Representative Beto Preto has until Monday (17th) to reach a settlement in impropriety case
Former Paraná Health Secretary negotiates with prosecutors, potentially avoiding conviction impacting political rights.
Tempo previsto
16/4/2025
Int'l firm Amco brings its novel bilingual method, viewing happiness as key to learning, to Brazil.
“The purpose of education is happiness. Every path is taken so that one may arrive at happiness. We believe it’s possible to shorten that path”, states Amco CEO, Guillermo De León, to Lab Jornalismo 2030. The company's main product is a bilingual education system present in 14 countries, arriving in Brazil shortly before the pandemic.
With a lavish white booth at the Bett Brasil fair in São Paulo, Amco welcomes visitors with virtual reality glasses. The experiences showcasing the pedagogical program are autonomous and individual. Despite this, teachers, administrators, and technicians are readily available and attentive.
“One of the most striking characteristics of the Brazilian market, compared to other countries where Amco operates, is the curiosity regarding pedagogy. In any case, we are ready for these discussions”, notes the country manager for Brazil, Mekler Nunes. “What Amco is doing by presenting itself at this fair is anticipating the possibilities of bilingual learning for the Brazilian reality”.
Nunes believes that those who visit the booth “discover that Amco has the maturity, the experience, and, more than that, an educational culture of great inspiration.”
With the slogan "Happy to learn", Amco sparks curiosity about the translation of this slogan into Portuguese. From this reporter's perspective, there is more than one possible version, such as "feliz para aprender" (happy to learn) or "feliz em aprender" (happy in learning). In any case, happiness is a central word, part of the organizational canon.
“Scientifically and academically, there are tools that measure and indicate intrapersonal and interpersonal socio-emotional tendencies quite concretely. This is complex and sophisticated; however, these studies have pointed towards competencies. We have 45 minutes [of class time] to land, to take things from the realm of ideas and bring them into practice. And our practice offers possibilities in this sense”, concludes Nunes.
The implementation manager in Brazil, Ágata Soares, reports that Amco's participation in the fair (held between May 10th and 13th at the Transamerica Expo Center) serves "to introduce ourselves. The company arrived in Brazil shortly before the pandemic, which postponed our participation in a public event”.
“Amco has a structure that enables everything from the presentation of the product to the delivery of the classroom in record time. After all, it is a model perfected over the last 25 years”.
Broadly speaking, Amco provides a complete package for schools, leading them to bilingual education (with English) from elementary to high school. More information can be found at this address: falecomigo@agatasoares.com.br.
Photo: Amco's global commercial director, Daniel Kahan, the implementation manager in Brazil, Ágata Soares, and the CEO, Guillermo De León.
Leia insights sobre a interação de humanos com modelos de linguagem de IA, e sobre os ODS no Brasil. Lab Educação 2050 Ltda, que mantém este site, é signatária do Pacto Global das Nações Unidas.
VR emotionally engages, shortening route to well-being.
Amco model boosts inclusive education, fostering equitable learning.
Former Paraná Health Secretary negotiates with prosecutors, potentially avoiding conviction impacting political rights.
Federal Congressman for Paraná, Beto Preto (PSD), has until Monday (17th) to accept or reject a deal with the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP). The summons was ordered by the 1st Court of Public Finance of Apucarana (PR), relating to a case of administrative impropriety.
As a condition for closing the case, the MP proposes that Preto compensate for damages and pay a fine of R$ 25,000. In the lawsuit, the prosecution points to losses to public funds caused by a fraudulent bidding process in 2013, amounting to R$ 127,194.43.
Beto Preto headed the Health Department in Paraná during the pandemic. It was then that he made a name for himself in the election that took him to Brasília. He is currently on Governor Ratinho Júnior's shortlist for succession to the Iguaçu Palace. If convicted of an act of impropriety, he could have his political rights suspended.
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, Beto Preto, then president of the Intermunicipal Consortium of the Ivaí Valley (Cisvir), contributed to a bid-rigging scheme by assisting a criminal organization led by the deceased businessman Marcelo Cernescu.
The then-president approved a bidding procedure without considering several irregularities. The scheme involved, according to the MP, shell companies and the contracting of services considered unnecessary because they should have been provided directly by the public administration.
In the initial petition, the prosecution describes illegalities in the bidding process for the contracting of an object described as "unnecessary, costly, and flagrantly illegal".
Furthermore, the elements gathered in the investigation indicate that, to achieve the illicit objectives, regardless of the contracting municipality, a similar modus operandi was employed, consisting of a joint effort between public officials and businessmen of the group to "assemble" bidding processes for the contracting of an unnecessary, costly, and flagrantly illegal object, whose acts bear clear indications of concealment.
—Initial petition of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
For the MP, the items in the bidding process do not justify hiring a private company, and it is a mere artifice "unequivocally created for the diversion of money from public coffers".
Congressman Beto Preto even had his assets frozen, along with the other defendants. Due to a change in the Administrative Improbity Law approved in 2021, the judge in the case ordered the unfreezing of the assets.
Micro-doc reveals Jenin camp reality, a symbol of Palestinian resistance in the West Bank.
Ten Palestinians were killed and one hundred injured by Israeli military forces in one of the largest operations against Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp in years.
Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank, where Jenin is located, since 1967. This represents 56 years of illegal occupation, violating international law.
Palestinians are the largest refugee group in the world. They have lived in refugee status for 75 years, both abroad and within Palestine itself, without the right to return to their regions of origin or even to move freely within their own country.
Palestinians have the right to resist the illegal occupation, the expulsion from their homes, and the chronic violence to which they are subjected.
We, writer and journalist Cassiana Pizaia, and analyst and journalist Vinícius Sgarbe, produced a micro-documentary about Jenin over a year ago, following two trips to the Middle East.
