Brazilian police shot dead five suspected gang members in a Rio de Janeiro slum on Friday night and exchanged fire with drug traffickers who tried to attack a police station in the early hours on Saturday, Reuters reported. The shootouts followed a wave of bloodshed unleashed by drug gangs on Thursday, when 18 people died, including seven passengers burned alive on a bus torched by assailants. An eighth person died from severe burns on Saturday. On Friday night, for a second consecutive night hundreds of people were stranded at bus stops or walked home for miles as only a handful of city buses circulated. Police have reinforced patrols, occupied a dozen slums and mounted a heavy security program to safeguard the city's New Year's eve beach party, when over 2 million people will cram the Copacabana beach, including over 500,000 tourists.
