Word: rios
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...hard to sell fun in the sun with statistics this grim: homicides in Rio jumped from 2,200 in 1987 to more than 2,800 last year; an average of 100 cars were stolen every day; in just 24 hours ten people were shot through the head. Armed robbers even began holding up funeral services and processions in Rio's cemeteries, and last Christmas several churches scheduled their midnight Masses several hours early to reduce the risk of robberies. The city's largest electronics company temporarily stopped delivering goods because its trucks had been robbed so often...
...stupid," he muses. In January, 26 guests, including Americans, Danes, Austrians and Spaniards, went on a hunger strike at a Copacabana hotel to protest the management's refusal to reimburse them for valuables stolen from 50 of the hotel's 94 safes. "There is no question that crime in Rio, especially violent crime, is increasing," says a U.S. diplomat who has been investigating the issue for the past two years, "and we know that a lot of incidents are not being reported...
...broken in half by a mountain range. The Zona Norte is dense, poor and desperately violent. The Zona Sul is laced with fancy apartments, fringed with world-class beaches, home to the rich and the tourists. In between, atop the granite peak of Corcovado, stands the symbol of Rio, a towering statue of Christ, his arms outstretched like a beleaguered mediator trying to keep two street fighters apart...
...least six people are murdered in the north of Rio every day. If the killer is not a known criminal, he could be a policeman; local shopkeepers hire moonlighting cops to hunt down robbers or deadbeat customers. "Merchants will make up a list of people to be killed and give it to the death squads," says Rodrigues. "The official statistics don't include all the killings because people are afraid to report them, since they know that the police are part of the death squads." Many are afraid to go out at night...
Tourism officials like to point out that as bad as the crime wave is, it should not trouble foreign visitors if they avoid the worst neighborhoods. "The biggest problem with these reports is the false impression they leave," says Trajano Ribeiro, president of Rio's tourist agency. "When a report comes out saying 50 people were killed in a weekend, the image is that 50 people were gunned down on the beach...