Indian police charge 5 in New Delhi gang rape

NEW DELHI (AP) — Authorities filed rape and murder charges Thursday against five men accused of the gang rape of a 23-year-old university student on a New Delhi bus, a crime that horrified Indians and provoked a national debate about the treatment of women.

Police said they plan to push for the death penalty in the case, as government officials promised new measures to protect women in the nation's capital.

Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan filed a case of rape, tampering with evidence, kidnapping, murder and other charges against the men in a new fast-track court in south Delhi inaugurated only the day before to deal specifically with crimes against women. Mohan asked for a closed trial, and a hearing was set for Saturday.

The men charged are Ram Singh, 33, the bus driver; his brother Mukesh Singh, 26, who cleans buses for the same company; Pavan Gupta, 19, a fruit vendor; Akshay Singh, 24, a bus washer; and Vinay Sharma, 20, a fitness trainer. They did not appear in court.

A sixth suspect was listed as 17 and was expected to be tried in a juvenile court, where the maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility. Police also detained the owner of the bus on accusations that he used false documents to obtain permits to run the private bus service.

Media reports say police have gathered 30 witnesses, and the charges have been detailed in a document running more than 1,000 pages. The document was not released Thursday. The Bar Association said its lawyers would not defend the suspects because of the nature of the crime, but the court is expected to appoint attorneys to defend them.

"Strict, strict, strict punishment should be given to them," said Ashima Sharma, an 18-year-old student attending a protest Thursday. "A very strict punishment ... that all men of India should be aware that they are not going to treat the women like the way they treated her."

The woman, who died of her injuries in a Singapore hospital Saturday, was attacked Dec. 16 after boarding a bus with a male companion after watching an evening showing of the movie "Life of Pi" at an upscale mall. The vehicle was a charter bus that illegally picked up the two passengers, authorities said.

The pair were attacked for hours as the bus drove through the city, even passing through police checkpoints during the assault. They were eventually dumped naked on the side of the road. The woman, whose name was not released, was assaulted with an iron bar and suffered severe internal injuries that eventually proved fatal.

The attack caused outrage across India, sparking protests and demands for tough new rape laws, better police protection and a sustained campaign to change society's views about women. The government has set up a series of panels to look into the incident and make reform recommendations, and women's activists hope the assault will mark a turning point for the country.

Outside the court, about 50 woman lawyers held a protest, demanding wholesale changes in the criminal justice system to ensure justice for women. "Punish the police, sensitize judiciary, eradicate rape," read one protester's sign.

Indian Chief Justice Altamas Kabir said the accused should be tried swiftly, but cautioned that they needed to be given a fair trial and not be subjected to mob justice.

"Let us not lose sight of the fact that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty," he told reporters Wednesday, while inaugurating the new fast-track court. "Let us balance things. Let us not get carried away. Provide justice in a fair but swift manner so that faith of people is once again restored that the judiciary is there behind the common man."

The government is to set up four other such courts in the capital to hold timely trials in sexual assault cases, which often get bogged down for years in India's notoriously sluggish court system. The new courts will send the message "that these matters are going to be dealt with seriously," Kabir said.

Many cases never even get to court in a country where there is intense social pressure against families reporting sexual assaults and where women are often blamed for the attacks they suffer. When women do report rapes, police often refuse to file charges and pressure the victims to reach a compromise with their attackers.

In a sign that attitudes toward such behavior might be changing, and that even powerful men are being held accountable, police in the northeastern state of Assam arrested a leader of the ruling Congress party Thursday on accusations he raped a woman in a village in the early hours of the morning.

Footage on Indian television showed the extraordinary scene of local women surrounding the man, ripping off his shirt and repeatedly slapping him across the face.

Police said the man, Bikram Singh Brahma, was visiting the village of Santipur on the Bhutan border when he entered a woman's house and raped her at about 2 a.m. Amid the screams, villagers ran to the home and captured the man, said G.P. Singh, a senior police officer in the area.

"We are taking this issue very seriously," Singh said.

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Associated Press writer Wasbir Hussain contributed to this report from Gauhati, India.

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Indian court may suspend lawmakers facing crimes

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian lawmakers facing sexual assault charges against women could be suspended from office if the country's top court rules in favor of a petition submitted following a gang-rape and murder that shocked the country.

Six state lawmakers are facing rape prosecutions and two national parliamentarians are facing charges of crimes against women that fall short of rape, said Jagdeep S. Chhokar, an official with the Association for Democratic Reforms, which tracks political candidate's criminal records.

The petition will be heard Thursday and comes as police prepare to formally charge six suspects in the gang-rape and killing of a student in the capital two weeks ago.

The Dec. 16 rape triggered outrage across the country and sparked demands for stronger laws, tougher police action against those accused of sexual assault and a sustained campaign to change society's views on women.

As part of that campaign, Chief Justice Altamas Kabir agreed to hear a petition from retired government administrator Promilla Shanker asking the Supreme Court to suspend all lawmakers from the national and state legislatures who are facing prosecution for crimes against women.

She also asked the court to force the national government to fast-track thousands of rape cases that have languished in India's notoriously sluggish court system for years.

In the past five years, political parties across India nominated 260 candidates awaiting trial on charges of crimes against women, he said. Parties ran six candidates for the national parliamentary elections facing such charges, Chokkar said.

"We need to decriminalize politics and surely a serious effort has to be made to stop people who have serious charges of sexual assault against them from contesting elections," said Zoya Hasan, a political analyst.

On Wednesday morning, several thousand women held a silent march to Gandhi's memorial in the capital in memory of the victim, holding placards demanding "Respect" and "Justice." Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit joined the women for a prayer session for the victim. The Gandhi memorial is a common protest site.

On Tuesday, the government set up a task force to monitor women's safety in New Delhi and to review whether police were properly protecting women. The government had set up two earlier bodies to look into the handling of the rape case and to suggest changes in the nation's rape laws.

The rape of the 23-year-old university student on a bus has horrified many in the country and brought unprecedented attention to the daily suffering of women here, who face everything from catcalls and groping to rapes.

Six men arrested in the case were to be formally charged Thursday with kidnapping, rape and murder, said Rajan Bhagat, the New Delhi police spokesman. Police have said they would push for the death penalty in the case.

Police were awaiting findings on a bone test conducted on one of the suspects to confirm whether he is a juvenile or an adult, which could affect the charges against him.

The Bar Association of lawyers last week decided against defending the six suspects because of the nature of the crime, although the court is expected to appoint attorneys to defend them.

Media reports say 30 witnesses have been gathered, and the charges have been detailed in a document running more than 1,000 pages. Police also have detained the owner of the bus used in the crime on accusation he used false documents to obtain permits to run the private bus service.

The family of the victim — who died Saturday at a hospital in Singapore — is struggling to come to grips with the tragedy.

"She was a very, very, very cheerful little girl and she was peace loving and she was never embroiled in any controversies like this. I don't know why this happened to her," her uncle, Suresh Singh, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The family of the victim, whose name was not revealed, called for stronger rape laws to prevent such attacks from happening again and demanded swift — and harsh — justice for woman's assailants, Singh said.

"If the government can't punish them, give the rapists to the people. The people will settle the scores with them," he said.

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Associated Press reporter Biswajeet Banerjee contributed to this report from Lucknow.

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Afghan negotiator welcomes prisoner release

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A top Afghan negotiator said Tuesday he hopes eight Taliban members freed by Pakistan will serve as peace mediators, describing Islamabad's move as a major step forward for Kabul's effort to enlist its neighbor's help in negotiating an end to its 11-year war.

The eight released Monday include the Taliban's justice minister when the militants ruled Afghanistan before their 2001 overthrow, as well as a onetime guard of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. It was the second group of prisoners released by Pakistan.

Although both sides describe the deal as a step toward peace, much about the release remains unclear. Kabul has lobbied hard for Pakistan to release some Taliban prisoners as a step toward talks, but simultaneously presses Islamabad to crack down on militants using its territory. It has not said what, if anything, this particular group might bring to the table.

Islamabad for its part has never said why it arrested the eight in the first place. Neither side has said where this batch of freed prisoners and a previous group of 18 released in November have gone, nor what they will be doing. Another 100 prisoners are believed to remain in Pakistani custody.

In Kabul, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said the Afghan leader would discuss the peace negotiations with U.S. President Barack Obama. Karzai departs for Washington early next week.

Karzai will also bring up the ongoing handover of security from NATO to Afghan forces, training and equipment the forces and the shape of a U.S.-Afghan agreement after Washington withdraws most of its troops, spokesman Aimal Faizi told a news conference. NATO plans to hand security responsibility over to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

The spokesman welcomed the prisoner release, but gave no details.

Ismail Qasemyar, a senior member of the Afghan High Peace Council, called their freeing a positive step in the peace process and hoped more releases would follow. It was not known whether the eight actually favored negotiations, but Qasemyar said it was hoped they would act as intermediaries between the Taliban leadership and the Kabul government.

"This is a big victory from our trip to Pakistan for peace negotiations. This is a good, practical step toward peace from Pakistan," said Qasemyar, the council's international affairs adviser and a key member of a delegation that travelled to Pakistan in November.

Pakistan is seen as key in ending the conflict. Kabul hopes the Taliban can be brought to the negotiating table before the 2014 foreign troop withdrawal.

But Pakistan's role is mixed. While Pakistan has arrested Afghan Taliban members, usually under pressure from Washington, its powerful military intelligence service has also afforded sanctuary and support for the militants.

Recently, Pakistan appears to have an interest in promoting a negotiated solution to the war across the border, as a post-2014 upheaval could bring harsh consequences, including another surge of refugees into the country.

Pakistan has longstanding ties to the Taliban, in part for geopolitical reasons. It fears that not having some control of who is or might one day be in power in Afghanistan could leave a vacuum which its arch-enemy, India, could fill.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said the eight detainees were released to aid the peace process and included ex-Justice Minister Nooruddin Turabi and guard Mohammad Azeem. It was not known what role they might play in bringing the Taliban leaders to the negotiating table, what links they have to the group's current leadership or their stance on negotiations.

During Taliban rule, the one-legged, one-eyed Turabi was considered among the hard-liners in the regime, charged with dispensing harsh justice for even minor offenses against the group's draconian policies.

Today, Taliban leaders are believed to be split on the question of talks, with some favoring negotiations and others opting for continuing the war.

Waheed Mazhda, a political analyst and former Taliban member, said that Pakistan is playing a double game with Kabul, pretending to support negotiations but releasing the Taliban prisoners to please the Pakistan's branch of the Taliban. not Kabul. The Pakistan government, he says, does not want its homegrown militants to disrupt upcoming elections.

"Where are they? What are they doing right now?" he said, referring to the 18 already released. He said that he did not believe those released favored negotiations.

The Afghan peace process has made little headway since it began several years ago, riddled by mistrust among the major players, including the United States.

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Associated Press writers Kathy Gannon, Rebecca Santana and Zarar Khan in Islamabad and Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed.

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Asian nations giving enthusiastic welcome to 2013

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Sydney's skyline erupted with tons of exploding fireworks as revelers cheered in the new year from the city's crammed harbor in the world's first major celebration for 2013.

The enthusiastic welcome to 2013 was continuing on a grand scale across Asia.

Increasingly democratic Myanmar is having a public countdown for the first time. Jakarta plans a huge street party befitting Indonesia's powering economy.

The buoyant economies of the Asia-Pacific are prepared to party with renewed optimism despite the so-called fiscal cliff threatening to reverberate globally from the United States and the tattered economies of Europe.

Celebrations were planned around the world, with hundreds of thousands expected to fill Times Square in New York City to watch the drop of a Waterford crystal-studded ball.

Major cities across austerity-hit Europe were to burn off part of their battered budgets in spectacular fireworks displays, although some municipalities — including the Cypriot capital, Nicosia — canceled their celebrations in light of the economic crisis. Nicosia said 16,000 euros ($21,000) saved from the canceled event will be given to some 320 needy schoolchildren.

Sydney's balmy summer night was split by 7 tons of fireworks fired from roof tops and barges, many cascading from the Sydney Harbor Bridge, in a 6.6 million Australian dollar ($6.9 million) pyrotechnic extravaganza billed by organizers as the world's largest.

Eager revelers camped Sunday night to get the best vantage points.

In Hong Kong, this year's 12.5 million Hong Kong dollar ($1.6 million) fireworks display is said to be the biggest ever in the southern Chinese city. Police expected as many as 100,000 people to watch.

One day after dancing in the snow to celebrate the first anniversary of leader Kim Jong Un's ascension to supreme commander, North Koreans were preparing to mark the arrival of the new year, marked as "Juche 102" on North Korean calendars. Juche means self-reliance, the North Korean ideology of independence promoted by national founder Kim Il Sung, who was born 102 years ago. His grandson now rules North Korea.

In New Delhi, the festive mood was marred by the death Saturday of a young rape victim.

Hotels, clubs and residents' associations in the Indian capital decided to cancel planned festivities and asked people to light candles to express their solidarity with the victim whose plight sparked public rallies for women's safety.

"Let there be no New Year celebrations across the country. It will be a major tribute to the departed soul," said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary-general of the Confederation of All India Traders, an umbrella group of operators of shops and businesses across the country.

In a field in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon, workers were testing a giant digital countdown screen with the backdrop of the revered Shwedagon pagoda.

Arranged by local Forever Media group and Index Creative Village, a Thai event organizer, the celebration is the first public New Year countdown in Myanmar, a country ruled for almost five decades by military regimes that discouraged or banned big public gatherings.

"We are planning this public New Year event because we want residents of Yangon to enjoy the public countdown like in other countries," said Win Thura Hlaing, managing director of Forever Blossom company, a subsidiary of Forever Media.

With live music performances by celebrities, light shows, food stalls, fireworks and other activities, the countdown is expected to draw 50,000 people, Win Thura Hlaing said.

Jakarta's street party centers on a 7-kilometer (4-mile) thoroughfare closed to all traffic from nightfall until after midnight. Workers erected 16 large stages along the normally car-clogged, eight-lane highway through the heart of the city. Indonesia's booming economy is a rare bright spot amid global gloom and is bringing prosperity — or the hope of it — to Indonesians.

Spirits in the capital have been further raised by the election of a new, populist governor who is pledging to tackle the city's massive infrastructure problems.

The Sydney crowds were undiminished by Australian government warnings that the Washington deadlock on the U.S. debt crisis was partly to blame for a slowing Australian economy.

Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue hosted the event.

Florida tourist Melissa Sjostedt was among the thousands gathered near a southern pylon of the bridge. She said before the event that seeing the fireworks would fulfill an ambition that began a decade ago when she read about them in National Geographic magazine.

"Ever since that, I've always wanted to see this for real, live, in person," she said.

Despite a somber mood in the Philippines due to devastation from a recent typhoon, a key problem for authorities remained how to prevent revelers from setting off huge illegal firecrackers — including some nicknamed "Goodbye Philippines" and "Bin Laden" — that maim and injure hundreds of Filipinos each year, including many children.

A government scare tactic involving doctors displaying brutal-looking scalpels used for amputations for firecracker victims has not fully worked in the past so health officials came up with a novel idea: Go Gangnam style.

A government health official, Eric Tayag, donned the splashy outfit of South Korean star PSY and danced to his Youtube hit "Gangnam Style" video while preaching against the use of illegal firecrackers on TV, in schools and in public arenas.

"The campaign has become viral," Tayag said. "We've asked kids and adults to stay away from big firecrackers and just dance the Gangnam and they're doing it."

Hong Kong feng shui master Raymond Lo predicted 2013 would be less turbulent than 2012 because the Chinese New Year in February will usher in the year of the snake, bringing an end to the year of the dragon, which was associated with water. Water is one of the five elements in feng shui theory, the Chinese practice of arranging objects and choosing dates to improve luck.

"Water is fear. So that's why we have had so much turbulence especially in the winter months," such as doomsday prophecies, school shootings and concerns about the fiscal cliff, said Lo.

"But the good news is that the coming year of the snake is the first time that fire has come back since 2007. Fire actually is the opposite to water, fire is happiness. So therefore the year of the snake is a much more optimistic year. So you can see signs of economic recovery now," he added.

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Associated Press writers Aye Aye Win in Yangon, Myanmar; Jean Lee in Pyongyang, North Korea; Chris Brummitt in Jakarta, Indonesia; Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong; Ashok Sharma in New Delhi; Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines; and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

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India rape victim's body cremated in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (AP) — A young woman who died after being gang-raped and beaten on a bus in India's capital was cremated Sunday amid an outpouring of anger and grief by millions across the country demanding greater protection for women from sexual violence.

The cremation took place during a private ceremony in New Delhi soon after the woman's body arrived in the capital on a special Air India flight from Singapore, where she died at a hospital Saturday after being sent for medical treatment.

The tragedy has forced India to confront the reality that sexually assaulted women are often blamed for the crime, forcing them to keep quiet and discouraging them from going to authorities for fear of exposing their families to ridicule. Police often refuse to accept complaints from rape victims, and the rare prosecutions that reach courts can drag on for years.

Security was tight, with no access to the public or media at the crematorium.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, were at the airport to receive the body and meet family members of the victim who were on the flight.

Hours after the victim died early Saturday, Indian police charged six men who had been arrested in connection with the attack with murder, adding to accusations that they beat and gang-raped the woman on a New Delhi bus on Dec. 16.

New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said the six suspects face the death penalty if convicted, in a case that has triggered protests across India and raised questions about lax attitudes by police toward sexual crimes.

After 10 days at a hospital in New Delhi, the victim, who has not been identified, was taken Thursday to Singapore's Mount Elizabeth hospital, which specializes in multi-organ transplants, but her condition worsened, with her vital signs deteriorating.

Following her death, thousands of Indians lit candles, held prayer meetings and marched through various cities and towns, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata, on Saturday night to express their grief and demand stronger protection for women and the death penalty for rape, which is now punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment.

But even as thousands mourned the rape victim's death and in a sign of how pervasive such crimes are, police in West Bengal state were investigating another suspected gang-rape and death.

In the latest case, the family of a woman said she and her husband were attacked by six men as they returned home after working at a brick factory.

They dragged the woman into a nearby farm after pouring acid into her husband's mouth, the family said.

The woman was found dead with multiple injuries, said police officer Bhaskar Mukherjee, adding he was waiting for an autopsy report.

No charges have been laid. Another police officer, Sugata Sen, said four men had been detained for questioning.

The alleged attack is similar to the Dec. 16 case, where the woman and a male friend, who also has not been identified, were on a bus after watching a film when they were attacked by six men who raped her. The men beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into the woman's body, resulting in severe organ damage. Both were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.

Dozens of protesters tried to break through a police cordon Sunday and march to the parliament building in the Indian capital, but were pushed back. The protesters, belonging to the student wing of main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, shouted anti-government slogans as they marched.

Hundreds of policemen have sealed off the high-security area, where the seat of India's government is located, in anticipation of more protests. The area is home to parliament, the president's palace, the prime minister's office and several ministries.

Gandhi assured the protesters in a statement that the rape victim's death "deepens our determination to battle the pervasive, the shameful social attitudes and mindset that allow men to rape and molest women and girls with such an impunity."

Attitudes by Indians toward rape are so entrenched that even politicians and opinion makers have often suggested that women should not go out at night or wear clothes that might be seen as provocative.

Meanwhile, a United Nations statement said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "offers his sincerest condolences" to the victim's family and "utterly condemns this brutal crime."

"Violence against women must never be accepted, never excused, never tolerated," the statement said. "Every girl and woman has the right to be respected, valued and protected."

Ban urged the Indian government to take steps to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice, and to "strengthen critical services for rape victims," it said.

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Whale of a tale: Pakistani fishmonger now pop star

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Muhammad Shahid Nazir is a testament to the age-old adage that if you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, but if you teach a man to sing about fish, his song will shoot up the British pop chart.

The 31-year-old Pakistani fishmonger catapulted to fame in recent weeks in the unlikeliest of circumstances: while hawking frozen snapper and mackerel for one British pound ($1.61) at Queens Market in London.

Not comfortable with shouting about his merchandise to attract customers, as many vendors do, he came up with a simple ditty that someone caught on video and posted on YouTube earlier this year. It became a viral sensation and has been viewed over 7 million times.

"One Pound Fish changed my whole life," said Nazir, who returned to Pakistan on Thursday to a hero's welcome and has been inundated with requests to perform and do advertisements. "I am so happy now."

To describe the song as catchy would be a gross understatement. It drills deep into your brain and sits like a lyrical jack-in-the box that goes off every few minutes, causing one to break into song involuntarily to the amusement, or perhaps growing despair, of those nearby.

"Come on ladies, come on ladies, one pound fish! Have a, have a look, one pound fish!" sings Nazir, as he points to his wares behind him. "Very, very good, one pound fish! Very, very cheap, one pound fish!"

In an era in which the Internet seems to bestow almost everyone with 15 minutes of fame, Nazir's YouTube video could have been the end of the story. But Warner Music offered Nazir a deal to record a techno-infused version of "One Pound Fish," he said. In a Bollywood-style video, he performs in a snazzy suit alongside scantily-clad dancers to a South Asian-influenced pop beat.

The music video has been viewed nearly 9 million times since it was posted on YouTube about three weeks ago. As the song gained momentum, people began talking about it as a serious contender for the fabled No. 1 Christmas single in the United Kingdom — the song that tops the chart in the week the holiday falls. Past chart-toppers include The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You."

In the end, "One Pound Fish" made it to No. 29 on the top-40 chart. It was beaten by another Internet sensation, PSY's "Gangnam Style," which clocked in at No. 6. The No. 1 spot was clinched by a version of the Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" by The Justice Collective, a group of star musicians who recorded the charity single for victims of a stampede at a soccer stadium in 1989 that killed 96 people.

Nazir definitely doesn't view missing out on the No. 1 Christmas single as a setback. He has returned to his home country to get a visa for France for the release of his hit song there and also has plans to take "One Pound Fish" to the United States, where he hopes it will make a big splash.

It has been quite a ride. He grew up in the little-known town of Pattoki near the eastern city of Lahore. His father owned a transport company, but his passion was always music, and he spent his youth singing both religious songs and pop hits by stars like Michael Jackson.

He traveled to Britain to study but eventually got a work permit and started working as a fishmonger in London nine months ago, he said. He now wants to pursue a career in music, but the fish stall in London will always hold a special place in his heart.

"I can't forget England, Queens Market, my fish stall because that place changed my whole life," said Nazir.

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China requiring people to visit their aged parents

BEIJING (AP) — Visit your parents. That's an order.

So says China, whose national legislature on Friday amended its law on the elderly to require that adult children visit their aged parents "often" — or risk being sued by them.

The amendment does not specify how frequently such visits should occur.

State media say the new clause will allow elderly parents who feel neglected by their children to take them to court. The move comes as reports abound of elderly parents being abandoned or ignored by their children.

A rapidly developing China is facing increasing difficulty in caring for its aging population. Three decades of market reforms have accelerated the breakup of the traditional extended family in China, and there are few affordable alternatives, such as retirement or care homes, for the elderly or others unable to live on their own.

Earlier this month, state media reported that a grandmother in her 90s in the prosperous eastern province of Jiangsu had been forced by her son to live in a pig pen for two years. News outlets frequently carry stories about other parents being abused or neglected, or of children seeking control of their elderly parents' assets without their knowledge.

The expansion of China's elderly population is being fueled both by an increase in life expectancy — from 41 to 73 over five decades — and by family planning policies that limit most families to a single child. Rapid aging poses serious threats to the country's social and economic stability, as the burden of supporting the growing number of elderly passes to a proportionately shrinking working population and the social safety net remains weak.

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India rape victim in Singapore; PM pledges action

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged Thursday to take action to protect the nation's women while the young victim of a gang rape on a New Delhi bus was flown to Singapore for treatment of severe internal injuries.

The Dec. 16 rape and brutal beating of the 23-year-old student triggered widespread protests, including a march on Thursday, demanding a government crackdown on the daily harassment Indian women face, ranging from groping to severe violence. Some protesters have called for the death penalty or castration for rapists, who under current laws face a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

Rape victims rarely press charges because of social stigma and fear they will be accused of inviting the attack. Many women say they structure their lives around protecting themselves and their daughters from attack.

Singh's government set up two committees in response to the protests. One, looking into speeding up sexual assault trials, has already received 6,100 email suggestions. The second will examine what lapses might have contributed to the rape — which took place on a moving bus that passed through police checkpoints — and suggest measures to improve women's safety.

"Let me state categorically that the issue of safety and security of women is of the highest concern to our government," Singh said at a development meeting. He urged officials in India's states to pay special attention to the problem.

"There can be no meaningful development without the active participation of half the population, and this participation simply cannot take place if their security and safety is not assured," he said.

The rape victim arrived in Singapore on an air ambulance Thursday and was admitted to the intensive care unit of the Mount Elizabeth hospital, renowned for multi-organ transplant facilities.

On Thursday night she remained in "extremely critical condition" as a team of specialists worked to stabilize her, Dr. Kelvin Loh, the hospital's chief executive officer, said in a statement. Before arriving in Singapore, she had already undergone three abdominal surgeries and suffered cardiac arrest, he said.

India's Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said in a statement that the government, which is funding and overseeing the victim's treatment, had decided to send her abroad on the recommendation of her doctors.

"Despite the best efforts of our doctors, the victim continues to be critical and her fluctuating health remains a big cause of concern to all of us," he said.

Her family was also being sent to Singapore to be with her during her treatment, which could last weeks, he said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters demanding safer public transportation for women and the resignation of Delhi's police commissioner tried to march to the major India Gate traffic circle in central Delhi before being stopped by police in riot gear manning barricades. Protesters carried signs reading, "Immediately end rape culture in India" and "Zero tolerance of violence against women."

Protests have shut down the center of the capital for days since the rape. Police quashed some of the demonstrations with tear gas, water cannons and baton charges.

One police officer died Tuesday after collapsing during a weekend protest. Police said an autopsy showed the officer had a heart attack that could have been caused by injuries suffered during violence at the protest. An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the officer was running toward the protesters with a group of police when he collapsed on the ground and began frothing at the mouth and shaking. Two protesters rushed to the officer to try to help him. Police charged eight people with murder in the death of the policeman.

Police said the rape victim was traveling on the evening of Dec. 16 with a male friend on a bus when they were attacked by six men who gang-raped her and beat the couple with iron rods before stripping them and dumping them on a road. All six suspects in the case have been arrested, police said.

Also Thursday, Ratanjit Singh, a junior minister in the home ministry, said the government would create a database of convicted rapists and publish it, along with their photos, on the ministry website to shame them, according to the Press Trust of India.

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Associated Press reporter Heather Tan contributed reporting from Singapore and Saurabh Das contributed from New Delhi.

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New Japan PM: Saving economic crisis top mission

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's newly installed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says his top mission is to avert economic and diplomatic crises.

Abe was elected as Japan's leader Wednesday. The rise of Abe, whose nationalist positions have in the past angered Japan's neighbors, brings back the conservative, pro-business Liberal Democratic Party that governed for most of the post-World War II era to power. The left-leaning government of the Democratic Party of Japan lasted three years.

Abe vowed to pull Japan out of deflation through bold economic measures, and said he would step up an alliance with the United States to stabilize Japan's diplomacy shaken by increasing territorial threats from its neighbors.

Abe, who was also prime minister in 2006-2007, led the LDP to victory in parliamentary elections Dec. 16.

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Plane crash-lands on Myanmar road, 3 killed

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — A flight packed with Christmas tourists crash-landed on a road in central Myanmar on Tuesday, killing three people and injuring 11, officials said.

Four foreigners were among the injured on the Air Bagan flight, the airline said. It said the fatalities were all Myanmar citizens: a tour guide and an 11-year-old child on board the plane and a man riding a motorcycle on the road where the plane came down.

The flight was carrying 63 passengers, including 51 foreigners, and six crew members from the city of Mandalay to Heho airport in Shan State, the gateway to a popular tourist destination, Inle Lake, Air Bagan said in a brief statement on its Facebook page.

Air Bagan identified the injured tourists as two Americans, a British national and a Korean. It described the incident as an "emergency landing."

Authorities gave a different and more dramatic account, saying the pilot mistook the road for a runway due to bad weather.

"While descending, the plane mistakenly landed ... due to fog beside the runway," state television reported. It said the aircraft made a hard landing on a road and then came to a stop in a nearby rice paddy field.

"The rear end of the plane broke and caught fire," state TV said, carrying a statement posted on Deputy Information Minister Ye Htut's Facebook page. Rescuers brought the fire under control about 45 minutes later, he said.

Witnesses said smoke filled the plane when it hit the ground and was still rising from the plane's badly charred wreckage hours later.

Airport officials in Heho said that injured passengers were taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Taunggyi for treatment.

Air Bagan is one of five private airlines that fly domestic routes in Myanmar. It is a unit of Htoo Trading Company, which is owned by business tycoon Tay Za.

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Afghan policewoman kills US adviser in Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan policewoman shot and killed an American adviser outside the police headquarters in Kabul on Monday, the latest in a rising tide of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies, senior Afghan officials said.

The killing of the American, who worked as a contractor with the NATO command, was the first known insider attack by a woman in Afghanistan.

The woman, identified as Afghan police Sgt. Nargas, had entered a strategic compound in the heart of the capital and shot the civilian adviser with a pistol as he came out of a small shop with articles he had just bought, Kabul Governor Abdul Jabar Taqwa told The Associated Press.

Earlier, she had asked bystanders where the governor's office was located, the governor said. As many Afghans, the policewoman uses only one name.

The policewoman was taken into Afghan custody shortly after the attack but Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said that she refused to answer questions after hours of interrogation aimed at determining her motives for the killing.

Sediqi said the assailant shot only once, striking the American in the side of the chest. He died either on the way or just upon arrival at a hospital, the spokesman added, describing her act as a "huge crime."

A NATO command spokesman, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Lester T. Carroll, said the slain adviser was a contractor whose identity wasn't immediately released. "We can confirm that a civilian police adviser was shot and killed this morning by a suspected member of the Afghan uniformed police," Carroll said.

The attack occurred outside the police headquarters in a walled, highly secure compound which also houses the governor's office, courts and a prison. Kabul Deputy Police Chief Mohammad Daoud Amin said an investigation was under way.

Nargas, a mother of four, had worked with a human rights department of the police for two years and had earlier been a refugee in Pakistan and Iran, Amin said.

She could enter the compound armed because as a police officer she was licensed to carry a pistol, the police official said. Amin did not know whether the killer and victim were acquainted.

"Her background is very clean. We don't see that she had any connection with armed insurgent groups," Sediqi said. He added that she aroused no suspicion because she frequently went back and forth on business between the compound and the Interior Ministry where she worked.

Canadian Brig. Gen. John C. Madower, a command spokesman in Kabul, called the incident "a very sad occasion" and said his "prayers are with the loved ones of the deceased."

The killing came just hours after an Afghan policeman shot five of his colleagues at a checkpoint in northern Afghanistan late Monday. The attacker then stole his colleague's weapons and fled to join the Taliban, said deputy provincial governor in Jawzjan province, Faqir Mohammad Jawzjani.

More than 60 international allies, including troops and civilian advisers, have been killed by Afghan soldiers or police this year, and a number of other insider attacks as they are known are still under investigations. NATO forces, due to mostly withdraw from the country by 2014, have speeded up efforts to train and advise Afghan military and police units before the pullout.

The surge in insider attacks is throwing doubt on the capability of the Afghan security forces to take over from international troops and has further undermined public support for the 11-year war in NATO countries.

It has also stoked suspicion among some NATO units of their Afghan counterparts, although others enjoy close working relations with Afghan military and police.

As such attacks mounted this year, U.S. officials in Kabul and Washington insisted they were "isolated incidents" and withheld details. An AP investigation earlier this month showed that at least 63 coalition troops — mostly Americans — had been killed and more than 85 wounded in at least 46 insider attacks. That's an average of nearly one attack a week. In 2011, 21 insider attacks killed 35 coalition troops.

There have also been incidents of Taliban and other militants dressing in Afghan army and police uniforms to infiltrate NATO installations and attack foreigners.

In February, two U.S. soldiers — Lt. Col. John D. Loftis and Maj. Robert J. Marchanti, died from wounds received during an attack by an Afghan policeman at the Interior Ministry in Kabul. The incident forced NATO to temporarily pull out their advisers from a number of ministries and police units and revise procedures in dealing with Afghan counterparts.

The latest known insider attack took place Nov. 11 when a British soldier, Capt. Walter Reid Barrie, was killed by an Afghan army soldier during a football match between British and Afghan soldiers in the restive southern province of Helmand.

More than 50 Afghan members of the government's security forces also have died this year in attacks by their own colleagues. Taliban militants claim such attacks reflect a growing popular opposition to both foreign military presence and the Kabul government.

In Sunday's attack, Jawzjani, the provincial official, said the attacker was an Afghan policeman manning a checkpoint in Dirzab District who turned his weapon on five colleagues before fleeing to the militant Islamist group.

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Gang rape protesters clash with Indian police

NEW DELHI (AP) — Police in India's capital used tear gas and water cannons for a second day Sunday in a high-security zone to break up protests by thousands of people demonstrating against the gang rape and beating of a 23-year-old student on a bus.

Police chased angry protesters with batons some of whom fought pitched battles with steel rods and rocks as they tried to get past steel barricades and a wall created by hundreds of policemen to reach the president's mansion to present their demands. "We want justice," they shouted.

Television footage showed that some protesters were injured in the clashes.

The protesters made bonfires and damaged cars and police vehicles.

Police blamed the violence on hooligans. "A peaceful protest by people has been taken over by hooligans," Dharmendra Kumar, a senior police officer, told reporters. He urged people to go home to help police deal with the trouble makers.

The demonstrations continued Sunday despite Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde promising to consider their main demand for death penalties for all six suspects who have been arrested by police following the Dec. 16 attack.

Shinde said Saturday night that the government was taking steps to better ensure the safety of women.

A group of protesters met Sonia Gandhi, the governing Congress party chief, and her son and lawmaker Rahul Gandhi, on Sunday and demanded a speedy trial of the suspects.

Popular yoga guru Babar Ramdev stood on the roof of a bus and pledged support to the protesters. "The government must set up fast-track courts to punish the offenders in rape attacks," he said.

The attack one week ago has sparked days of protests across the country. The victim is recovering from injuries in a New Delhi government hospital but is still in critical condition.

After battling the protesters throughout the day on Saturday, authorities early on Sunday banned their entry into the high-security zone, which also houses the offices of the prime minister and defense, home and external affairs ministries. Police evicted dozens of protesters who had spent the night there.

However, as groups of protesters marched through the streets of New Delhi and began converging on the high-security area on Sunday, authorities withdrew the ban on the assembly of more than five people there. But it set up barricades to keep them away from the president's residence.

Protesters tried to break the police cordon repeatedly by hurling stones and water bottles and pressing against the steel barricades. Policemen responded by firing tear gas and using water cannons against them. The battle continued throughout the day.

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Pakistan says 29 nationals beaten by Afghans

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan officials say they are investigating allegations by neighboring Pakistan that Afghan forces severely beat Pakistani nationals.

The Saturday protest note from Islamabad's Foreign Office provided no details other than to say that all 29 had valid travel documents.

Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai says he has no information about the allegations, but Kabul will try to investigate them.

Relations between the neighboring countries are poor, with the Kabul government accusing Pakistan of harboring and supporting Taliban insurgents. But last month a top Afghan peace mediator hailed Pakistan's recent decision to free nine Taliban members who favor negotiations, saying it was a sign that Pakistan is willing to bring the militants to the table and end Afghanistan's 11-year war.

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Russia's Gazprom to buy Kyrgyz state gas company

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — Kyrgyzstan's state-owned natural gas company says it is to be sold in its entirety to Russian energy giant Gazprom.

Kyrgyzgaz general director Turgunbek Kulmurzayev said Friday that the sale of the company would be completed by April 1.

The takeover will raise hopes that the Central Asian nation may not continue to experience debilitating energy shortages like those it has endured over the past week, when gas and electricity supplies to thousands of households were suspended.

Some critics are likely to object, however, to a sale of a major national asset to a company owned by a foreign government.

Kulmurzayev cited Gazprom officials as saying they planned to invest $650 million over five years on modernizing Kyrgyzstan's gas pipeline network.

He gave no figure for the sale.

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Indian women live in fear of violence

NEW DELHI (AP) — It is almost every Indian woman's nightmare, lived daily when in public — a stream of obscene comments, unwanted hands being placed on them and then being blamed for causing the sexual violence.

The gang-rape and beating of a 23-year-old student by six men on a bus in New Delhi may have sparked days of protests and demands for authorities to take tougher action, but for women in India it is just an extreme example of what they have to live with.

Many in India's capital and across the country say they are constantly on guard, fearing everything from the routine gropings they suffer on public buses to far more violent assaults. Some say they have structured their entire lives around protecting themselves and their children.

Here are the stories of three women:

Gita Ganeshan, a 52-year-old bank worker, moved to New Delhi with her husband four years ago from the central city of Bhopal to protect their oldest daughter after she was attacked in the Indian capital, where she was studying.

The young woman had been out for a morning walk in a park near her house when four men surrounded her and began tormenting her, Ganeshan said.

"One of the men squeezed her breast. She screamed and kept screaming and running till she came home," she said.

She said she and her daughter would go to the park when she visited the city.

"This was a park where we would walk every day. The girls would jog or run and we would walk along," she said. "Just that one day, she went alone and this happened and it changed our outlook as far the safety of our girls was concerned."

Her daughter gave up jogging and wouldn't leave the house alone for months. Her parents got themselves transferred to the city to look after her.

"That was when we decided that protecting our children had to be our first priority. We've given them a good education. We cannot now tell them now not to pursue their careers because it is not safe to be out working late," she said.

She has trained the young woman to be alert: "Never let your guard down."

Now, Ganeshan is thinking of moving to the central city of Indore to protect her younger daughter, who got a job there.

But for now, she has arranged a special plan to watch over her from far away.

Every evening, her daughter calls as soon as she gets off the bus on her way home from work. The two talk for the next 15 minutes while the young woman walks the kilometer to her home, Ganeshan said.

"Every day, I wake up and my first thought is of my daughters and their safety. I call them up, or they call me," she said. "It is a real fear we confront when, even for a few hours, we are not in touch over the telephone."

Sandhya Jadon, 26, a lawyer from the northern town of Agra, said the harassment starts as soon as she leaves her home.

"For most men, any woman who is out of the four walls of her house is fair game," she said.

Last week, she was repeatedly groped on a public minibus.

"It was broad daylight. I was heading to court, and this man kept trying to touch my thigh. I shouted at him and he had the gall to ask me, 'So what can you do to stop me?'" she said.

She shouted, made the driver stop and got off. But the man continued sitting in the bus and grinning at his audacity. Not one of the 10 other passengers came to her help. Most looked away, she said.

"All day that day I was disturbed. I was shaking inside but also angry. Why do we women have to suffer this?" she asked.

For the next few days, she avoided public buses for fear she would run into the man again.

She feels relatively safe at court, in her lawyer's robes. But she still doesn't stay late at work and asks her parents to meet her at the bus stop to walk her home.

"But the fear — that something bad will happen if you are not careful — is always with you. It hangs over your work; it hangs over everything you do — what you wear, or don't wear; how you talk or how you walk. It is like this big suffocating cloud hanging over you every single day of your life," she said.

Priyanka Khatri, a 21-year-old college student, said fear of attack has forced her to limit her world.

There are no movies in the evening, no late-night parties, no outside activity at all after sundown. College events are cut short because she has to get home.

"Whatever happens, I have to be home before dark. Otherwise, my parents get so worried and they will keep calling me on my cell phone till they know I'm safe," she said.

Khatri said she will only go out in the evening accompanied by her parents to a nearby temple or a family wedding.

She is shadowed by fear when she gets dressed in the morning.

"I wouldn't dream of wearing shorts or skirts in public," she said.

She is petrified by her daily commute to school on public buses.

"Usually I carry a safety pin with me, because in buses there are always men who will try to touch you," Khatri said. "Some men are so brazen, you tick them off and they will persist on groping you. Then you feel you have to do something. So I stick my pin into them, or I use my elbow, and just jab them with my elbow. But that too makes you afraid."

And she has tempered her dreams to fit the reality of life in Delhi. The outgoing badminton enthusiast longed to be an event planner. Instead, she is looking for teaching jobs, "because then I can be home before dark."

If her precautions fail and she is attacked, Khatri has a backup plan, she said.

"I will scream. I always have a scream."

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Dictator's daughter has lead in SKorea vote

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The daughter of a late dictator held a slight lead Wednesday in early vote counts for South Korea's presidential election, setting up the possibility that the deeply conservative country will get its first female leader.

With about 64 percent of the votes counted, Park Geun-hye had 51.7 percent of votes while her opponent Moon Jae-in had 47.8 percent, according to the state-run National Election Commission. Major TV stations KBS and SBS said Park is likely to win.

Huge crowds braved frigid weather to choose the new leader of Asia's fourth-largest economy at a time of high tension with rival North Korea, which was widely criticized for a rocket launch last week.

Turnout was estimated at nearly 76 percent, the highest in 15 years, according to election watchdog officials.

Park is aiming to make history as the first female leader in South Korea — and modern Northeast Asia. But she also works under the shadow of her father, Park Chung-hee, who ruled South Korea as dictator for 18 years until his intelligence chief killed him during a drinking party in 1979.

Park's father is both an asset and a soft spot. Many older South Koreans revere his strict economic policies and tough line against North Korea. But he's also loathed for his odious treatment of opponents, including claims of torture and snap executions.

A Park win would mean that South Korean voters believe she would evoke her father's strong charisma as president and settle the country's economic and security woes, according to Chung Jin-young, a political scientist at Kyung Hee University in South Korea.

"Park is good-hearted, calm and trustworthy," 50-year-old housewife Lee Hye-Young said at a polling station at a Seoul elementary school. "Also, I think Park would handle North Korea better. Moon would want to make too many concessions to North Korea."

Park and Moon were competing to succeed unpopular incumbent Lee Myung-bak, whose single five-year term ends in February. Park attempted to distance herself from Lee's policies, though they belong to the same ruling Saenuri Party.

South Koreans express deepening worry about the economy and disgust over the alleged involvement of aides close to Lee in corruption scandals.

"I skipped breakfast to vote. I've been waiting to vote for five years. I think it's time to change the government," said 37-year-old Kim Young-jin, who voted at a polling station inside an apartment complex.

North Korea forced itself as an issue in the closing days of campaigning with last week's rocket launch, which put a satellite into orbit but was condemned by the United Nations and others as a cover for testing long-range missile technology.

Part of voters' dissatisfaction with Lee stems from the hard line he has taken on North Korea. Many blame inter-Korean tension for encouraging North Korea to conduct nuclear and missile tests. Some also say ragged North-South relations led to two attacks blamed on Pyongyang that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

Park and Moon agreed that South Korea needs greater engagement with its rival. Both proposed pulling back from Lee's insistence that engagement with North Korea be linked to so-far-nonexistent nuclear disarmament progress by Pyongyang. Park, however, insists on more conditions than Moon, the Democratic United Party candidate.

Moon was a close friend and aide of late President Roh Moo-hyun, who championed the so-called "sunshine policy" of no-strings-attached aid for Pyongyang.

Moon wants an early summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Park has also held out the possibility of such a meeting, but only if it's "an honest dialogue on issues of mutual concern."

Moon was a young opponent of Park's father who spent time in jail for challenging his government. He was a human rights lawyer before going to work for Roh, whom Lee replaced in 2008.

Moon's parents lived in the North Korean port city of Hungnam before fleeing to South Korea aboard a U.S. military ship in daring evacuation operations in December 1950, six months after the Korean War broke out.

Whoever wins and moves into the presidential Blue House in February will set the initial tone for new North Korea policy not just in Seoul but in Washington, Beijing and Tokyo. All those governments have recently undergone an election, a change of leadership or both.

A Moon election could lead to friction with Washington if new engagement with Pyongyang comes without any of the reciprocal nuclear disarmament progress that Washington demands from the North.

Moon and Park also agree on the need to fight widespread government corruption, strengthen social welfare, help small companies, close growing gaps between rich and poor, ease heavy household debt and rein in big corporations that have grown so powerful they threaten to eclipse national laws. They differ mainly in how far they want to go.

Moon wants to drastically expand welfare, while Park seeks more cautious improvement in the system, out of concern that expanding too much could hurt the economy, professor Chung said.

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AP writers Foster Klug and Youkyung Lee contributed to this story.

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Both SKorean presidential hopefuls promise change

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The liberal son of North Korean refugees faces the conservative daughter of a late dictator in South Korea's presidential election Wednesday. For all their differences, they've made remarkably similar campaign promises.

Liberal Moon Jae-in and conservative Park Geun-hye both want to extend a hand to rival North Korea, fight widespread government corruption, strengthen social welfare, help small companies, close growing gaps between rich and poor, ease heavy household debt to boost consumption, create jobs and rein in big corporations that have grown so powerful they threaten to eclipse national laws. They differ mainly in how far they want to go.

Polls showed the candidates in a dead heat ahead of elections to lead Asia's fourth-largest economy and an important U.S. security bulwark in the region.

One reason for their unusual degree of consensus: Park has had to tack to the center because voters are deeply dissatisfied with current conservative President Lee Myung-bak.

There's deepening worry about the economy and disgust over the alleged involvement of aides close to Lee in corruption scandals. Many voters blame Lee's hardline views for encouraging North Korea to conduct nuclear and missile tests — including Pyongyang's rocket launch last week. Some also blame the chill in North-South relations for two attacks blamed on Pyongyang that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

The effort to create distance with Lee has been difficult for Park, whose popularity rests on a staunchly conservative base.

On North Korea, both candidates propose pulling back from Lee's insistence that real engagement be linked to so-far-nonexistent nuclear disarmament progress by Pyongyang. Park, however, insists on more conditions than Moon, who wants to restore large-scale government aid.

Moon is a former chief of staff to Lee's predecessor, the late liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, who championed the so-called "sunshine policy" of no-strings-attached aid for Pyongyang.

Moon said on the eve of the election that he envisions a "politics that integrates all people. Politics that does not divide."

A Moon election could lead to friction with Washington if new engagement with Pyongyang comes without any of the reciprocal nuclear disarmament progress that Washington demands from the North.

Moon also wants to drastically expand welfare, while Park seeks more cautious improvement in the system, out of concern that expanding too much could hurt the economy, according to Chung Jin-young, a political scientist at Kyung Hee University in South Korea.

Both candidates also have promised to strengthen the traditional alliance with the United States while boosting economic ties with booming China.

Park is aiming to make history as the first female leader in South Korea — and modern Northeast Asia. But she also works under the shadow of her father, Park Chung-hee, who imposed his will on South Korea as dictator for 18 years until his intelligence chief killed him during a drinking party in 1979.

"I will become a president of the people's livelihoods, who thinks only about the people," Park was quoted Tuesday by the Yonhap news agency. "I will restore the broken middle class."

Park's father is both an asset and a soft spot. Many older South Koreans revere his strict economic policies and tough line against North Korea. But he's also loathed for his odious treatment of opponents, including claims of torture and snap executions.

"Nostalgia for Park Chung-hee still runs deep in our society, particularly in the older generation," Chung said.

A Park win would mean that South Korean voters believe she would evoke her father's strong charisma as president and settle the country's economic and security woes, Chung said.

Moon, on the other hand, was a young opponent of Park Chung-hee. Before working for Roh, whom Lee replaced in 2008, Moon was a human rights lawyer. He also spent time in jail for challenging the government of Park.

Moon's parents lived in the North Korean port city of Hungnam before fleeing to South Korea aboard a U.S. military ship in December 1950, six months after the Korean War broke out. They were among an estimated 100,000 North Korean refugees transported by the United States from Hungnam to South Korea in daring evacuation operations that month.

Moon's parents lived in an interim shelter on South Korea's southeastern Geoje Island and later moved to a nearby village where Moon was born in 1953. Moon's father, a former agriculture official at Hungnam city hall, did manual labor at the camp while his mother peddled eggs.

A Moon win would be a clear judgment against the Lee government, said Hahm Sung Deuk, a political scientist at Korea University in Seoul. Moon's appeal is that he "appears to be nice, honest and clean."

With South Korea's economy facing a 2 to 3 percent annual growth rate for this year and the next, the presidential candidates have focused on welfare and equality and fairness issues. Neither, however, has matched Lee's campaign promise to boost South Korea's economy by an ambitious 7 percent growth annually, apparently aware of the global economic challenges that beset the country's export-driven economy.

Economic worries may be the focus of many voters, but North Korea has forced itself as an issue in the closing days of campaigning with its rocket launch last week, which the United States and others call a cover for a banned test of technology that could power a missile to the U.S. mainland. North Korea says it sought only to put a peaceful satellite into orbit.

The launch won't be a major election influence, but it will consolidate conservative votes in favor of Park, said Hahm. He said the launch will remind South Korean voters that "the North Koreans are unpredictable and belligerent."

The rocket launch could make it harder to quickly mend relations with North Korea, especially if Park wins.

"She has a firm stance on national security, but she has few ideas on how to establish a peace regime and lacks the determination to do so," said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea analyst at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. "If Park becomes president, South-North relations would get better, but a big improvement in ties would be difficult."

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AP writer Youkyung Lee contributed to this story.

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Car bomb at US compound in Kabul kills 2 Afghans

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A car bomb outside a compound housing a U.S. military contractor in the Afghan capital killed at least two Afghan workers and wounded more than a dozen other people, company representatives and police said.

In another part of the country, a landmine left over from the time of the Soviet invasion killed nine young girls, police said.

The blast on the outskirts of Kabul sent a plume of smoke up in the air and shook windows more than two kilometers (a mile) away in the city center.

The security officer for Contrack, a McLean, Va.-based company that builds facilities for military bases, said a suicide attacker drove a vehicle packed with explosives up to the exterior wall of the compound and detonated the bomb. Afghan police could not immediately confirm whether it was a suicide attack or a remotely detonated bomb laced in a parked vehicle.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in an email to reporters that it was a suicide car bomber who targeted the compound because it was company working with the government.

Two of the company's Afghan employees were killed and at least 15 were wounded, said deputy Interior Ministry spokesman Najibullah Danish. He did not have any information about any of the foreign employees. Contrack did not respond to calls or emails asking for comment.

Contrack security officer Baryalai, who like many Afghans only goes by one name, said at the site that injured employees included Americans, Afghans and South Africans. An American official of the company was seriously wounded, he said.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw large sections of exterior wall blown apart and a collapsed roof on a building inside. Twisted metal from shipping containers that had been ripped open by the explosion littered the ground. A light snow was falling all morning and was already starting to cover the debris as investigators surveyed the site. The wall appeared to have been made of mud brick, which is surprising in a city where most foreign contractors live in compounds reinforced by concrete blast walls.

Baryalai said an arm of Contrack was building barracks and other facilities for the Afghan army. Contrack's projects in Afghanistan also include fuel storage, air field construction and tanker facilities for U.S. military bases, according to its website.

A worker coming out of the building said that he saw at least 30 people wounded.

"There was massive destruction inside ... I was sitting behind my computer when it happened. I was not hurt but I saw many of my colleagues were injured," Bashir Farhang said.

Jalalabad road, where the explosion occurred, is one of the main arteries into the city. It is flanked by a number of foreign companies and organization, along with foreign military bases.

The Kabul bombing came just hours after an exploding landmine killed nine young girls as they were gathering firewood outside their village in the east of the country.

The U.N. Mine Action Service said the girls appeared to have walked into an old minefield from the 1990s, when Afghan resistance fighters were battling occupying Soviet troops.

"It was a British-made anti-tank mine," said Abigail Hartley, the manager of the U.N. mine program. She said there were not enough pieces of the exploded mine to determine its exact make, but that two MK 7 British mines were found nearby, so they assumed it was a similar mine that exploded.

The girls, who died ranged in age from 9 to 13 years old, all came from different families in Dawlatzai village, said Mohammad Seddiq. He is the government administrator of Nangarhar province's Chaperhar district, which includes the village. Two more girls were seriously wounded and are in critical condition at a hospital, Seddiq said.

Initial reports said 10 girls died from the explosion, but Seddiq said one of the girls who they had believed dead later showed up in the village.

Afghanistan remains one of the most heavily land-mined countries in the world, despite years of clearing operations. Many mines have been left in rural areas from the 1990s and are only discovered when they are triggered accidentally.

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Associated Press writer Amir Shah contributed to this report from Kabul.

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Nationalist Shinzo Abe is likely Japan's next PM

WAKO, Japan (AP) — The Liberal Democratic Party's victory in Japan's parliamentary election virtually ensures that Shinzo Abe, who resigned as prime minister for health reasons in 2007 after just a year in office, will get a second chance to try to lead Japan out of its economic slump.

In Abe's political resurrection, the Japanese are confiding their hopes for a national comeback, backing Liberal Democrat pledges to restore the good times of the 1980s and 90s, before the financial bubble went bust and the economy slid into a 20-year funk.

Abe epitomizes the LDP brand of conservatism and nationalism that kept the party in power for most of the post-World War II era, until it was ousted by the Democratic Party of Japan in 2009.

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Schools and students are targets worldwide

BEIJING (AP) — A half-day before a young gunman committed one of the deadliest school attacks in U.S. history, a Chinese farmer took a kitchen knife and hacked at more than 20 children as they entered their rural elementary school.

Though the outcomes are different — 28 dead in Connecticut, and 23 injured in China — the Friday attacks show how disturbingly frequent rampages against children and schools are. Attackers often seek out the vulnerable, hoping to amplify their outrage before they themselves often commit suicide. News of one mass killing often serves as inspiration and blueprint to other potential mass killers.

"It's these disaffected people who are angry at the world, who plan to take out as many people as they can, and there's some element there of notoriety," said forensic psychologist James Ogloff of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. "It's a way of becoming infamous."

Mass killings, when an individual tries to kill as many people at one time as possible, have occurred in places as far away as Switzerland, where 14 people died in a shooting spree by an unemployed man who then killed himself in 2001, to South Korea, where a police officer killed 56 people before he blew himself up in 1982. Distinct from acts of terror that have political or collective aims, other mass killers act out of personal grievances.

Attacks against schools are a bleak subset, offering easy targets for taking down large numbers of victims. Shootings at schools have periodically occurred in Finland and Germany as well as the U.S., though the American attacks have been more frequent.

China has seen more than a half-dozen school attacks in less than three years, though the death tolls have been mostly in single digits, largely because knives have been the most-used weapon. China largely prohibits private ownership of guns.

"They choose to attack school students who are weak in defending themselves and are easily assaulted," said Zhu Zhuohong, an associate researcher in psychology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Ogloff, the forensic psychologist who has studied both spree and serial killers in the U.S., Canada and Australia, said that a break-down in a relationship or a humiliating experience often acts as a triggering event for mass shooters. After Thomas Hamilton killed 16 kindergarteners and a teacher at an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, reports said that he had been suspected of inappropriate behavior with boys he oversaw in a youth group and that letters he wrote talked of persecution by police and authorities for forcing him from taking part in boys clubs and for causing a business he ran to fail.

While police in Connecticut and in China have so far not given motives for Friday's attacks, both began with single assaults. Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza first shot his mother in their home in the New England town of Newtown before driving to the nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School; armed with two handguns, he shot into two classrooms, killing 20 people and six adults and then apparently shooting himself.

Min Yingjun, a 36-year-old resident of Guangshan, an area of tea and rice farms in central China, burst into the home of an elderly woman and stabbed her with a kitchen knife, the government's Xinhua News Agency reported. Min then went to the Chenpeng Village Primary School, slashing at 22 students, ages 6 to 12, as they arrived for class. Seven of the students, some with severed fingers and ears, required hospitalization, Xinhua said.

Though Min did not die — he was grabbed by police at the scene and is under arrest — Zhu, the psychologist, said many mass attacks should be seen as "expanded suicide." The attackers, often in a state of depression, believe society is malicious or unsafe and wants others to die with them, said Zhu.

Police described Min as possibly being "mentally ill," Xinhua said, and a law enforcement official briefed on the Connecticut shooting told The Associated Press that Lanza was believed to suffer from a personality disorder. But overall, said Ogloff, very few mass shooters are mentally ill.

Most perpetrators are young men, and their common traits — an interest in the military or violence — are so widespread as to make it impossible to identify potential killers, said Ogloff. Spree shootings, he said, are increasing and becoming deadlier because each killing leaves a blueprint for others to follow.

"Imagine you're a kid and you're 20 years old, and you're angry at the world and you're fascinated with the military and you're in a situation where you want to end your life. ... You're influenced by all the ones who've gone before you," said Ogloff, who has overseen the treatment of Martin Bryant, who shot 35 people at Port Arthur, a former penal colony and tourist site, in Tasmania in 1996.

The spate of school attacks in China — six in a seven-month period in 2010 — have raised concerns about copycats. News media in China, all of which are state-controlled, gave wide coverage to the Connecticut attack. But they ran the same brief Xinhua report about Friday's knifings in Guangshan, and local officials refused to provide more information, signs that authorities want to restrict the news either to prevent encouraging others or to play down the crime to keep blame off the government.

If identifying possible perpetrators is difficult, providing better access to mental health services and restricting the availability of firearms are key to reducing the numbers of victims, experts said.

"It's interesting that you have two individuals entering schools but because of the means of their attacks — one with firearms, one with a knife — there's an extreme disparity in the casualties," said Christian Chan, a professor of psychology at Hong Kong University. "It's the means that we can control, not necessarily the psychology of people. Throughout history there will always be people who might lose it."

Tight controls mean that gun crimes are rare in China and make knives and sometimes explosives the weapons used in mass attacks in China. Even so, violence is on the rise as people grow frustrated with a corrupt and often indifferent officialdom and seek other means to address grievances.

"The social environment is a factor behind attacks in China," said Ku Jianhui, a lawyer with the Beijing Xindong law firm. "A person who chooses extreme acts to voice his or her grievances usually believes that his or her cases were unable to be handled fairly through normal channels or legal procedures."

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Associated Press reporter Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Australia, and researcher Henry Hou in Beijing contributed to this report.

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