Word: brazil
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...country's punch-drunk economy gets much less attention than the shake-ups transforming Eastern Europe, his monetary program . is every bit as revolutionary. To corset the bloated public sector and turn the economy over to the entrepreneurs, Collor has adopted policies more radical than anything attempted in Brazil in decades -- or perhaps ever -- since taking office on March 15. His approach, says Kenneth Maxwell, senior fellow at the New York City-based Council on Foreign Relations, "is the most severe one-bullet strategy to beat inflation attempted anywhere in the world...
...disputes that the youngest President in Brazil's history -- he is 40 -- has shaken up his nation as has no other recent chief executive. Hurrying to create "O Brasil Novo," the new Brazil he promised during his campaign, he has reduced an 84% monthly inflation rate to less than 13%; axed some 100,000 employees from the government payroll; and begun to halt the destruction of the country's greatest resource, the Amazon rain forest...
Collor describes his goal in a phrase borrowed from the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes: "To win -- or to win." His long-distance vision is to boost Brazil from the Third to the First World, and he is convinced he can do it with a freer market, greater industrial efficiency and a leaner bureaucracy. Certainly, Brazil's potential is enormous. It has immense rivers and forests, rich agricultural lands, huge deposits of gold, gems, petroleum, iron ore and minerals. With a gross domestic product of $350 billion and annual exports of $34 billion, it is Latin America's most developed nation...
...bank has some $8.4 billion in outstanding loans to less developed countries, or LDCs. Since 1987 Citi has been forced to write off or set aside reserves of $4 billion to cover bad LDC loans. Last year its net earnings plunged by 73%, to $498 million, partly because Brazil failed to make a $250 million interest payment...
...sold a large consignment of automatic weapons to Antigua, purportedly for its army. The guns wound up on one of Rodriguez Gacha's country ranches, where they were confiscated after his death. Chemicals needed to refine cocaine, once ordered from the U.S. and Western Europe, now come from Brazil and Ecuador, which are also becoming new production centers...