The week at glance...Americas

Ottawa

Citizen’s arrest: A new Canadian law allows anyone to make a citizen’s arrest within a “reasonable” amount of time after witnessing a crime. The law was prompted by outrage over the 2009 arrest of David Chen, who spotted a man who had stolen something from his Toronto Chinatown shop an hour earlier, then ran him down and tied him up until police could arrive. Because he hadn’t physically caught the suspect in the act of stealing, Chen was charged with—though later acquitted of—assault and forcible confinement. But some fear the new law could be abused by private security guards in malls. “It’s fraught with some ambiguity, which is really problematic when you’re dealing with private citizens exercising coercive powers,” said law professor Alan Young.

Caracas, Venezuela

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After Chávez: Campaigning to replace the late Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela has begun, with a vote to be held next month. The historically fragmented opposition has united behind Henrique Capriles, while the army is backing Chávez’s handpicked successor and the runaway favorite, Nicolás Maduro. Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is catching flak at home for his behavior at Chávez’s funeral last week. Clerics said his tearful embrace of Chávez’s grieving mother, Elena Frías, was both undignified and un-Islamic. Even shaking hands with an unrelated woman is forbidden in Iran.

Contagem, Brazil

Soccer star murders ex-girlfriend: A star Brazilian soccer player was sentenced to 22 years in prison last week for ordering a hit on his ex-girlfriend to avoid paying support for their child. Bruno Fernandes de Souza, known to Brazilians simply as Bruno, was goalie and team captain for Rio de Janeiro’s Flamengo club until his arrest. His former lover Eliza Samudio had accused him of forcing her at gunpoint to take an abortion pill and then threatening her after the baby was born anyway. Bruno admitted that some of his friends hired a former military policeman to torture and kill Samudio at his home before cutting up her body and feeding it to his pet rottweilers.

Buenos Aires

Referendum: Argentina has denounced the results of a referendum on the Falkland Islands that proved its abiding unpopularity there, 21 years after it lost a war to Britain over the archipelago. The islands’ local government organized the vote to ask all islanders if they wanted to remain under British rule. The vote was 99.8 percent in favor, with just three “no” votes out of 1,517. But Argentina, which calls the islands the Malvinas and considers them its territory, dismissed the referendum as a sham. “The United Kingdom lacks any right at all to pretend to alter the juridical status of these territories even with the disguise of a hypothetical referendum,” said Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman.