INDIA
Seven arrested after gang rape in Punjab Police in the northern Indian state of Punjab arrested seven men accused of the gang rape of a 29-year-old woman on Friday who was traveling alone on a bus, less than four weeks after the brutal rape and killing of a woman on a New Delhi bus created a national outcry. In the latest rape, police said the bus driver ignored the victim's request to stop at her village, and instead stopped at a desolate spot further away. She was carried away by the bus driver and conductor on a motorcycle to another spot. They were joined by five other men, police said.
Georgia
190 inmates freed in legislative amnesty Georgia released 190 inmates identified by lawmakers as political prisoners, the first group to be freed under a sweeping amnesty passed last year by a new Parliament. It fulfills a campaign pledge by the new prime minister who promised to reduce prison crowding and free people he considered political detainees.
VENEZUELA
Chavez responding to treatment, Caracas says President Hugo Chavez is conscious and responding to treatment for a respiratory infection at a Cuban hospital, according to Information Minister Ernesto Villegas. The infection has been controlled, but he is still suffering from respiratory deficiency. Chavez has been fighting the infection after undergoing a fourth round of surgery Dec. 11 for cancer.
NEW YORK
50 years for burning woman in elevator A judge in Brooklyn has sentenced a man who burned a woman to death in an elevator to 50 years in prison. On Dec. 17, 2011, surveillance video showed Jerome Isaac, who was wearing a gas canister and a surgical mask, cornering the woman, Deloris Gillespie, 73, in the elevator of Gillespie's apartment building in Brooklyn. Isaac doused Gillespie with accelerant, then tossed a Molotov cocktail into the elevator. "This has to be one of the most horrific crimes I have ever seen," said Justice Vincent Del Giudice, who reviewed the video.
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