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Foxconn's Brazil Plan Stalled
hackingbear writes with an article from Reuters about Foxconn's plans to move iPad production to Brazil. From the article: "A much-hyped $12 billion plan for Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn to produce iPads in Brazil, announced in April by President Dilma Rousseff during an official visit to China, is 'in doubt' due to stagnant negotiations over tax breaks and Brazil's own deep structural problems such as a lack of skilled labor and bad infrastructure, government sources tell Reuters. '(Foxconn) is making crazy demands' for tax breaks and other special treatment, the official added. Local media have reported that Foxconn is also seeking priority treatment at Brazilian customs, which is notoriously slow even by the standards of emerging markets."
Well, this kind of gold mining is not a common activity in Brazil. It's actually downright illegal but you can find a few miners doing this in remote areas, specially in the North, near the Guyana borders. I don't think the country is as bad as you seems to think it is. For sure, there's a lot of people living in the most abject condition, specially in North and Northeastern Brazil, but for most, it's just a normal country although a poor one. As a software developer I make more or less the same I'd make working in Southern Europe, for example.
Most of large electronics equipment manufacturers are located in the Manaus Industrial Park. I've had the chance to tour some facilities - both here and abroad - and safety conditions in most large Manaus employers are equivalent to what you expect elsewhere. Salaries are low, both so is the living cost. Work week is 44 hours and this is usually respected in industrial companies (overtime is common for professionals, almost everywhere in the world as far as I know). 30 paid vacation days per year, which is actually better than some other places.
The biggest problem, labor wise, in Brazil is law enforcement. The country is downright unable to enforce labor laws through the country. If you're working in a company that respects the law you're in a rather fine situation. If you don't have a job or have one outside "the legal economy" (like your friend family doing gold mining), then you're downright screwed.
Even then, there's universal health care and free public education everywhere. Quality is not that good, most middle or upper classes will have private insurance and schooling, but it's there including for everyone even expensive therapies (like HIV, or cancer, and so on) are included in the universal coverage.
In the end, I'm pretty sure that there are way better places to be. But it is not bad like you seem to think, and most people have way better conditions than being an almost slave in a Foxconn factory.
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
I am not entirely familiar with the process, but he mixes mercury with water and ore with his bare hands to do... I am not sure what.
Gold and mercury form an amalgam. The idea is to crush the ore, which is something like 0.001% gold, then mix it with mercury. The gold dissolves into the mercury and the rock doesn't. After you've run enough ore through the mercury you drain it out and heat it to boil off the mercury, leaving only the gold.
And yeah, he's killing himself. When you boil off the mercury it turns into vapor and does Very Bad Things to anyone who breathes it and also pollutes the hell out of the countryside. There are 150 year old mining sites in the western US that still have unsafe levels of mercury.