Blackouts darken Brazil's 2 largest cities

In the November 10, 2009 article "Blackouts darken Brazil's 2 largest cities," Associated Press writer Bradley Brooks reports Brazil endured another sever power outage:

RIO DE JANEIRO – A massive power failure blacked out Brazil's two largest cities and other parts of Latin America's biggest nation for more than two hours late Tuesday, leaving millions of people in the dark after a huge hydroelectric dam suddenly went offline. All of neighboring Paraguay also lost power, but for only about 20 minutes.

The huge Itaipu dam straddling the two nations' border stopped producing 17,000 megawatts of power, resulting in outages in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and at least several other big Brazilian cities, Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said. He said outages hit nine of the 27 states in a country of more than 190 million people.

The cause of the failure had not been determined, but Lobao said strong storms uprooted trees near the Itaipu dam just before it went offline and could be to blame. Rio was the hardest hit city, he said.

At 12:37 a.m. Wednesday, the lights in Rio's Copacabana neighborhood flashed back to life, prompting cheers and thunderous car honking.

"It's sad to see such a beautiful city with such a precarious infrastructure," said Igor Fernandes, a shirtless 22-year-old law student peddling his bike down a dark Copacabana beach. "This shouldn't happen in a city that is going to host the Olympic Games."

Lobao said the hydro plant at the dam itself was working, but there were problems with the power lines that carry electricity across Brazil. Brazil uses almost all of the energy produced by the dam, and Paraguay consumes the rest.

In Paraguay, the national energy agency blamed the blackout on a short-circuit at an electrical station near Sao Paulo, saying that failure shut down the entire power grid supplied by Itaipu. All of Paraguay went dark for about 20 minutes, the country's leading newspaper, ABC Color, reported.

The company in charge of the dam, Itaipu Binacional, said the blackout did not start at the hyrdoelectric complex. It said the most likely cause was a failure at one or more points in the transmission system.

The blackouts came three days after CBS's "60 Minutes" news program reported that several past Brazilian power outages were caused by hackers. Brazilian officials had played down the report before the latest outages, and Lobao did not mention it.

Brazil's official Agencia Brasil news agency said Tuesday's outage started about 10:20 p.m. (1220 GMT), snarling streets in Rio, where traffic that is normally chaotic turned riotous. Cars, taxis and buses zoomed through dark intersections, honking to let their presence known as they zoomed through. Pedestrians scampered across avenues, and tourists scurried back to a handful of luxury beach hotels, the only buildings with light.

Flavia Alvin, 37, a shopkeeper in Copacabana, waited with her co-workers for the blackout to end before making the long bus ride home to western Rio. Asked if she was worried about violence or looting, she shook her head and pulled her young daughter closer.

"I've heard of problems like rioting in other places with blackouts, but Brazilians are more relaxed," she said. "All I can do is wait here and drink a beer."

That was what a crowd was doing at the Eclipse restaurant, a block from Copacabana beach. Drinking quickly warming beer at a restaurant beat sitting in a sweltering apartment, said Paulo Viera, 35, a graphic designer. But he worried about how the outage might look for a city that last month was picked to host the 2016 Olympics and will be the showcase city for soccer's World Cup in 2014.

"The image of Brazil, of Rio, is bad enough with all the violence," he said. "We don't need this to happen. I don't know how it could get worse."

Subway service was knocked out in both Rio and Sao Paulo, and the G1 Web site of Brazil's Globo TV said Sao Paulo subway users were forced to abandon train cars.

Some landing lights on runways at airports in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo went dark, affecting take-offs and landings, according to Globo TV.

In the city of Taguatinga near the national capital of Brasilia, a second division Brazilian league soccer game was halted after lights illuminating the field went dark. No power outages happened in Brasilia.

Utility companies that provide electricity for Rio and Sao Paulo did not immediately offer explanations for why the power went off or when it would be restored, Agencia Brasil said.

Sao Paulo is South America's largest city, with 12 million residents. Rio has 6 million citizens. But the metropolitan area of both cities are much larger. Also affected was Belo Horizonte in central Brazil and the northeastern city of Recife.

The Itaipu dam is the world's second biggest hydroelectric producer, supplying 20 percent of Brazil's electricity. China's Three Gorges dam is the largest.

For Brazil, Olympics mean the future finally has arrived

In the October 2, 2009 McClatchy newspapers article "For Brazil, Olympics mean the future finally has arrived," Kevin G. Hall says the awarding of the 2016 Olympic Games to Brazil is evidence of the country's economic emergence:

WASHINGTON — For the longest time, a joke about Brazil made the rounds in the halls of international financial organizations: Latin America's largest and most populous nation had a great future — and always would.

No one's laughing anymore, as Brazil joined the ranks of the big-boy countries after Rio de Janeiro , a city known for sun and sin, was named the host of the 2016 Olympic Games on Friday.

The win, on top of an earlier award to host soccer's 2014 World Cup, recognizes Brazil as one of the pillars of the global economy. It's an amazing transformation, considering that just eight years ago it elected Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva , a fiery former union leader who critics warned would lead his nation into socialism, or, worse, communism.

It didn't happen. Instead, Lula has become a global figure, aided by Brazil's booming economy and recent discoveries of vast offshore oil deposits.

"It's sort of a recognition that Brazil has arrived. That it is a global player, that it is a regional power, and it reflects a very impressive performance and progress in the country," said Michael Shifter, the vice president of policy for the Inter-American Dialogue, a research center that specializes in hemispheric politics. "This is just a measure of its increasing stature and protagonism on the world stage."

Indeed, Brazil was front and center earlier in the decade when developing nations stormed out of global trade talks in the Mexican resort Cancun , drawing a line in the sand for emerging markets, which demanded that rich nations take their concerns seriously.

That effort culminated last month at a meeting of the Group of 20, composed of the world's most developed economies. Leaders meeting in Pittsburgh agreed to do away with the old Group of Eight structure dominated by the United States , Japan and Europe , and instead create a new, larger mechanism that brings in big developing economies.

"No country has done so much, with so much, in such a short period of time," said Jerry Haar , associate dean of the Florida International University College of Business in Miami . " Brazil has really matured. It now has crossed the line and is a middle-class country."

All the more remarkable given Brazil's troubled recent past, which included a long and tortured rule by successive generals.

"This is one of the great stories in the world, of a country that had 21 years of military dictatorship, economic disorder, and today for all of its problems seems to be pursuing a productive course," Shifter said.

Hosting the Olympic Games also will put Brazil and Rio under greater scrutiny, both for their long-standing crime problems in the mountainside slums, called favelas, and for their stewardship of the Amazon region, vital for the globe's environmental health.

"Brazil has always responded well to external pressure, so I believe issues related to Amazon, to safety, to governance, people in Brazil know we will be under not a microscope but more attention," said Paulo Sotero , a Brazilian who runs the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars , a research organization in Washington .

The Olympics are likely also to cement a long legacy for Lula, who helped bring down the dictatorship in the late 1980s and may go down as its most important contemporary leader.

"It seems almost like it is Brazil's decade. Lula keeps saying it is Brazil's century. ... It sure as hell is a good start of a last year in office for Lula," said Douglas Engle , a photographer and cameraman from Hendersonville, N.C. , who's spent more than a decade working in Rio. "It really makes his legacy. Even people who complained about him must admit this is pretty good."

(Kevin G. Hall is a former news bureau chief in Brazil.)

Economic Growth in Brazil

Brazil GDP Growth Rate

Brazil GDP Growth Rate chart, historical data, forecast and news. Brazil is one of the fastest growing emerging economies in the world. The country has the largest national economy in Latin America and the world's ninth largest economy, estimated at $1.8 trillion when measured on purchasing power parity basis. In 2007, the nation accounted for 2.8% of the gross world product, according to the International Monetary Fund.