In the World
Israeli ordered held in Egypt
EL-ARISH, Egypt - Egyptian security officials said that a former sergeant in the Israeli army has been ordered detained for 15 days for investigation into his illegal entry from Israel into the Sinai Peninsula.
The authorities said the 24-year-old unarmed Israeli has been in custody since Friday. Officials said Tuesday he is under investigation in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh for allegedly trying to reach the Gaza Strip through Sinai. They have identified him as Andrew Yaacoub Cheteko.
Known in Israel as Andre Pshenichnikov, the Jewish immigrant from Tajikistan made headlines last year when he announced he wanted to move to a West Bank refugee camp in solidarity with Palestinians there.
- AP
N. Korea leader reassures South
SEOUL, South Korea - In a televised New Year's Day speech, North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un said he wanted to "remove confrontation" on this divided peninsula and called on "anti-reunification forces" in South Korea to cease their hostility.
The lengthy address, which laid out national goals for 2013, marked Kim's first formal remarks since the election two weeks ago of Park Geun Hye as South Korea's president.
Kim on Tuesday asked for a detente - but with prerequisites that the conservative Park will be reluctant to agree to. To promote inter-Korean relations and hasten unification, Kim said, both sides must implement joint agreements signed off years ago by liberal presidents in Seoul.
Park, who takes office next month, has said she'll resume humanitarian exchanges and economic projects with the North - efforts that were shuttered under departing hard-liner Lee Myung Bak.
- Washington Post
Rape suspect's age is at issue
NEW DELHI - A bone test is being conducted to confirm the age of a young suspect in custody in the fatal assault and gang rape of a woman on a bus in India's capital, while prosecutors will seek the death penalty for five other men arrested with him, police said Tuesday.
The six will be formally charged in court Thursday on accusations that they kidnapped, gang-raped, and murdered the 23-year-old woman in New Delhi on Dec. 16, police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said. Media reports say that about 30 witnesses have been gathered.
Outraged Indians have been demanding the death penalty for the six men, holding demonstrations almost every day since the rape. Murder is punishable by death and rape by life imprisonment. But juveniles - those below 18 years of age - cannot be prosecuted for murder.
Another police officer said a bone test is being conducted to determine whether the youngest suspect is indeed a juvenile.
- AP