At least ten people were killed on Saturday when a hillside collapsed in a poor neighborhood near Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The mudslide buried six homes in the municipality of Niteroi following days of heavy rains in the area. Among those killed were a 3-year-old child and a 10-month-old baby.
Thousands of Brazilian army troops raided Rio de Janeiro slums in a pre-dawn crackdown on crime gangs over the weekend, leaving parts of the city looking like a war zone on the first anniversary of the opening of the Olympic Games. Five favelas were targeted by around 1,300 police and 3,600 troops in a sweep starting at 4 a.m., the Rio state security service said in a statement.
Children returned to school and most public transport began operating again Monday in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo state, which had been paralyzed by a protest that prevented military police from patrolling. Amid fears a similar protest could erupt in the days before Carnival, the Brazilian government announced it would deploy troops to police the state of Rio de Janeiro.
A partial police shutdown over unpaid wages put Rio de Janeiro on edge Friday, sparking fears of chaos similar to that seen in a neighboring Espirito Santo state where police are in revolt and criminals have run amok. Morale among street police is low as a result of nearly bankrupt Rio state's inability to pay full wages, as well as brutal crime fighting that has seen more than 3,000 officers killed in Rio since 1994.
The former governor of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro was arrested Thursday for allegedly embezzling funds intended for public works projects, authorities said. Sergio Cabral was apprehended at his home in Rio de Janeiro city's Leblon neighborhood just one day after another former governor of that same state, Anthony Garotinho, was detained on suspicion of attempted vote-rigging.
Marcelo Crivella on Sunday won the mayor's race in Rio de Janeiro, beating leftist Marcelo Freixo by a wide margin. Crivella, with the Brazilian Republican party, garnered 59.35% of the votes to 40.65% for Freixo, who is with the Socialism and Freedom Party.
Rio de Janeiro’s mayor lashed out Sunday at an opinion piece in The New York Times which warned of “catastrophe” at next month’s Olympic Games.
Brazil's Rio state authorities have declared a “state of public calamity” over a major budget crisis, in order to release emergency funds to finance the Olympic Games. The decree authorizes the state to “adopt all necessary emergency measures to ration essential public services in order for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games to take place”.
The United States Carrier Strike Group 9 which is participating in a series of 'Unitas' exercises with different Latin American and Pacific countries, anchored off Punta Arenas and is scheduled to leave on Monday for Rio do Janeiro, Brazil, according to reports from the extreme south Chilean city port.
Military police in Rio de Janeiro who seem to follow a shoot first, ask questions later strategy are contributing to a soaring homicide rate but are rarely investigated and brought to justice, Amnesty International said on Monday as it published exclusive statistics and analysis ahead of the one-year countdown to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.