Regional News Brazilian authorities build temporary Venezuela’s Maduro taps ally wall to quell deadly prison clashes Sanguino to head central bank
SAO PAULO, (Reuters) - Brazilian security officials worked to complete an improvised wall of metal shipping containers yesterday inside a prison where rival gangs have clashed in the past week, resulting in the brutal killing of 26 inmates.
The rusty red containers were hauled into the Alcacuz prison yard in northeastern Brazil, with officials aiming to finish the temporary wall, stacking one container atop another, by sundown Sunday.
It is a desperate move for security officials struggling to keep control of Alcacuz, where the latest in a string of brutal prison massacres in Brazil’s north and northeast took place Jan. 14. Members of the nation’s most powerful gang attacked rivals with machetes and knives, beheading and quartering many of the 26 killed.
The outbreak of violence was the latest in Brazil’s beleaguered penitentiary system, where about 140 people have died in clashes since Jan. 1.
The overcrowded prisons are now the battleground in a quickly escalating war between the nation’s two biggest drug gangs, the Sao Paulo-based First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command based in Rio de Janeiro.
For two decades, the two factions have maintained a working relationship, ensuring a steady flow of drugs and arms over Brazil’s porous border. But about six months ago, the PCC began trying to muscle the Red Command out of key drug routes.
The PCC has aggressively moved into new areas in the north and northeast of Brazil, where the deadly prison riots have taken place in recent weeks. In response, the Red Command allied itself with local gangs, enlisting them to take on the PCC.
The killings began on Jan. 1, when the powerful North Family gang, an ally of the Red Command, killed 56 inmates at a prison in Amazonas state, mostly PCC members.
The North Family controls a lucrative cocaine route along the Solimoes, a branch of the Amazon that flows from Colombia and Peru, the world’s top two cocaine-producing nations.
The PCC retaliated on Jan. 6 by killing 33 inmates at the Monte Cristo prison in the neighboring state of Roraima and then carrying out the killings at Alcacuz this weekend. CARACAS, (Reuters) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro yesterday tapped a political ally and economist, Ricardo Sanguino, to be the new chief of the country’s central bank, amid a deep economic contraction, runaway inflation and Sovietstyle product shortages.
Sanguino, a supporter of Maduro’s policies but not regarded as a particularly influential lawmaker, is replacing central bank chief Nelson Merentes, who is retiring, the socialist leader said in a weekly televised broadcast.
Sources on Friday told Reuters that Maduro asked Merentes, a mathematician who has held the post since 2009 except for a brief 2013 stint as finance minister, to resign.
“I want us to begin a new phase in the development of the Central Bank Mon Jan 23, 2017 13:35- 15:05 hrs Tues Jan 24, 2017 14:15- 15:45 hrs The opening lasts for 1 1/2 hours of Venezuela,” Maduro said in his address.
In 2015, just before the opposition took control of Congress, Maduro’s ruling Socialist Party changed the law to remove the requirement that the central bank president be confirmed by the legislature.
Cabinet changes are relatively frequent under Maduro, and incoming officials have had little success in making significant economic changes.
Investors, however, had viewed Merentes’ return to the central bank in 2013 as a positive sign given his reputation as an economic pragmatist.