Fábio Oliva
The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism has informed that on October 21, 2009, Brazilian journalist Fábio Oliva, editor of the newspaper Folha do Norte in Januária city in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, was assaulted at Montes Claros airport.
According to Oliva, the former secretary of the Januária city hall treasury, Fabrício Viana, swore at the journalist and punched and kicked him. Oliva had written a report accusing Viana of fraud in a bidding process.
The journalist was walking toward the airport taxi stop, when Viana came at him from behind and called Oliva by his name. “When I turned around, it was Viana. He swore at me and then punched and kicked me,” said Oliva.
An airport guard prevented the two from getting into a skirmish. “I asked the guard to hold him, that I was calling the police. Viana got away from the guard, and fled away in a car,” said Oliva. (more…)
The Civilian police in Brazil, in a raid that counted on more than 9,000 policemen, arrested this Thursday, October 29, 2,191 people. Operation Genesis held to fight crime in all 645 municipalities of the southeastern state of São Paulo and complying with warrants of arrest and apprehension, seized 494 vehicles, 112 weapons and more than 100 kg (220 lbs) of drugs.
The action that started at midnight and continued through the day, resulted in the arrest in flagrante delicto of 509 people plus 1,601 who had a warrant for their capture. Among those detained there were 81 jail escapees. 170 teenagers were also caught, but they were not included in the number of arrested since they will have special treatment.
The police, which used about one third of its work force in the operation, seized 57.33 kg (126 lbs) of marijuana, 23.16 kg (51 lbs) of cocaine, 18.59 kg (41 lbs) of crack and 3.26 kg of (7.2 lbs) of several other drugs. The agents also found 345 slot machines and 3,153,554 objects called “irregular” by the authorities, many of them pirated goods.
In São Paulo city the police found a clandestine casino in Moema, a well-to-do neighborhood on the south side of town. 29 slot machines were seized there. Three men were also arrested in Moema accused of robbing people who had just withdrawn money from bank ATMs. (more…)
Less than a month after Rio de Janeiro was chosen to host the 2016 Olympics, International Olympic Committee (IOC) representatives were meeting with Brazilian authorities to draw up a plan of action to prepare the Games. The meeting was taking place Friday and Saturday at the traditional Copacabana Palace hotel in Rio.
Before getting started, those in attendance watched a video message from IOC president Jacques Rogge, who congratulated Brazilians for having been chosen as Olympic hosts and reminded them of future challenges.
“That conquest comes with a great responsibility. The IOC has shown great confidence in Rio de Janeiro and in its vision for the Games. We will be in Rio many times and we will work very closely with the organizing committee, because history shows that only joint effort generates great achievements,” he said.
Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s director of the Olympic Games, said the gathering will seek to define work for the coming seven years and to build closer ties with the organizing committee. The common goal is to hold exceptional Games in 2016, he said.
Brazil was represented in the meetings by Sports Minister Orlando Silva, Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergio Cabral and Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, as well as the head of the Rio 2016 host committee Carlos Arthur Nuzman.
Nuzman said that the IOC made “a historic decision” by granting Rio the first Olympics ever held in South America.
In a note issued this Friday, October 30, by the Itamaraty, Brazil’s Foreign Relations Ministry, the Brazilian government expressed its belief that the agreement worked out in Honduras by deposed president Manuel Zelaya and the man who took over in his place, Roberto Micheletti, will put an end to a crisis that’s been dragging for four months.
Zelaya has been the host of the Brazilian embassy in capital Tegucigalpa since his surprising and clandestine return to the country after having been expelled from it. Since September 21st, Zelaya and a group of followers took shelter in the Brazilian diplomatic representation. The deposed leader was ousted on June 28 by a coup d’état led by Micheletti.
The communiqué says that the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration received the news of the agreement with satisfaction and hope for a “peaceful outcome.”
“Brazil trusts that the agreement reached yesterday will allow the full reintegration of Honduras into the inter American and international systems and the prompt normalization of the situation of its Embassy in Tegucigalpa,” says the note. (more…)
Brazil’s navy has announced that it will build 600 boats that will be used to transport students to public schools in areas where the main communication routes are via rivers or across other water bodies.
The so-called ’school-launches’ will be build at three navy bases with shipyard capability, according to an agreement between the Naval Engineering Directorate and the education ministry.
The accord forecasts the production of up to 3,000 boats for student transport, but the initial contract includes just 600 boats.
The navy’s decision to build the boats is aimed at spurring naval construction in Brazil and taking advantage of the available industrial capacity on naval bases, according to the communique Thursday. (more…)
One of the largest open-air landfills in Latin America is set to close. But while environmentalists are applauding the decision, not everyone is happy.
Activists say the landfill in Rio de Janeiro, one of Brazil’s largest cities, exceeded its capacity a long time ago and that keeping it going would spell disaster for the environment.
But some of the city’s poorest residents depend on it for work. Al Jazeera’s Lucrecia Franco spoke to them and sent this report.
While U.S. attention has focused on the raging drug war just south of the border in Mexico, the battle to control drugs in Brazil is taking more lives.
Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels three years ago, 9,500 people have died in drug-related violence, including 5,300 killed last year, according to the Mexican government.
In Brazil, 35,000 people were fatally shot in 2007, and most of the deaths were drug-related. According to the government’s public safety secretariat, there are nearly 23,000 drug-related homicides a year.
The drug war in Brazil is centered in its best-known city, Rio de Janeiro, and its slums, known as favelas, where police sometimes fear to tread, as well as in poor neighborhoods of Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre, Recife, Salvador, Curitiba and Belo Horizonte. Gun battles rage between rival gangs that seek to control the lucrative trade, particularly in cocaine, whose use has doubled in recent years in Brazil, according to the United Nations.
The drug war burst into international headlines earlier this month when traffickers in Rio shot down a police helicopter. The crash and an ensuing battle between the traffickers and police and between rival drug gangs killed 39 persons. (more…)
Brazil’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee gave its green light this Thursday, October 25, to Venezuela to become a full member of Mercosur. The controversial vote ended up 12 votes in favor of the measure against 5 against, proof of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s power to get his way.
Together with Brazilian business leaders Lula had been lobbying Congress to get it to allow Caracas to be part of Mercosur. Now the vote goes to the full house for the final vote. No date has been scheduled for this procedure.
Venezuela’s application to enter the Mercosur is pending in the National Congress for more than two years. The official request of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to the Brazilian president was presented in December 2006, In February 2007 Lula sent Congress a message asking the approval from both houses.
The approval occurs the same day president Lula arrives in Venezuela for a working visit with Chavez. (more…)
