Topical News Lessons

Do you agree with the main idea of the text that cultural and economic 
forces are more powerful than conventional military forces? 

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©
Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2005 
Taken from the news section in 
www.onestopenglish.com
Fill the gaps using these words: 
admire tough 
mask 
random 
vendetta 
weep 
victim 
shanty 
town 
1. 
A ____________ is an area where poor people live in badly built houses. 
2. 
A ____________ is a piece of cloth you wear to cover your face. 
3. 
A ____________ is a situation in which one group tries to take revenge against 
another group and tries to kill or harm its members. 
4. 
If you look ____________, you look strong and you do not look afraid. 
5. 
You ____________ when you are very sad. It is another word for ‘cry’.
6. 
If you ____________ someone, you think they are special and you have 
respect for them. 
7. If 
something 
is 
____________, it has no plan or system. 
8. 
A ____________ is a person who suffers in a crime or an accident. 
Look in the text and find this information as quickly as possible: 
1. 
How many people did the murderers kill in Nova Iguacu? 
2. 
How many people did the murderers kill in Queimados? 
3. 
How many bodies were outside the bar in Queimados? 
4. 
What is the murder rate in Queimados? 
5. 
What is the murder rate in Rio? 
6. 
How old was Julinho when he died? 

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©
Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2005 
Taken from the news section in 
www.onestopenglish.com
Police accused of Rio massacre 
Gareth Chetwynd in Rio de Janeiro 
Sixteen-year-old Marcelo Julio Gomes do 
Nascimento lived in Queimados, a poor suburb of 
Rio de Janeiro. Julinho, as his friends called him, 
secretly admired the local police. They had 
powerful guns and looked tough. One warm 
evening last week, Julinho saw the reality of this 
image of the police when he was standing outside 
a bar talking to some of his friends.
An unmarked car came around the corner. The 
people in the car were wearing masks. They fired 
shots at Julinho and his friends. The shots were so 
accurate that they didn’t leave any marks on the 
walls of the bar. Who were the men in the car? 
Were they just petty criminals and was this 
another random shooting? People in Queimados 
now believe that the murderers were off-duty 
policemen. They think that the murders were part 
of a vendetta between the policemen and their 
boss. 
A short distance from the bar Adriana Paz Gomes 
sits on the steps of her modest home weeping for 
the loss of her son. "I was watching a soap opera 
when I heard the shots. I knew immediately what 
it was," she says. Ms Gomes ran into the street 
and found four bodies in the road. Then someone 
pointed to a fifth body, the body of her son. "I 
have such lovely memories of my son. He seemed 
to be sleeping and I took him in my arms, but he 
didn’t wake up," she says.
Julinho’s murder was the last in a series of 
shootings that night. In total 30 people died.
The shooting began in the town of Nova Iguacu, 
where 18 people were killed. Some were in the 
street when the killers drove past, while nine of 
the victims, including three teenagers, were in a 
bar playing video games. The gunmen then 
moved on to Queimados where they killed 12 
more people.
Local people believed the killers were members of 
the local military police force and Rio de Janeiro 
authorities quickly arrested 11 police officers and 
charged six of them with murder. Off-duty police 
officers are often members of death squads in the 
poor suburbs to the northwest of Rio de Janeiro, 
in a region known as the Baixada Fluminense. 
Here the murder rate is 76 per 100,000, compared 
with 50 per 100,000 in metropolitan Rio, which is 
one of the highest rates in the world.
In some communities people accept these death 
squads because they kill criminals and stop the 
drug-trafficking gangs taking power in the shanty 
towns. But last week's murders were different 
because most of the victims were simply in the 
wrong place at the wrong time. Some people think 
the killers were protesting against a new 
commanding officer who wants to stop illegal 
activities by police officers.
Two days before the shootings, two men, one of 
them a drug dealer, were taken from a bar and 
killed. Someone threw a human head into the 
police-station compound. Then hidden cameras 
filmed police officers in uniform as they were 
trying to take some bodies away. Eight police 
officers are now in prison because of this. The 
authorities believe that last week’s murders were a 
protest against these arrests. 
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has demanded 
rapid action. "They say they are making arrests, 
but this is just for show. I know that one day I'll 
see the man who killed my son driving past me in 
the street," Ms Gomes said. 
The Guardian Weekly
15/04/2005, page 7

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©
Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2005 
Taken from the news section in 
www.onestopenglish.com