In the World

LIMA, Peru - Dutchman Joran van der Sloot, long the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of a U.S. teen in Aruba, has confessed to killing a young Peruvian woman in his Lima hotel room, police said Tuesday.

Peru's chief police spokesman, Col. Abel Gamarra, said van der Sloot admitted under questioning Monday that he had beaten to death Stephany Flores, 21, on May 30.

Several Peruvian media reported that van der Sloot, 22, killed Flores in a rage after learning she had looked up information about his past and about the Aruba case on his laptop without his permission.

Van der Sloot remains the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway, then 18, on the Caribbean island of Aruba while she was celebrating her high school graduation.

- AP

MADRID, Spain - A cave complex boasting prized prehistoric paintings will reopen after eight years of closure, despite scientists' warnings that heat and moisture from human visitors damage the site known as the Sistine Chapel of Paleolithic art.

The Culture Ministry and the site's board of directors said Tuesday that visits to the Caves of Altamira in the northern Cantabria region would resume next year, although on a still-unspecified, restricted basis.

The main chamber at Altamira features 21 bison painted in red and black, which appear to be charging, on a low, limestone ceiling. The site was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1985. The paintings are estimated to be 14,000 to 20,000 years old.

Discovered in 1868, the cave became a tourist magnet until 1982, when only a handful of visits were allowed. The cave was completely shut off when mold stains were found on the paintings.

- AP

ROME - Protesters marched Tuesday on St. Peter's Square to demand that the Vatican begin discussions on letting women join the priesthood and to criticize the Roman Catholic Church's handling of the cleric abuse scandal.

Representatives of a half-dozen Catholic groups demonstrated on the eve of a three-day Vatican rally marking the end of the church's yearlong celebration of the priesthood.

Vatican officials and news reports have said that during the rally Pope Benedict XVI may apologize for the decades of rapes and molestation that children suffered at the hands of priests worldwide.

The umbrella group Women's Ordination Conference said the Vatican should not be celebrating the priesthood while "turning a blind eye when men in its ranks destroy the lives of children and families."

- AP

Doctors are struggling to save children stricken by lead poisoning - many of them blind, deaf, and unable to walk - after herdsmen began illegally mining gold in an area of northern Nigeria with high concentrations of lead. More than 160 villagers have died and hundreds more been sickened. Doctors Without Borders has set up a medical center for children in the region.