Global homicide rates drop, but nearly 500,000 murdered in 2012

Global homicide rates have plunged 16 percent since the beginning of the century, but nearly half a million people were still murdered worldwide in 2012, a UN report said Wednesday. A total of 475,000 people were murdered around the globe that year, with the highest murder rates found in Latin America, according to the UN’s first report on the status of violence prevention around the world. Four out of five murder victims are men, and homicide remains the third leading cause of death among males between the ages of 15 and 44, after HIV/AIDS and road accidents, the report found. Homicide rates have fallen 16 percent worldwide since the year 2000, and 39 percent when only high income countries are counted, the report showed.