ShareThisHere's a gruesome distinction: Under Hugo Chavez, Caracas is more dangerous than Baghdad and, although their populations are approximately the same size, Venezuela is more dangerous than Iraq.
And it's not even close. In 2009 in Iraq, there were 4,644 violent civilian deaths. In Venezuela, according to figures attributed to the Venezuela Observatory of Violence, the number was 16,047. Even that figure is probably on the low side. A leaked government report says the number is over 19,000.
Venezuela may well be the most violent country in Latin America. In Caracas, the homicide rate is 200 per 100,000 population. In neighboring Bogota, Colombia, once notorious for its violence, it is 22.7 per 100,000. (For the entire U.S., it is 5.4 per 100,000 inhabitants.) Since 2007, there have been 43,792 homicides in Venezuela; over approximately the same period of time, 28,000 have been killed in Mexico's drug-fueled violence, according to The New York Times.
This murderous state of affairs hasn't escaped the local Venezuela press, muzzled as it is, and the popular newspaper El Nacional ran a large front-page photo of a dozen male murder victims sprawled in a city morgue.
The shocking photo galvanized the Chavez government into action, and it dealt with the crime wave the way dictators classically react to damaging disclosures.
Did the regime attack such root causes of the violence as a shrinking economy and a 30 percent-plus inflation rate due to government mismanagement? Did it deal with a politicized judiciary and hamstrung law enforcement? Of course not.
The government got a tame court to ban El Nacional from printing "images, information and publicity of any type that contains blood, guns, alarming messages or physical aggression ... and messages about killings and deaths that could alter the well-being of children and adolescents."
Problem solved, as far as the regime is concerned.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Best iPad Converter
Let me show you some advantages and disadvantages of iPad in details, and at the same time, I will introduce one useful iPad DVD Video Converter to help you convert DVD and videos to play on your iPad.
The good: In an act of aggressive tech convergence, Apple has consolidated your Net book, e-reader, gaming device, photo frame, and iPod into an elegant, affordable super gadget. Features such as Bluetooth, 802.11n Wi-Fi, movie rentals, 10 hours of battery life, optional 3G wireless, and the most-celebrated App Store on the planet have us pretty worked up.
The bad: The iPad's large size is as much a hindrance as it is an advantage. As a jack-of-all-trades and a master of few, the iPad can't entirely mimic many of the specialized products it seeks to replace. The iPad's limited multitasking capabilities and lack of integrated video camera, Flash support, and HD video output already have us pining for next year's model.
The bottom line: The Apple iPad is the first affordable tablet computer worth owning, but it won't (yet) replace your laptop.
The Apple iPad is an unprecedented device. It doesn't shoot rainbows or make puppies, but this roughly 8x10-inch tablet computer melds your laptop, smart phone, gaming console, and iPod into a single, affordable, unfortunately named thing.
Of course, we come to you with a standard list of complaints. The absence of an integrated video camera puts the kibosh on any hope of using the iPad for video chats, and without Flash video support, many Web pages look like Swiss cheese. But the biggest problem with the device is coming up with bullet-proof reasons to buy one.
Because the iPad is an entirely new class of device, you'll probably need to lie to yourself a little to justify the purchase. But at this point, any CNET readers worth their salt have mastered the art of making excuses to buy new gadgets.
In my opinion, iPad is a nice thing, so when you get DVDs and videos in your PC, but you also want to enjoy them with iPad when you're traveling. How to? This best iPad Converter can be your best choice to rip DVDs and convert videos to iPad. Best iPad Converter is designed for iPad fans to convert all media formats to iPad compatible formats. This best iPad Converter is just for windows users, if you're Mac users, the powerful Mac iPad Converter is your best choice to rip DVDs to iPad on Mac OS X.