Brazil's government enacted tougher gun control laws on Friday to halt what President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has called a "an epidemic of murders by firearms."
The new rules prohibit possession of firearms in public places such as sports arenas, churches, government buildings and schools. They raise the minimum age for gun ownership from 18 years to 25 years and require gun owners to register their weapons with both the Defense Ministry and the Justice Ministry.
Congress passed the gun-control law, giving Silva powers to adopt restrictions on firearms, in December. The new rules didn't go into effect until Silva published them on Friday.
"Every 12 minutes, someone is murdered [by gunfire] in Brazil ... an epidemic of murders by firearms is hitting chiefly at Brazilian youth," Silva said in a speech to Congress in December when it passed the bill.
The rules also create a program in which the government will buy firearms from citizens as an incentive to disarm them. However, Congress hasn't yet approved funding, which is expected to be about US$3.5 million, and officials haven't yet decided how much to pay for each weapon.
Silva has said he favors a ban on gun purchases and possession. Brazilians will vote on a proposed ban in a referendum in next year.
In 2000, the most recent year for which figures were available, 31,378 of 45,919 reported homicides were committed with guns, the UN said.
The London-based International Action Network on Small Arms ranks Brazil fifth after Colombia, South Africa, El Salvador and Lesotho at 21.2 per 100,000 inhabitants. It cited the latest available UN figures on death rates by firearms covering 2002.
Skeptics, including many in government, have called the new law well-intentioned but unlikely to alter crime statistics in a country where it is easy to buy firearms illegally.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of