World in brief: Executions prompt arrests, outcry
Eleven Brazilian soldiers were arrested after allegedly turning over three shantytown residents to a drug gang that executed them and left their bodies in a garbage dump, police said Monday.
The killings touched off anti-military protests on Sunday and Monday in the Providencia shantytown, with residents burning city buses and throwing rocks at soldiers.
While the majority of the population supports an increased army presence in Rio de Janeiro’s more than 600 poor, violent shantytowns, both military leaders and politicians have warned that soldiers are not trained to do police work.
“The episode clearly demonstrates that the Armed Forces should not be involved in … public security in the city,” the Brazilian Bar Association said in a statement issued Monday.
The shantytowns traditionally have been controlled by heavily armed drug gangs and more recently by paramilitary militias. Police rarely enter the shantytowns.
Gland, Swizterland
Rhino’s status dire, group warns
The northern white rhino of central Africa is on the verge of being wiped out, a conservation group said today.
The four surviving specimens of this rare subspecies have not been seen since August 2006, said Martin Brooks of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which compiles an annual list of the world’s most endangered animals.
Other rhino species have fared better in recent years, according to IUCN. The number of southern white rhinos in Africa increased to 17,480 last year from 14,540 in 2005. African black rhinos increased to 4,180 in last year from 3,730 in 2005.
Rhinos are hunted by poachers for their horns, which are prized as trophies and as ingredients in traditional medicine.
London
Woman steers boat with breath
A quadriplegic sailor set off Monday on a journey around the British Isles in a boat she controls with her breath.
Hilary Lister, 36, set sail alone in her boat from Dover on the southeast coast of England, steering her specially adapted yacht by blowing and sucking on straws to adjust the sails and tiller.
She had planned to leave a week ago, but malfunctioning electronics and a broken mast delayed her launch.
Lister will sail about 18 hours a day and will come into shore every night. An inflatable boat will sail alongside her, and a crew will provide support on land. She expects the journey to take about three months.
Lister was diagnosed as a teenager with reflex sympathetic dystrophy, a degenerative disease, and took up sailing in 2003 as a way to boost her self-confidence. Her latest project will raise money for her sailing charity.