More than 1 million people were murdered in Brazil between 1980 and 2011, making it the world’s seventh-most violent country, a survey showed on Thursday.
During the period, homicides soared 132 percent to claim 1,145,208 lives, from a rate of 11.5 murders for 100,000 inhabitants in 1980 to 27 per 100,000 in 2011, according to the 2013 Map of Violence report.
Among those aged between 14 and 25, homicides skyrocketed 326 percent to reach 53 per 100,000 inhabitants, the study published by the Latin American Studies Center in Rio de Janeiro said.
NO. 7
In 2011, Brazil, now home to 194 million people, recorded 51,198 homicides, ranked seventh among the world’s most violent nations after El Salvador, the US Virgin Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Colombia and Guatemala.
From 2007, the study highlighted a resumption of a surge in violence after a drop in the previous decade, attributed mainly to public disarmament policies.
WIDESPREAD
The survey showed that violence in Brazil, once concentrated in major metropolitan areas such as Sao Paulo and Rio, has spread nationwide over the past 10 years to the hinterland of most states, especially in the north, a trend that coincides with the expansion of new economic hubs.
In Maceio, capital of northeastern Alagoas state, homicide rates reached 111 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2011 (288 among the young), 10 times higher than in Sao Paulo.
The study also showed most murder victims are men (women represent only 8 percent of the total) and blacks (the number among them surged 30.6 percent to 35,297 in 2011 compared with a 26 percent fall among whites to 13,895 that same year.
About 77 percent of young people murdered were Afro-Brazilians in a country where nearly 52 percent of the population is of African descent.
Some 206,000 homicides were recorded in the country between 2008 and 2011.
LACK OF EFFORT
“This magnitude cannot be attributed to the continental size of Brazil,” the study said, pointing out that among the world’s most populous countries, only Mexico comes close to Brazil with 22 homicides for 100,000 inhabitants.
The figures are one for 100,000 in China, 3.4 in India, 5.3 in the US and 12.2 in Nigeria.
The authors of the study blamed impunity (only 5 percent to 8 percent of crimes are solved in Brazil compared with 80 percent in France) and insufficient efforts to combat a prevailing culture of violence.
And contary to a popular belief in recent years, most murders in the country are not linked to organized crime and drug trafficking but are perpetrated for trivial or impulsive reasons, they said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of