MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Brazil: convoy with nuclear fuel came under fire; police escort repel attack
Armed men shot at members of a convoy transporting uranium to one of Brazil’s two working nuclear power plants on a coastal road in Rio de Janeiro state on Tuesday, police and the company managing the plant said. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesREF: “They said there were no injuries or arrests and the armed men fled.”:
Mar 22nd, 2019 - 01:21 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Is this supposed to be a NEWS???
Just another day in Rio....
Mar 22nd, 2019 - 06:27 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@Jack Bauer
Mar 24th, 2019 - 02:11 am - Link - Report abuse 0REF: “Just another day in Rio....”:
The attempt of a prompt cover-up is impressive! Imagine, how many Kgs of radioactive material had been stolen so far and clandestinely sold to the terrorists!
@JB
Mar 24th, 2019 - 06:43 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Re your comment on “Ten killed in school shooting”:
I don't think the niceness or otherwise of the surroundings are what make children run away from home. More likely is parents who drink or do drugs, or abuse then. And I imagine kids can join gangs without leaving home, but the ones on the street are more vulnerable to being used by older criminals.
”Landlines here were always very expensive and took a long time to be installed (2,3,4 years)“
Sounds very inconvenient. I think installing cell towers is cheaper than connecting every house to the telephone network, too, so there's really no reason not to switch to mobile.
”will his gang let him leave ?”
That's a good question and another problem. Didn't the Mafia use to be that way? I wonder how they dealt with it in the US and Italy? Though really, if recruiting new members is so easy, why wouldn't they let someone leave? And people afraid to speak is the same thing. There needs to be a way to protect them, but the police have enough trouble protecting themselves. It's a bit of a catch-22, they need witnesses to come forward in order to catch the criminals, but unless they are able to stop them, the witnesses will be too scared to do it.
@:o))
Mar 24th, 2019 - 06:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Don't think it's an attempt to cover-up anything.....the incident was initially announced as an “attack”, but apparently the convoy heard shots - not unusual in many parts of Rio - and the police positioned themselves to defend the convoy, but it turned out to be unnecessary. ....after the convoy had gone on its way, criminals fired a few shots at a car of the Federal Highway Police, on patrol..
But to attempt to steal radioactive material you've either got to be a terrorist who (presumably) knows what to do with it - or a complete idiot....the ones in Brazil are the latter.
Talking of just another day in Rio, this morning a 25 year old, first-term Councilman (Wendel Coelho, PTB) from the Municipality of Japeri (Metropolitan Rio) was found dead in his car, murdered.
He had started to speak out against violence etc.....just like Marielle....I want to see if the press is going to give his assassination the same coverage they have Marielle's and her driver's.
@Jack Bauer
Mar 24th, 2019 - 08:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 0REF: “I want to see if the press is going to give his assassination the same coverage”:
You may observe that: Press+People easily tend to lose interest; in the everyday-matters when they cease to be “Mouth-Watering Prime-News”
REF: “convoy with nuclear fuel”: I hope that it's a “routine” attack + NOT something sinister as I suspect; simply because it certainly IS plausible!
@:o)
Mar 24th, 2019 - 09:56 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Agree, almost anything is plausible here....but in this case, trying to cover up a real attack on the convoy by criminals, makes little sense....to me.
@JB
Mar 24th, 2019 - 10:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I replied to you above, looks like our posts crossed in the intertubes.
@Jack Bauer
Mar 25th, 2019 - 01:18 am - Link - Report abuse 0REF: “cover up a real attack on the convoy by criminals”:
The attack could have been well-planned and may not have been randomly accidental - considering the cargo was radioactive - as they make it appear to be!
Could the news be a watered-down version of a deadly attack - exactly similar to the watered-down news of the catastrophic [officially claimed as accidental] SECOND devastation at Minas Gerais?
DT
Mar 25th, 2019 - 04:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Well, never having been a street kid myself, can only opine on the impression I get from reports, but I'm sure that the circumstances that either 'force' them to leave, or 'encourage' them to, or a force that attracts them away from school and home, are as different as the social realities are between poor kids in the UK and in Brazil. If you had hillsides covered in shanty-towns, with tens of thousands of people living in substandard conditions, I'm sure the UK wouldn't be the relative 'paradise' that it is.
Mobile phones first appeared here in 1993....so before that akll you had was the landline, or public telephones (which were frequently vandalized/ didn't work). Today, cellphones /mobiles can be far more expensive that having a landline...to start with the phone itself.
“...Though really, if recruiting new members is so easy, why wouldn't they let someone leave? ”......signals weakness, and a loss of control (to keep them silent). Besides, the more 'soldiers' you can call upon to do dirty jobs.
Recently a witness protection programme was implemented here, but don't know how efficient it is, or reliable (re confidentiality). As it would only be used in extreme cases, where the tentacles of crime are very long, chances are that before it can be put into practise, the witnesses would be murdered.
@JB
Mar 25th, 2019 - 07:15 pm - Link - Report abuse 0We're both just speculating; you've seen favelas but never lived in one, and I've never even lived in a really bad area of the UK, which still wouldn't compare. Even so, I think kids can get by and be happy without physical comforts - everyone did in history, after all - but safety and support from the family is essential.
Smartphones cost a lot more than a landline, but they also do a lot more. However, in the UK you can buy an old fashioned 'dumb' mobile phone very cheaply, as 'pay as you go' - no monthly contract - if all you need to do is make calls. I don't know if this is also available in Brazil?
”signals weakness, and a loss of control (to keep them silent). Besides, the more 'soldiers' you can call upon to do dirty jobs.”
That makes sense, unfortunately.
I'm amazed the witness protection program is a new creation. I would have thought it absolutely essential for Brazil. Now I understand how so many witnesses linked to Celso Daniel's death were also killed. I suppose it's the lack of money, but this seems like an obvious way to improve the ratio of crimes solved.
DT
Mar 26th, 2019 - 02:24 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Right I've never lived in a 'favela', but I've been inside a few, and have seen what they produce, first-hand, so as Gollum would say, my opinion is 'informed'. Agree that kids don't 'need' material comforts to be happy, but when the contrast between them and their rich neighbors sinks in, and the kids become jealous 'n vulnerable to outside influence, even bad, doesn't take long for sh*t to happen.
Cellphones started to dominate local the market long before internet etc was available through them...the idea was simply being able to communicate with a certain amount of independence. You can stiill buy the old fashioned 'dumb' phone, a simple phone, either pre-paid or post-paid.
Yr amazement stems from the fact that Brazil is miles behind the 1st world....until the L J, even plea-bargaining and collaboration were unheard of (which made it far more difficult to unravel corruption schemes).
The difference between what should be done (as in the US, EU), and is done, is quite big, and many times, even knowing there is technolgy that can make the system more efficient, authorities drag their feet.
Is it just laziness or plain resistance against systems that can monitor their performance and oblige them to be more efficient / transparent ?
“when the contrast between them and their rich neighbors sinks in”
Mar 26th, 2019 - 09:12 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I guess that's why people say income inequality is a bigger factor in crime than poverty. When did you go inside favelas? I heard they were pretty dangerous to enter.
Mobiles really took off here when they came up with the 'pay as you go' idea. Credit was pre-paid, so no risk of huge bills, and you didn't have to commit to a monthly contract. It's kind of funny to think that it was a payment plan that triggered this revolution, and not any improvement in the technology.
“until the L J, even plea-bargaining and collaboration were unheard of”
I'd forgotten about that. It's strange, I can understand Brazil being behind in technology, infrastructure etc; things that cost money. But plea bargaining doesn't. There's no reason it has to be behind in ideas.
And the authorities probably are reluctant about anything that makes their work more transparent. What the people don't know can't hurt you.
@DemonTree
Mar 28th, 2019 - 10:52 am - Link - Report abuse 0REF: “What the people don't know can't hurt you”:
That's what happens in ALL ministries, sectors, divisions, departments - “Spend first; finance can appear somehow”. And the Everyday-Rule - a common-practice - is to “QUASH AUDITING”.
That's precisely the reason, I already had mentioned elsewhere that Brazil may soon be unmanageable & ungovernable [if it's already isn't] - but nobody [except PG] believed! Ignorance really IS a BLISS!
https://en.mercopress.com/2019/03/23/brazil-s-vale-allegedly-quashed-efforts-to-audit-the-dam-that-killed-300-people
DT
Mar 28th, 2019 - 09:58 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I 'visited' favelas in Rio, Santos ,Salvador (in the 70s) and (involuntarily) the biggest in São Paulo about 5 years ago - I took a wrong turn - at night - and found myself going down a narrow street which made maneuvering to turn around, near impossible...had no choice but to carry on until the street ended, in an empty lot and in complete darkness....I turned around not even knowing whether the surface I was on was safe...I stepped on the gas and got the hell out...not very nice. They can be dangerous if you are seen as an outsider that is there to snoop, or mistaken for a member of a rival gang....today I wouldn't venture into one because of the risk of getting shot on sight....as has happened in recent years, when the occupants of several cars got shot up when their GPS gave wrong instructions, leading them into slums.
“But plea bargaining doesn't. There's no reason it has to be behind in ideas”......ideas that create new ways to combat corruption are obviously not going to be on Congress' list of priorities......
“What the people don't know can't hurt you”. True, but you've got to be totally disconnected from reality or a complete ignoramus to not suspect when sh*t is going on behind the scenes....for those, ignorance is bliss...and the politicians are reluctant to pass laws which oblige them to be less dishonest.
I'm glad nothing happened when you accidentally drove into the favela. I've seen several stories about tourists being shot when they've taken a wrong turning. Pretty off-putting for anyone thinking of visiting Brazil. It seems pretty crazy to shoot at perfect strangers to me, you'd think they'd know who the rival gang members are.
Mar 28th, 2019 - 10:27 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“ideas that create new ways to combat corruption are obviously not going to be on Congress' list of priorities.”
True. But things that would reduce crime in general ought to be. Plea bargaining can be used for all kinds of crime, and witness protection would be more useful against murder than corruption. Suppose they're too busy looking out for number one to bother.
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