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Geopolitics

A Cop Is Killed Every 32 Hours In Brazil

FOLHA DE S.PAULO(Brazil)

Worldcrunch

SAO PAULO – One policeman is killed every 32 hours in Brazil, according to a new report by the State Public Security Department shows.

Official statistics show that at least 229 police officers – from both civil and military police – were killed in Brazil this year, reports Brazilian daily Folha de S.Paulo.

Of those slain, 79% were killed while off-duty. According to a recent study from the University of São Paulo (USP), off-duty policemen are more vulnerable and homicide investigations are therefore harder to carry out.

Score-settling between gang bosses and police officers, especially in the city of São Paulo where violent clashes between police and PCC gang members have occured, also help explain such a high police homicide rate.

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São Paulo at night (Geralzona)

Folha reports that the state of São Paulo tops the list with 98 policemen killed in 2012, followed by Northern states of Para and Bahia. The study is the latest reminder that despite the current economic boom and major improvements in some urban areas, public safety remains a major issue in Brazil.

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Economy

Lithium Mines In Europe? A New World Of Supply-Chain Sovereignty

The European Union has a new plan that challenges the long-established dogmas of globalization, with its just-in-time supply chains and outsourcing the "dirty" work to the developing world.

Photo of an open cast mine in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

Open cast mine in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — It is one of the great paradoxes of our time: in order to overcome some of our dependencies and vulnerabilities — revealed in crises like COVID and the war in Ukraine — we risk falling into other dependencies that are no less toxic. The ecological transition, the digitalization of our economy, or increased defense needs, all pose risks to our supply of strategic minerals.

The European Commission published a plan this week to escape this fate by setting realistic objectives within a relatively short time frame, by the end of this decade.

This plan goes against the dogmas of globalization of the past 30 or 40 years, which relied on just-in-time supply chains from one end of the planet to the other — and, if we're being honest, outsourced the least "clean" tasks, such as mining or refining minerals, to countries in the developing world.

But the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction, if possible under better environmental and social conditions. Will Europe be able to achieve these objectives while remaining within the bounds of both the ecological and digital transitions? That is the challenge.

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