This is exceptionally disappointing news out of Brazil. It is an emerging country, but, corruption is not good news. Fleeing from authorities is not a good sign. A country like Brazil needs leadership devoted to the country's growth, stability and economic principles that benefit the people to encourage even more growth of legitimate businesses.
At the street level, this corruption exists as a real factor in lives of the Brazilian people. Citizens should be empowered in every country to elect a government that is free of corruption, than just Brazil.
April 3, 2016
By Simon Romero
...Mr. Amaral, 61, (click here) was until his arrest in BrasÃlia that morning in late November the governing party’s most powerful leader in the Senate. He quickly sought a plea agreement, but prosecutors let him fester in prison for weeks, making a deal only after the disgraced senator provided one stunning disclosure after another that betrayed his former comrades and brought the government of President Dilma Rousseff ever closer to collapse....
...The upheaval began two years ago when prosecutors discovered a scheme inside the national oil company, Petrobras: Contractors had paid nearly $3 billion in bribes to executives who in turn channeled money into the campaigns of parties in Brazil’s governing coalition. Nearly 40 politicians, business moguls and black-market money dealers have been jailed since, and the list is expected to grow, with prosecutors investigating suspects including the leaders of both chambers of Congress.
Scholars say the corruption scandal ranks among the most far-reaching in the developing world, likening it to an earthquake hitting the nation’s privileged elite. It has unspooled alongside crushing economic challenges, as falling commodities prices have sent unemployment soaring to 9.5 percent from 6.8 percent a year ago. In 2015 alone, Brazil lost 1.5 million jobs, a stunning turnabout from the nation’s 7.6 percent economic growth in 2010.
The double whammy of political and economic meltdown has devastated the global ambitions of Latin America’s largest nation at the worst possible time: Brazil is simultaneously grappling with an epidemic of birth defects linked to the mosquito-borne Zika virus and preparing to host the Olympic Games this summer.
At the street level, this corruption exists as a real factor in lives of the Brazilian people. Citizens should be empowered in every country to elect a government that is free of corruption, than just Brazil.
April 3, 2016
By Simon Romero
...Mr. Amaral, 61, (click here) was until his arrest in BrasÃlia that morning in late November the governing party’s most powerful leader in the Senate. He quickly sought a plea agreement, but prosecutors let him fester in prison for weeks, making a deal only after the disgraced senator provided one stunning disclosure after another that betrayed his former comrades and brought the government of President Dilma Rousseff ever closer to collapse....
...The upheaval began two years ago when prosecutors discovered a scheme inside the national oil company, Petrobras: Contractors had paid nearly $3 billion in bribes to executives who in turn channeled money into the campaigns of parties in Brazil’s governing coalition. Nearly 40 politicians, business moguls and black-market money dealers have been jailed since, and the list is expected to grow, with prosecutors investigating suspects including the leaders of both chambers of Congress.
Scholars say the corruption scandal ranks among the most far-reaching in the developing world, likening it to an earthquake hitting the nation’s privileged elite. It has unspooled alongside crushing economic challenges, as falling commodities prices have sent unemployment soaring to 9.5 percent from 6.8 percent a year ago. In 2015 alone, Brazil lost 1.5 million jobs, a stunning turnabout from the nation’s 7.6 percent economic growth in 2010.
The double whammy of political and economic meltdown has devastated the global ambitions of Latin America’s largest nation at the worst possible time: Brazil is simultaneously grappling with an epidemic of birth defects linked to the mosquito-borne Zika virus and preparing to host the Olympic Games this summer.
