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Amnesty International released a note saying the it totally repudiates the recent wave of attacks against police officers in São Paulo, Brazil.
The last attack, which took place on 12 January, 2006, in Vila Maria, left one officer dead and two injured. In its public statement, Amnesty says: Police officers must be able to go about their duties without fear of violent attack. These incidents should be thoroughly investigated, and those found guilty brought swiftly to justice according to international human rights standards. However, these attacks should not be used as an excuse for the promotion or implementation of repressive or abusive security measures by the state authorities. The persistent violations of human rights perpetrated throughout São Paulo’s criminal justice system have only contributed to high levels of violence in the state. Amnesty International urges the state authorities to address the problems of violent and discriminatory policing as well as the cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions within its prisons to ensure the effective provision of security for all citizens including law-enforcement officials. Only through the development of a public security policy which is inclusive, respectful of the communities they serve, and based on the protection of all, will the authorities reduce levels of violence in the city. At the same time this will ensure a safer environment in which police can work. Amnesty International - www.amnesty.org
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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.
.....but the brazilian police will tell you they dont smuggle drugs, they are not corrupted, they will swear that they killed only criminals, and that the others were by accident while they were on duty.
They even did mass killings of innocents last year. For 3 days it was in the front page of all newspapers. After the first 3 days......NO NEWS ! TOTAL SILENCE !