry of Health (June 2012 survey).

Tourism – The green little castle nestled on a tiny island in the Guanabara Bay, just in front of the Rio-Niterói boats in Rio de Janeiro city, would be just another architectural eccentricity in the city center had it not been, one day, the stage of the most famous ball in the history of Brazil. It was in the Provence-gothic palace on Fiscal Island that the imperial court waltzed in their ceremonial attire for the last time, joyful and carefree, on the night of November 9th, 1889, six days before the proclamation of the Republic.

History – Misunderstood, complex, and purposefully concealed. This is the usual reference to the Contestado War (1912-1916), a peasant-driven war waged over a 48,000-square-kilometer territory that is shared today by the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina. The Contestado War ended in genocide: 20,000 fatal casualties on the rebel side, both civilians and combatants, and some 1,000 casualties in the government’s forces, including dead, wounded, and deserters.

Memory – Acclaimed by radio host César Ladeira as “Samba in Person”, Aracy Teles de Almeida, who would be turning 100 years old were she still alive, came to be a star in Brazilian popular music in the golden age of radio. Rivaling Carmen Miranda, of whom she once was a fan, Aracy de Almeida recorded Noel Rosa songs, and was a talent judge on television programs acting as tough and grumpy, the opposite of her real personality.

Books – The book Lá e Cá: Trocas Culturais entre o Brasil e Países Africanos de Língua Portuguesa [“Here and There: Cultural Exchanges between Brazil and Portuguese-speaking African Countries”], published by Editora Senac, brings amazing information and facts that evidence the exchanges between the cultures of Brazil and Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Illustrated with beautiful color photos on several of its 160 pages, the work’s starting point is the arts and crafts of Brazilian and African communities.

Thematic panel – Amir Kahir, a professor of public finances, debated with the members of the Economics, Sociology and Politics Council of the São Paulo State Federation of Commerce, Sesc and Senac about the country’s economic growth, in his view hampered by an excessive brake on consumption.