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 Four thousand military policemen have taken to the streets of Rio and Greater Rio this Monday following a bloody weekend when at least 21 people were killed during a battle between the police and two drug-trafficking gangs fighting for drug-selling spots in the Morro dos Macacos (Monkeys Hill) favela (shantytown).
All Rio's Military Police battalions are in alert an at the ready. On Saturday, a police helicopter was shot down by drug traffickers killing three military policemen. Also eight buses were set afire in the Jacarezinho and Mangueira neighborhoods, apparently to distract the authorities.
The police were back to Morro dos Macacos this morning after receiving tips that some gang members who had invaded the favela were still hiding there. The information was given by colonel Fernando Principe, commander of the 6th Military Police Battalion from Tijuca.
The police, using dogs and heavy weapons, are active in several Rio communities. According to major Oderlei Santos, the PM's press secretary, the operation's goal is to hunt and arrest gang members who directly or indirectly took part in the violence of early Saturday morning when gunmen from Morro São João tried to take over drug-selling locations at Morro dos Macacos in the Vila Isabel neighborhood, in the northern side of Rio.
Military policemen from the Bope (Special Operation Battalion) exchanged fire with drug traffickers from Manguinhos complex. Officer searched for weapons and ammunition in the favelas of Nova Holanda, Parque União and Madela. The traffic of vehicles was interrupted in the area for close to three hours and bus lines were using different routes.
In Chatuba's slum, in Mesquita, in the Baixada Fluminense, the police found two .30mm anti-aircraft machine guns, two caliber 12 carbines, an URU machine gun, more than 3,000 bullets, 500 cocaine baggies and 500 bundles of marijuana as well as a samurai sword.
They also found three bulletproof vests, two gas cylinders and eight uniforms similar to those worn by the Bope, plus and ax and a grenade. Nobody was arrested. Apparently, all this material was brought Sunday to Chatuba by the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) gang in order to hide it from the police. There was no arrest.
According to the police, the leaders of this logistics operation are the drug traffickers known as PL, Juninho Cagão (Little Shitter June) and Pará, being Cagão the responsible for the guns transfer from Jacarezinho to Chatuba.
Students from the Don Hélder Municipal School were released earlier for fear that a confrontation between police and drug traffickers would put the students' and teachers' life at risk.
The third policeman who was inside the helicopter knocked down Saturday died today. Izo Gomes Patrício was a corporal and had been admitted to the Air Force hospital with severe burns, in serious condition. The helicopter was hit several times and tried to land in a soccer field nearby, but it exploded right after hitting the ground.
The aircraft was giving support to an operation by 120 military policemen who were trying to put and end to the confrontation between drug traffickers.
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vowed to contribute with 100 million reais (US$ 59 million) to outfit Rio de Janeiro's police after the weekend battle, informed Rio de Janeiro state's governor Sérgio Cabral.
Cabral told reporters that he had received a call from president Lula. Part of the money, the governor said, will be used to buy an armored helicopter. The chopper downed during the weekend had armor-plating only in the lower fuselage.
"I got a call from president Lula offering support and confirming the release of resources for this helicopter. These are resources amounting to more than 100 million reais in the next six months."
Lula has now promised to fight drug traffickers after a bloody war in Rio's favelas just two weeks after the city won the right to host the 2016 Olympic games.
Said the president: "We'll do anything it takes and make all the necessary sacrifices in order to clean up the mess that these people are inflicting on Brazil."
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
Perhaps Brazil which has been a lazy giant ever since the proclamation of the Republic in 1889, has taken several dozes of AMBIEN (a popular sleeping pill in the United States), as it seems unlikely that it will ever wake up. Under which circumstances I consider it exceedingly unlikely that our beloved Big Boy will ever be able to escape its eternal DEEP SLEEP, thereby rendering me rather skeptical that it will be in a position to start awakening by 2016, let alone be up and ready to efficiently and safely host the World Athletes in Rio de Janeiro for the Olympic Games & Festivities!
Surely not with successive Socialist administrations sitting in Brasilia (rather, with a ridiculous chief of state who is hardly ever Brasilia, as he appears to be in a never ending “Tour of the World” in a shameful effort to become popular); a hypocritical administration which keeps on condoning the shameful presence of FARC (the Venezuelan-Cuban-Ecuadorian financed Colombian guerillas) which has been undoubtedly plaguing most of the Rio slums (favela) and have been continuously contributing for the deterioration of the Security conditions for the abused Rio Residents… Indeed, these poor, victimized CARIOCAS (Citizens of Rio) have been condemned by the irresponsible Federal Government (dominated by Socialists from the PT) to deal with an endless flow of stray bullets, Bus robberies, car-jacking cases not to mention the unfortunate slum dwellers who must also, in addition, survive under the daily intimidation of these FARC dominated Favelas (Financed by their dictator friend sitting in Caracas).
Furthermore, without the deliberate intention of deviating the subject matter, one must never lose sight of the deteriorating condition of the nation’s infrastructure, the appalling condition of the Educational system, and the never ending shameful corruption riddled politicians not only in the various state capitals (particularly those in the North/Northeast of the nation) but especially in Brasilia! If only there could be a slight decrease in the shameful corrupt behavior of our Senators, we might have a shiver of hope (Yet, such endeavor would be so enormous that might be equated with the ability of securing a gift from Santa Claus during Christmas),
Perhaps if these shameful socialists from PT were not compelled to keep their secret pact with the Neo-Leninist Venezuelan dictator (the monster Hugo Chavez) than perhaps Brazil could attempt to recover control over its major metropolitan areas, primarily Rio de Janeiro, in order to be poised to secure better living conditions for its metropolitan citizens, thereby enabling Brazilians to welcome the world in 2016 and to prevent a SHAMEFUL PERFORMANCE, riddled by corrupted deals and rampant crime!