Rio's big city violence, a contrast with the peace of the Peninsula. Each day big city life becomes more anxious, dangerous. No wonder visitors look for increasingly rare places like the Peninsula on holiday, or for a permanent refuge....
"Rio de Janeiro's taint of blood is the consequence of combining extreme wealth and extreme poverty in a city awash in cocaine and other drugs."
"Read More (click)..."
I spent the holidays with family in Rio. Serious and unpredictable violence is everywhere. That's a bad combination- serious and unpredictable. For everyone- rich and poor, civilian and police, the law abiding and the criminal. Statistics in Rio leave most metropolitan rivals for "World's Most Violent" behind, including the Gaza Strip, JoBurg, Sao Paulo, Washington D.C...
http://select.nytimes.com/iht/2007/01/10/world/IHT-10globalist.html
Accessible on NYT Premium, or see below. Life's too short to spend it dodging bullets. If not shorter.....
Globalist
War That Doesn’t Speak Its Name Rages in Brazil
By ROGER COHEN
International Herald Tribune
Published: January 10, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO Brazil is not for beginners. That was a line of Antonio Carlos Jobim, the musician who was the father of the bossa nova movement, wrote "The Girl from Ipanema" and knew that the languorous sensuality of his country that he captured in that song was only one aspect of the story.
Another has been on lurid display of late with the killing of more than two dozen people, including seven incinerated on a bus, since violence led by drug gangs erupted in Rio on Dec. 28. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva marked the beginning of his second term this month by calling the slaughter "terrorism."
His choice of words upped the ante, but the stakes in Brazil's war that will not speak its name have been clear enough for some time. Official statistics put the number of killings in the state of Rio alone at 6,620 in 2004, 6,438 in 2005, and 5,232 in the first 10 months of last year. That's 18,290 violent deaths in less than three years.
You can look at this figure in several ways: as more than six times the number of American deaths in the Iraq war since 2003; as about half the estimated 36,000 people killed annually by firearms in all of Brazil; or as the consequence of combining extreme wealth and extreme poverty in a single poorly policed metropolitan area of 11 million people awash in cocaine and other drugs.
No, Brazil is not for beginners. It is not what it seems. There are wars and wars. This one can seem quite invisible.
On the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema, the well-heeled try to banish growing anxiety about "insecurity." Grilled shrimp are sold on skewers and coconuts are cut open with clean sweeps of a knife and bright plastic beach balls glisten in the light.
The ocean beside which the wealthy bask is also visible from many of the 752 shantytowns, or favelas, that are Rio's ubiquitous urban stains. The water lures; it shimmers; it deceives. The reality in the slums is not of space and sunlight but of confined lives often broken before they have begun.
Think of this city as a child's picture book with jets landing and yachts passing and traffic sweeping along the waterfront and vegetation sprouting beneath bold outcrops of rock from which hang-gliders jump and loop toward the glittering bay. There's enough here to inspire any kid's wonder and vocabulary.
Or think of it, rather, as the picture book of globalization where high- rises and luxury shopping malls abut teeming hillside shanties where 9- year-old kids carry submachine guns, 11-year-old girls get pregnant and gangs control a multimillion-dollar drug trade that is the passport to status and name-brand clothes and coveted sneakers.
Rio tends to provoke awe and shame in equal measure. Things have been going wrong here for some time. The move of the capital to Brasília more than four decades ago left the city bereft of its core purpose. Poor migrants from the Northeast continued to pour in looking for work, but there was little of it. Often they found only a precarious perch on the hillsides. They had a view but no income.
Drugs filled the void. Gangs like "Comando Vermelho" (Red Commando) or "Terceiro Comando" (Third Commando) formed. They were businesses engaged in the lucrative trafficking of Colombian cocaine, but they were also purveyors of a powerful legend of the armed struggle of the poor and humble against the wealthy. A gun was one way to fight Brazil's skewed income distribution. Gang leaders gained mythic status.
Over more than 20 years the situation has festered. There is no shortage of reasons. Police officers with monthly salaries of less than $500 are easily corrupted. Politicians have also been bought. Prisons are overcrowded. Jail sentences tend to be short. Impunity is widespread. Inefficiency has been rampant, with authority and intelligence scattered between competing city, state and federal authorities.
As a result, Rio's loveliness has never been without its taint of blood. More than 18,000 violent deaths in less than three years are a lot. If the toll were in Baghdad, people would be talking about it. But the world's attention is a capricious thing.
Sérgio Cabral, the newly elected governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, is determined to bring his attention to bear on the problem and change things. The recent spurt of violence has been interpreted as a warning to him. But he's still promising a Giuliani-like clampdown.
"Our public security apparatus has been contaminated," he says in an interview. "There's been political contamination, and promotions have not been merit based. We are determined to professionalize the police."
Cabral, a Sony laptop and a Diet Coke at his side, continues: "By contamination, I mean corruption. We are going to remove the corrupted, be severe with them. Those in uniform who use their arms to serve themselves rather than serve the public are on their way out."
Fighting words: Cabral seems resolute. He has already transferred a dozen of the most dangerous criminals from local prisons to a newly built facility in another state, where their influence and ability to communicate with gang leaders will be reduced. He's acted to integrate the city and state police in more effective way.
He's promising new roads into big slums like Rocinha, where more than 50,000 people live and the drug trade is worth over $1 million a month. He's embarking on an ambitious family- planning program in the slums, making condoms and the pill more readily available.
"We have a situation here where a woman in the shanties is having an average of five children and just down the road a woman in Leblon is having an average of two or less," Cabral says. "That's unacceptable."
So much here is. But the tropics are lulling. The sun shines, the bossa nova rhythms seduce, old patterns prove very hard to break. Jobim's girl comes walking and the blood gets forgotten again.
E-mail: rocohen@nytimes.com
Friday, January 12
Monday, January 8
Photos: Cassange Beach
Photos of future Peninsula Villas location, a limited number of homesites on the beach at Praia do Cassange. Plus unique, complementary, small boat landing on Camamú Bay the other side of the Peniínsula.....
* "Sitio Patura": 440 linear meters beachfront, 100 year old coconut grove, surrounded by rare Atlantic Rain Forest.
* "Fazenda-Porto Rio do Céu": 21 hectares; biggest lake on Península Highway; unique, all tides small boat access to the Bay.
For PHOTOS (click)
* "Sitio Patura": 440 linear meters beachfront, 100 year old coconut grove, surrounded by rare Atlantic Rain Forest.
* "Fazenda-Porto Rio do Céu": 21 hectares; biggest lake on Península Highway; unique, all tides small boat access to the Bay.
For PHOTOS (click)
Saturday, January 6
Bought! Don't own?
Article from International Living, a newsletter for 25 years, now an online publication. Background on purchasing property you may end up not owning. Heads up. Worthwhile for Bahia and Brazil, too.......
An essential fluid subject to take a close look at. Especially if it's your money.
More on (really) buying real estate on the Peninsula, later....
Know More Than the Seller
International Living Postcards--Saturday Edition
http://www.internationalliving.com
Saturday, Jan. 6, 2007
You can't own land that belongs to someone else, right? Yes...and no.
As an international real estate investor you will, from time to time, come across the opportunity to buy land without holding fee simple title. This process has more than one name and the exact details differ depending on the market, but basically it comes down to you having use of the land until such time as the rightful owner (usually the government) takes it back. The critical point is whether this arrangement is made by agreement or by accident.
First, a heads-up: If the idea of not holding fee simple title doesn't sit right with you, you don't need to read any further. Although I'm now comfortable with this method of purchase--under certain strict conditions--I've had reservations in the past. There exist enough real estate opportunities with fee simple title around the world for you not to have to investigate alternatives.
However, if you plan to operate in foreign markets, you need to know what you might come up against.
In Panama, "rights of possession" is possession of a property with the expectation that title may be obtained at some point in the future. You should not buy this type of land. But that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people willing to sell it to you. Although they may offer vague guarantees and implied compliance with the law, ignore them all. Know the facts.
It used to be the case that you could register rights of possession land, but that is no longer true.
Rights of possession land is not transferable (ownership of the land can be "transferred" if it's held by a corporation, but that is merely a loophole, as it's ownership of the corporation, not the land, that is being transferred.)
Private land can be converted from rights of possession to fee simple title by a court, but this takes 15 years and is basically an instrument for accruing adverse possession rights to squatters.
Rights of possession on islands cannot be converted to fee simple title. This is due to a change in the Panamanian constitution disallowing the private ownership of islands. However some islands--including the Pearl Island of Contadora--were privately owned prior to the constitution change. These islands can have titled land.
Unused public land in some agricultural areas (excluding islands or certain coastal areas) can be converted from rights of possession to fee simple title by the Agrarian Reform or Ministry of Economy (depending on where the land is located) upon paying the purchase price to the government.
In Nicaragua, concession land is an agreement by the government to lease you the land for a specified time. Leased land is not uncommon elsewhere in the world, including the U.K., New Zealand, and Ireland.
It is possible to get a perpetual or long-term lease and a title insurance policy on the leasehold.
Once Complicated, Now Easy
How to be a global real estate investor.
Holding land this way can work to your advantage. For example, you pay no property taxes on leasehold land in Nicaragua (but you may have to pay concession fees on an annual basis). On the other hand, when it comes time to resell, future buyers may not like the idea of leased land.
Tune in tomorrow…
Are you ready for a new life in paradise?
The main risk, of course, is that the government might revoke the lease. A title insurance policy will help protect against the risk of the government changing its mind down the road...though it won't eliminate it entirely. Should the government come back at some point and say the lease wasn't valid in the first place, the title insurance company (such as First American, contact tmurdock@firstam.com) would back you up. Your remaining risk would be that the government might decide someday to cancel the lease altogether. In this case, your title insurance policy wouldn't help you. However, this is unlikely, as many rich Nicaraguans hold leases on beachfront property along Nicaragua's coast.
In Thailand, although foreigners can't own land freehold, some of the ways you can hold land are through a long-term lease or through usufruct interest (like rights of possession).
Lief Simon
Real Estate Editor, International Living
An essential fluid subject to take a close look at. Especially if it's your money.
More on (really) buying real estate on the Peninsula, later....
Know More Than the Seller
International Living Postcards--Saturday Edition
http://www.internationalliving.com
Saturday, Jan. 6, 2007
You can't own land that belongs to someone else, right? Yes...and no.
As an international real estate investor you will, from time to time, come across the opportunity to buy land without holding fee simple title. This process has more than one name and the exact details differ depending on the market, but basically it comes down to you having use of the land until such time as the rightful owner (usually the government) takes it back. The critical point is whether this arrangement is made by agreement or by accident.
First, a heads-up: If the idea of not holding fee simple title doesn't sit right with you, you don't need to read any further. Although I'm now comfortable with this method of purchase--under certain strict conditions--I've had reservations in the past. There exist enough real estate opportunities with fee simple title around the world for you not to have to investigate alternatives.
However, if you plan to operate in foreign markets, you need to know what you might come up against.
In Panama, "rights of possession" is possession of a property with the expectation that title may be obtained at some point in the future. You should not buy this type of land. But that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people willing to sell it to you. Although they may offer vague guarantees and implied compliance with the law, ignore them all. Know the facts.
It used to be the case that you could register rights of possession land, but that is no longer true.
Rights of possession land is not transferable (ownership of the land can be "transferred" if it's held by a corporation, but that is merely a loophole, as it's ownership of the corporation, not the land, that is being transferred.)
Private land can be converted from rights of possession to fee simple title by a court, but this takes 15 years and is basically an instrument for accruing adverse possession rights to squatters.
Rights of possession on islands cannot be converted to fee simple title. This is due to a change in the Panamanian constitution disallowing the private ownership of islands. However some islands--including the Pearl Island of Contadora--were privately owned prior to the constitution change. These islands can have titled land.
Unused public land in some agricultural areas (excluding islands or certain coastal areas) can be converted from rights of possession to fee simple title by the Agrarian Reform or Ministry of Economy (depending on where the land is located) upon paying the purchase price to the government.
In Nicaragua, concession land is an agreement by the government to lease you the land for a specified time. Leased land is not uncommon elsewhere in the world, including the U.K., New Zealand, and Ireland.
It is possible to get a perpetual or long-term lease and a title insurance policy on the leasehold.
Once Complicated, Now Easy
How to be a global real estate investor.
Holding land this way can work to your advantage. For example, you pay no property taxes on leasehold land in Nicaragua (but you may have to pay concession fees on an annual basis). On the other hand, when it comes time to resell, future buyers may not like the idea of leased land.
Tune in tomorrow…
Are you ready for a new life in paradise?
The main risk, of course, is that the government might revoke the lease. A title insurance policy will help protect against the risk of the government changing its mind down the road...though it won't eliminate it entirely. Should the government come back at some point and say the lease wasn't valid in the first place, the title insurance company (such as First American, contact tmurdock@firstam.com) would back you up. Your remaining risk would be that the government might decide someday to cancel the lease altogether. In this case, your title insurance policy wouldn't help you. However, this is unlikely, as many rich Nicaraguans hold leases on beachfront property along Nicaragua's coast.
In Thailand, although foreigners can't own land freehold, some of the ways you can hold land are through a long-term lease or through usufruct interest (like rights of possession).
Lief Simon
Real Estate Editor, International Living
Friday, January 5
Lonely Planet's Top 5: Brazil
For what it's worth, Brazil high on Lonely Planet's recently published "BlueList":
The world's top 30 travel destinations for 2007
Brazil, #5, as high end tourism takes off with developments like Phillipe Starck's new Fasano Hotel in Rio, Brazil's first six star Waruparu Resort, www.waraparu.com, an Anouschka Hempel creation at Itacaré at the base of the Marau Peninsula and the new international airport to be built nearby...........
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