For The Rio Times
In an attempt to tackle Brazil’s growing crack epidemic, the city of Rio de Janeiro has begun a program of involuntary hospitalization for users, one month after Brazil’s biggest city São Paulo began a similar program. At least 99 addicts have been hospitalized, 29 involuntarily, since the program launched one week ago, according to local media tallies.
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For The Rio Times
Seven violent attacks were reported in the southern Brazil state of Santa Catarina on Monday night, as a wave of violence which has seen dozens of buses torched reached its seventh day. In total, 54 violent incidents have been reported in 18 cities statewide since January 30th, military police said.
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For The Rio Times
The United States government has sent special medication to Brazil to treat survivors of a nightclub blaze who inhaled cyanide gas released by burning soundproofing foam, the Brazilian Health Ministry said. The death toll from the fire last Sunday reached 237 late Saturday, when a 22-year-old victim succumbed to injuries sustained in the fire in Santa Maria.
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After the disaster in Santa Maria’s Kiss nightclub, questions arise over Brazil’s ability to host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics.
For Global Post
They were teenagers, mainly — bright young things studying medicine or agriculture, out to blow off steam before school started.
But before the night was through, they would die in their hundreds, choked by a toxic yellow fog and crushed by their peers as they groped blindly for an escape.
“It was worse than a scene from a horror movie,” said Murilo de Toledo Tiecher, 26, who survived the blaze that killed 236 people in a nightclub in southern Brazil in the early hours of Sunday morning. “People screaming, crying, lots of injured people without their skin and with burned bodies.”
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For The Rio Times
Continued financial turmoil in Europe is likely to diminish numbers of foreign visitors to Rio during Carnival this year, experts predict, but increased domestic tourism will likely more than compensate for the shortfall in visitors. However the different tourist profile has some concerned that lower spending levels are likely during Rio’s largest annual holiday.
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For The Rio Times
At least 232 people have died in a nightclub fire in central Rio Grande do Sul, police have said. A band’s pyrotechnics reportedly started the blaze at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria at 2:30 AM Saturday night.
Police finished removing bodies from the scene late Sunday morning, Folha de São Paulo reported. In addition to the 232 confirmed dead by military police, 48 people are injured and receiving treatment.
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For The Rio Times
President Dilma Rousseff said Monday that the government had made strides in stemming the flow of drugs, arms and other contraband through Brazil’s long and porous border. During the past year and a half, 360 tons of drugs, 2,200 guns, 280,000 rounds of ammunition and twenty tons of explosives have been seized, she said, in her weekly program “Coffee with the President”.
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For The Rio Times
New research shows nearly three-quarters of Brazilians are in favor of continuing the Bolsa Família, an anti-poverty program that gives cash to families in return for ensuring their children attend school and are vaccinated. Most Brazilians, sixty percent, would rather pay more taxes and have better universal health and education, the research showed.
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For The Rio Times
São Paulo police are no longer allowed to give first aid to victims who have been hurt in violent crimes or police clashes. A statement from the São Paulo State Public Safety Department says that as of Wednesday police are prohibited from moving victims from the scene and only emergency response teams and paramedics may treat victims at crime scenes.
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For The Rio Times
For the first time since 2002 Brazil may be forced to introduce power rationing, as high temperatures and a relentless drought in the Northeast have severely diminished reservoir levels. President Dilma Rousseff has called an emergency meeting to discuss energy shortages on Wednesday in Brasília, reported Folha de São Paulo.
Following power cuts last month that plunged large swathes of the country into darkness, including Rio de Janeiro’s airports, Rousseff sought to allay fears over energy shortages, dismissing the risk of power rationing as “ridiculous.”
Yet surging consumption during a particularly hot and dry December has put extra strain on dwindling resources.
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