BRASILIA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree on Tuesday that makes it easier for people to own, register and sell guns in the South American country.

The major move since Bolsonaro took office on Jan. 1 honored one of his main campaign promises.

"As the people sovereignly decided, to safeguard the right of self-defense, today I am going to use this weapon," Bolsonaro said, holding up his pen before signing the document.

SANTIAGO, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- More people are living in extreme poverty in Latin America than at any time since 2008, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), which is based in Chile's capital of Santiago, said on Tuesday.

The region's overall poverty rate, as measured by income, remained steady in 2017, after rising in 2015 and 2016, but "the proportion of persons living in extreme poverty continued to rise," the agency said at a press conference on its latest report "Social Panorama of Latin America 2018."

Kollam, Jan 15 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the left government in Kerala on the Sabarimala issue, saying Communists do not respect India's culture and spirituality.

Hitting out at the CPI-M-led LDF and the opposition spearheaded by the UDF in the state, he said both the fronts were two sides of the same coin and accused them of neglecting people of the state.

"We know that the Communists do not respect India's culture, history and spirituality," Modi said at a public meeting here.

Jaipur, Jan 15 (PTI) A minor girl has been allegedly raped and murdered in the Amber area of the city, police said Tuesday.

The body of the girl, aged around seven years, was recovered from an open area in Chainpura village under Amber Police Station limits on Tuesday, officials said.

"She was allegedly raped and strangulated to death. Different teams are working on the case. Some suspects have been identified. The case will be cracked soon," DCP north Vikas Sharma said.

The body was handed over to family members after postmortem.

KANPUR: Despite the directives for better arrangements by the Health Department, the reality appears far different from the claims. The swine flu patients’ needs are secondary if we look at the required preparations to deal with the tough situation at all. Though one lone case of the swine flu has been recognized in the city, the infected patient was not admitted at the medical college isolation ward for treatment. 

KANPUR: Two cousin sisters aged 15 and 16 years respectively were abducted and raped allegedly by as many as four ruffians in Wazidpur of Jajmau area under Chakeri police station late night on Monday. Their medical was conducted and a report was dispatched to the forensic lab. The first information report was also registered under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code including 376 and POCSO Act. The investigation was underway, said Ajay Seth, Inspector Chakeri.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s security forces have killed the gunmen whose assault on a luxury hotel and shopping complex took 14 “innocent lives,” the country’s president said Wednesday.

“All the terrorists have been eliminated,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said in announcing an end to the operation to secure the complex in the capital, Nairobi.

MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/. Secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev has said that Ukraine could lose its statehood, if Kiev continues to pursue its current policy.

"The continuation of such policy by the Kiev authorities can contribute to the loss of Ukraine’s statehood," he said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta. According to Patrushev, "the Kiev authorities are doing everything to split Ukraine, implementing the West’s scenario to break Ukraine away from Russia, while ignoring the interests of its own people."

15 Jan 2019; AP: With the government mired in shutdown week four, President Donald Trump is rejecting a short-term legislative fix and digging in for a fight, declaring he will “never ever back down.”

Air travelers endured waits of more than an hour to get through domestic checkpoints at the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta on Monday.

14 Jan 2019; DW: A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a Canadian man to death on drug trafficking charges after a retrial deemed his original 15-year prison sentence to be too lenient.

The Dalian court said Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, who was detained in December 2014, played a "key part" in an international drug smuggling operation and was recruited to help smuggle more than 222 kilograms (488 pounds) of methamphetamine from a warehouse in Dalian city to Australia.

15 Jan 2019; DW: The US and Turkish presidents moved from Twitter to the telephone to exchange their views over the US-allied Kurdish fighters in Syria. Washington is insisting the anti-"Islamic State" fighters should not be harmed.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, took to the telephone to discuss the situation in northern Syria on Monday.

BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- China will launch the Chang'e-5 probe by the end of this year to bring moon samples back to Earth, a senior official of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced Monday.

The Chang'e-4 mission realized the first-ever soft-landing on the far side of the moon, and its success has inaugurated the fourth phase of China's lunar exploration program.