Brazil lmpeachment: The Process for Removing the President

ByTHE NEW YORKTIMES UPDATED May 12, 2016

Dilma Rousseff, the beleaguered president of Brazil, has been confronting an effort to remove her from office, accused of violating fiscal laws by using funds from state banks to cover budget shortfalls.

Her opponents claim this strategy eroded confidence among investors, raising the government's borrowing costs and disregarding measures designed to prevent a return of high inflation.

The president's supporters contend that Ms. Rousseff was seeking to maintain popular antipoverty projects, and that impeachment over the issue is politically motivated because Ms. Rousseff's predecessors carried out similar policies.

Here is a guide to the complicated process for impeaching and removing a president from office:

Step1

Congressional Panei Debates Charges

The process prescribed in Brazil's Constitution, adopted in 1988, shares similarities with impeachment proceedings in the United States.

First, the speaker of the lower chamber of Congress, Eduardo Cunha, a political opponent of Ms. Rousseff, had to accept a petition for impeachment.

Mr. Cunha then formed a 65-member congressional committee to investigate the accusations and decide if removal was warranted. The political composition of the committee was largely stacked against the president.

The committee was created in December, but its work was soon stopped by a court arder. Work resumed in March.

Jovair Arantes, the legislator in charge of preparing the committee report on the fate of Ms. Rousseff and an ally of Mr. Cunha, recommended on April 6 that proceedings move forward to remove her from office.

The full committee, in a 38-27 vote on April 11, agreed, clearing the way for a vote on her impeachment in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies.

Step2

Chamber of Deputies Votes

On April 17, the lower chamber voted for impeachment. At least two-thirds ofthe 513 deputies had to vote for impeachment forthe motion to pass. The decisiva 342nd vote was cast about five-anda-half hours afterthe floorvote started.

ln early May, Brazil's top court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal, removed Mr. Cunha from his speaker role on charges of obstructing a corruption investigation.

Step3

The Role ofthe Senate and Vice President

After the lower chamber vote, the process then moved to the Senate, which had to decide, with a sim pie majority vote, whether to accept the charges.

On May 12, the Senate voted 55 to 22 to begin the triai, resulting in Ms. Rousseff's suspension. The vice president then took over, with the authority to appoint ministers and enact policy.

Michel Temer, the vice president who assumed the president's office, is a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party. His party had been a crucial part of Ms. Rousseff's governing coalition, but it recently voted to split with her Workers' Party, which significantly increased the odds of Ms. Rousseff's impeachment.

Mr. Temer, 75, was himself under scrutiny over claims that he was involved in an illegal ethanol purchasing scheme.

Step4

Removal or Reinstatement

The Senate triai will be overseen by the chief justice of the Suprema Federal Tribunal, Ricardo Lewandowski. Two-thirds of the 81 senators must vote in favor of removing the president from office. lf that happens, Mr. Temer would serve as president for the remainder of Ms. Rousseff's term through the end of 2018.

lf no decision is reached within 180 days, the suspension of the president ends.

Asked in a recent interview with The New York Times whether she would accept a vote to impeach her, Ms. Rousseff, 68, said, "We will appeal with every legal method available."

She has that option: "She can appeal at any moment she finds something legally questionable occurring in the process," said Brasílio Sallum Jr., a professor of sociology at the University of São Paulo and an expert in Brazil's political processes.

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Brain Development: Can Teaching Make a

Difference?

It has long been known that different regions of the brain have specialized functions. For example, the frontal lobes are involved in abstract reasoning and planning, while the posterior lobes are involved in vision. Until recently, it was believed that these specialized regions developed from a genetic blueprint that determined the structure and function of specific areas of the brain. That is, particular areas of the brain were designed for processing certain kinds of information from birth.

New evidence suggests that the brain is much more malleable than previously thought. Recent findings indicate that the specialized functions of specific regions of the brain are not fixed at birth but are shaped by experience and learning. To use a computer analogy, we now think that the young brain is like a computer with incredibly sophisticated hardwiring, but no software. The software of the brain, like the software of desktop computers, harnesses the exceptional processing capacity of the brain in the service of specialized functions, like vision, smell, and language. All individuals have to acquire or develop their own software in order to harness the processing power of the brain with which they are born.

A number of studies support this view. However, all were carried out on animals, because it is not possible to do such research with humans. Caution is called for when extrapolating these findings to humans.

These findings may have implications for language educators: for one thing, that teaching and teachers can make a difference in brain development, and that they shouldn’t give up on older language learners.

Source: http://carla.umn.edu/immersion/acie/vol5/Nov2001_

BrainResearch.html (Edited.)

Read the text to answer 33, 34 and 35. 

Reflective teaching: exploring your own classroom practice 

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Learning and Teaching

    What is learning and what is teaching and how do they interact? Consider again some traditional definitions. A search in contemporary dictionaries reveals that learning is “acquiring or getting of knowledge of a subject or a skill by study, experience, or instruction.” A more specialized definition might read as follows: “Learning is a relatively permanent change in a behavioral tendency and is the result of reinforced practice” (Kimble and Garmezy 1963:133). Similarly, teaching, which is implied in the first definition of learning, may be defined as “showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, giving instructions, guiding in the study of something, providing with knowledge, causing to know or understand.” How awkward these definitions are! Isn’t it rather curious that learned lexicographers cannot devise more precise scientific definitions? More than perhaps anything else, such definitions reflect the difficulty of defining complex concepts like learning and teaching.

    These concepts can also give way to a number of subfields within the discipline of psychology: acquisition processes, perception memory (storage) systems, recall, conscious and subconscious learning, learning styles and strategies, theories of forgetting, reinforcement, the role of practice. Very quickly the concept of learning becomes every bit as complex as the concept of language. Yet the second language learner brings all these and more variables into play in the learning of a second language.

    Teaching cannot be defined apart from learning. Nathan Gage (1964:269) noted that “to satisfy the practical demands of education, theories of learning must be ‘stood on their head’ so as to yield theories of teaching.” Teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the conditions for learning. Your understanding of how the learner learns will determine your philosophy of education, your teaching style, your approach, methods, and classroom techniques. If, like B. F. Skinner, you look at learning as a process of operant conditioning through a carefully paced program of reinforcement, you will teach accordingly. If you view second language learning basically as a deductive rather than an inductive process, you will probably choose to present copious rules and paradigms to your students rather than let them “discover” those rules inductively. An extended definition—or theory—of teaching will spell out governing principles for choosing certain methods and techniques. A theory of teaching, in harmony with your integrated understanding of the learner and of the subject matter to be learned, will point the way to successful procedures on a given day for given learners under the various constraints of the particular context of learning.

(Principles of language learning and teaching, H. Douglas Brown. Adaptado)

Text I

JANUARY 18, 2015 - DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

“Let’s go, Open your eyes, Open your mind to her dream. Let’s go, fight for what’s right, fight for her life."

Carl & the Reda Mafia, a young, dynamic, award-winning Dubai band, wrote the song “Fight for Your Queen” as a direct call to men to fight for gender equality. As they told UN Women: “HeForShe is a movement we have looked up to since its inception. The idea of ____________’s rights is something we truly believe in and support.” Lead singer Carl Frenais, who is from India, introduced the campaign to the band. He has been very passionate about fighting against the horrifyingly violent crimes against women in his home country.

We got over 500 men to pledge to support the movement. Even those who were afraid told us they support it.

Adaptation from: http://www.heforshe.org/en/newsroom/safety/rock-voices-for-change. Access on: April 4, 2016.