Brothers seek path out of poverty in Brazil film

Reuters: [2008-05-17 13:06:00]

By Mike Collett-White

CANNES, France, May 17 (Reuters) - A tough yet touching Brazilian drama follows four brothers in Sao Paulo who turn to football, religion and crime as they try to escape the poverty and monotony of life in the slums.

Unlike other acclaimed Brazilian dramas set in impoverished ghettos of the big cities, directors Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas did not want to make violence and crime central themes, although they linger just beneath the surface.

"Linha De Passe" (Line of Passage) is one of 22 films in the main competition at the Cannes film festival and one of four from South America.

"We didn't want to make a film on drug traffickers or police in down-and-out areas," Salles told reporters after a press screening of the movie.

"We wanted to make a film that clearly showed that violence was being turned down as an option," he added.

"A lot of Brazilian films depict characters who opt for violence, yet 99 percent of young people in Brazil are trying to make it in life, like what you see in the film."

Salles, best known for his 2004 hit "The Motorcycle Diaries", based the brothers' experiences on true stories and used first-time feature film actors in most of the roles in a bid to make the picture feel as youthful as possible.

NO FATHER FIGURE

The absence of a father in the family means the mother of Denis, Dinho, Dario and Reginaldo takes on the burden of household chores, made more difficult by the fact that she is pregnant with a fifth child.

Denis, the eldest sibling, is a motorcycle courier barely making a living speeding through the streets. Reginaldo, the youngest, is obsessed with buses, and finds brief liberation when he steals a bus and takes to the road.

Dinho seeks solace in religion, attending an evangelical church where he suffers a crisis of faith, while Dario turns to that "other" religion, soccer, although he is deemed too old to succeed despite being just 18.

Their interweaving tales are set in a soulless, urban world of run-down slums, traffic jams, dark courtyards, and endless vistas of skyscrapers.

"Sao Paulo is a huge city," said Thomas, who likened it to "the city at the end of the world".

"It has no escape like in Rio. Rio is an incredibly big and dramatic city also, but you have the sea, you have the landscape, you have the sense of redemption in the city."

"Linha de Passe" is the second Brazilian film to screen in the main competition after "Blindness", by Fernando Meirelles, opened the 2008 Cannes film festival on Wednesday. (Editing by Philippa Fletcher) (To read more about our entertainment news, visit our blog "Fan Fare" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare)

((mike.collett-white@reuters.com; tel +44 20 7542 4015))

Keywords: FILM CANNES/BRAZIL

UPDATE 3-Biofuels, trade dominate EU-Latin American summit

Reuters: [2008-05-17 04:23:00]

(Updates with new quotes, details; changes byline)

By Terry Wade

LIMA, May 16 (Reuters) - European and Latin American leaders called for action to tackle surging food prices and global warming at a summit in Peru on Friday, despite differences over biofuels and free trade.

Leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales said he feared the poor could suffer as his regional counterparts rush to sign free-trade deals with Europe, and others warned of a looming world food emergency, which some attribute in part to greater use of biofuels.

"If the crisis deepens, hundreds of millions of people will be threatened by hunger," Peruvian President Alan Garcia told the fifth gathering of heads of state from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.

The European Union and Brazil, the world's top ethanol exporter, back biofuels, but many Latin American countries blame them for pushing up food prices and causing hunger in a region where a third of the population lives in poverty.

Critics say the EU should scrap its target of having renewable fuels make up 10 percent of road transport fuels by 2020, saying the goal will contribute to hunger and environmental damage around the word.

European leaders played down the risks.

"The impact of biofuels (on food prices) should not provoke such alarm, because from my point of view the relationship isn't that clear," Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told reporters.

Even as many poor nations in Latin America criticize the use of food crops such as corn and soybeans to make fuels, they are increasingly worried about climate change and say rich states must cut carbon emissions.

Peru created an environment ministry this week to help cope with the impact of rising global temperatures, which studies show could melt its Andean glaciers within 25 years.

While there was broad support for initiatives to combat global warming, including carbon trading programs and reforestation, leaders struggled to agree about trade.

DIVIDED ON TRADE

Proponents say opening up borders would lower food prices by removing tariffs, but skeptics say trade pacts could hurt food production by slashing subsidies.

The issue has exposed ideological disagreements between Peru and Colombia, both free-trade enthusiasts, and leftist leaders like Bolivia's Morales, a former coca grower who says trade deals could hurt peasant farmers.

Peru and Colombia called on Friday for their countries to be put on a "fast track" in trade talks between the EU and Andean countries.

Europe is keen to boost trade with resource-rich Latin America and pushed talks with three trade blocs in the region.

Michelle Bachelet, president of staunch free-trader Chile, called for a global trade agreement.

"I'm making an urgent plea for us to successfully wrap up the Doha round," she said. "If we have freer and fairer agricultural trade, we'll have more food."

Although the summit's final statement included few concrete measures, some leaders used the occasion to patch over differences.

Chavez, who often insults conservative leaders, apologized to German Chancellor Angela Merkel only days after calling her a political descendant of Adolf Hitler.

"I haven't come here to fight," Chavez said after they shook hands. "I told her that I was sorry if I'd been harsh."

Chavez irritated some leaders at a summit in Chile last year, prompting the king of Spain to tell him to "shut up."

(Additional reporting by Maria Luisa Palomino, Helen Popper, Marco Aquino, Dana Ford, Silene Ramirez and Ricardo Serra; Editing by Eric Walsh)

((terry.wade@reuters.com; +5411 4318-0655; Reuters Messaging: terry.wade.reuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: EU LATINAMERICA/

*TOP NEWS* Latin America

Reuters: [2008-05-16 23:55:00]

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Reuters: [2008-05-16 23:49:00]

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ANALYSIS-Duty exceptions a Doha linchpin for US agriculture

Reuters: [2008-05-16 23:48:00]

By Missy Ryan

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) - As global trade talks inch closer to a make-or-break moment, support from the influential U.S. agriculture sector may hinge on highly technical rules for protecting their goods from tariff cuts.

Cutting tariffs is a priority in the World Trade Organization's Doha round, but a proposal on the table would allow developed countries to shelter between 4 and 6 percent initially of their tariff lines as "sensitive" products.

Sugar, dairy, and possibly meat may wind up on the United States' list of protected sensitive products, although trade officials are mum for now about which of the roughly 700 agricultural tariff lines at stake they will seek to include.

The issue emerges as pivotal in the round, which began in 2001, as negotiators try to hash out tariff rules and reach a breakthrough in coming months.

If the impasse persists much longer, even Doha's biggest supporters believe a new world trade deal will be delayed for years by political turnover in the United States and Europe.

Shawna Morris, a trade expert at the National Milk Producers Federation, said the sensitive product exceptions are part of a careful calculus that will determine if the U.S. dairy industry will support a newly brokered trade deal.

"At the end of the day, we'll be looking at the net gain" in exports abroad compared to increased competition at home, Morris said, along with reforms in government supports. The stance is echoed across U.S. agribusiness.

Products designated as sensitive receive smaller tariff cuts than other goods, but countries are required to compensate by expanding quotas for imports at a lower tariff.

On the flip side, U.S. industries will track how much such exemptions -- and similar exemptions for developing countries, called "special" products -- will reduce the new sales potential they are hoping for in foreign markets.

IMPACT ON US TARIFFS

According to a recent study by top agricultural economists, sensitive product protections would have a relatively small impact on overall reductions in U.S . tariffs.

The paper, by David Blandford of Penn State University, Will Martin of the World Bank, and David Laborde of the International Food Policy Research Institute, examined the most recent WTO draft for agriculture, released in February.

It concluded that products likely to be named sensitive by the United States, which are among the most highly protected now, would in a new trade deal get a smaller, but still comfortable, tariff cushion.

The study found that sugar tariffs would drop by 22 percentage points -- a big change, but still less than the 30 percentage points it would fall without sensitive status.

One source in the U.S. sugar industry said new Doha imports might amount to as much as 500,000 tonnes a year. "Our interests really are in trying to keep the domestic market operating," he said.

The paper also finds that the United States also stands to gain significant market access, even with other countries' sensitive and special product exemption.

Without special and sensitive product exception, average applied tariffs facing U.S. farm exports would go from 15.7 percent before a deal to 9.6 percent. With those exceptions, the tariffs would settle at 12.5 percent.

"Major market opportunities will be created in meat, oilseeds, cereals" and other goods, the authors wrote, but some of the proposed access would be neutralized by exceptions, especially for goods like cereals, oilseeds and dairy.

U.S. dairy producers expect some other major markets, like Japan, Canada,and South Korea may protect dairy products.

MEANINGFUL ACCESS?

Gregg Doug, an economist with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, expects some kind of improvement in access to important markets like the European Union, even if meat shows up on the sensitive products list there.

"But will it be meaningful? Don't know yet," he said.

Crawford Falconer, who chairs the Doha agriculture talks, may provide additional details on special and sensitive product rules when he releases a revised negotiating draft next week.

When approaching the Doha round, Blandford, one of the study's authors, said that U.S. industries shouldn't fear an onslaught of new imports, or markets closed by developing country exemptions. "It is a pretty good deal," he said.

Not everyone in Washington shares that view.

Such exceptions, in addition to the possibility that trade partners will use health or safety concerns to block U.S. exports, "dampen the optimism over the Doha round as a market opening mechanism," said Gary Blumenthal, an agriculture expert at World Perspectives consultancy.

((For a factbox on sensitive products, users of 3000 Xtra can click on [nL0797723]))

((For more on world trade talks, users of 3000 Xtra can click on [ID:nL01774870])) (Editing by David Gregorio) ((Reuters Messaging: missy.ryan.reuters.com@reuters.net; + 202-898-8376)) Keywords: USA TRADE/DOHA