INDIA
5 charged with murder
Five men accused of raping a university student for hours on a bus as it drove through India’s capital were charged with murder, rape and other crimes that could bring them the death penalty. The attack on the 23-year-old woman, who died of severe internal injuries last weekend, provoked a fierce debate across India about the routine mistreatment of females and triggered daily protests demanding action.
114 die amid cold snap
More than 100 people have died of exposure as northern India deals with historically cold temperatures. Police spokesman Surendra Srivastava said Thursday that at least 114 people have died from the recent cold in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Many were poor people whose bodies were found on sidewalks or in parks. The weather department said temperatures were 7 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit below normal in the state. Temperatures in New Delhi, which borders Uttar Pradesh, hit a high Wednesday of 49.6 Fahrenheit, the lowest maximum temperature in the capital since 1969.
ENGLAND
Falkland quarrel revisited
Argentina’s president called on Britain on Thursday to relinquish control of the Falkland Islands, accusing London of taking part in an act of “blatant colonialism” in claiming the wind-swept archipelago. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner published an open letter in the Guardian newspaper urging Prime Minister David Cameron to honor U.N. resolutions which she says backs her case for the return of the islands, which Argentina calls the Malvinas. She has made several similar demands in the past.
Terror suspect extradited
Abid Naseer, a terror suspect alleged to be part of an al-Qaida plot to blow up targets in the United States, Norway and Britain, was put on a plane Thursday afternoon to face trial in New York next week. Naseer, 26, a Pakistani who arrived in Britain on a student visa, was first arrested in Manchester in 2009, along with 11 other Pakistanis, in police raids on suspected terrorism cells in northern England.
Compiled from wire reports.
