SINGAPORE MEDICS SAVE INDIA GANG-RAPE VICTIM
SINGAPORE: Doctors in Singapore battled on Thursday to save the life of an Indian student who sustained horrific injuries in a gang-rape after she was dramatically airlifted overnight from a hospital in New Delhi.

As India’s prime minister vowed that the attackers of the 23-year-old would face swift justice, medics at Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital described her condition in the intensive care unit as “extremely critical”. The Indian government, which is paying for the woman’s treatment, approved the decision to transfer her from Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital where she had been treated since the December 16 assault on a bus in the center of the capital. According to police and prosecutors, six men took turns to rape the woman and assault her with an iron bar, leaving her with intestinal injuries, before they threw her out of a bus that they had taken for a joy-ride.

SYRIAN DEPUTY FM MUQDAD BEGINS TALKS IN RUSSIA
MOSCOW, Russia: A Syrian government delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad on Thursday began talks at the Russian foreign ministry on the crisis in the country, Russian news agencies said. The delegation was at the foreign ministry in Moscow, the reports said, without giving further details about the nature of the talks, amid speculation of a new Russia-US initiative to end the crisis. The reports did not say who was present at the meeting but the ITAR-TASS news agency on Wednesday said Muqdad’s visit would include talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The meeting comes amid a flurry of end-of-year diplomacy in Russia over the Syrian crisis that will also see talks between UN-Arab League Syria peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and Lavrov on Saturday.

NICARAGUAN FARMERS STAY DESPITE VOLCANO WARNING
CHINANDEGA, Nicaragua: Some 1,500 farmers living on the slopes of the San Cristobal volcano refused to leave Wednesday, despite being ordered to evacuate as the volcano spewed gas, sand and ash. Around 140 Civil Defense troops have been deployed to “persuade” farmers to move away from the danger zone, state deputy Colonel Nestor Solis told reporters. San Cristobal, the tallest of Nicaragua’s seven active volcanoes, is believed to have erupted for the first time in 1685. AFP