A five-year-old girl is in serious condition after being raped and tortured by a man who held her in a locked room in India’s capital for two days, officials said yesterday.
New Delhi residents (pictured) protested yesterday against what they said was a lack of police action.
Police said the girl went missing Monday and was found on Wednesday by neighbours who heard her crying in a room in the same New Delhi building where she lives with her parents. The girl was found alone, but police said the man who lives in the room was arrested in Bihar state, about 620 miles east of New Delhi.
D.K. Sharma, medical superintendent of India’s largest government-run hospital, said the girl had serious injuries, including a slashed neck and bite marks. (PA)
USA Today founder dies
USA Today founder Al Neuharth, who changed American newspapers by putting easy-to-read articles and bright graphics in his national daily publication, has died at the age of 89.
Neuharth began USA Today in 1982 when he ran the Gannett Co newspaper group. He died in Cocoa Beach, Florida. He was 89.
The news was announced by USA Today and by the Newseum, which he also founded.
He wanted to create a bright, breezy, fun newspaper that would catch people’s attention and not take itself too seriously.
During Neuharth’s more than 15 years at the helm of Gannett, the company became the nation’s largest newspaper company. He became president and CEO of the company in 1973 and chairman in 1979. He retired in 1989. (PA)
Morsi plans Cabinet reshuffle
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said yesterday he planned to reshuffle his Cabinet in a move that could help build political consensus around a $4.8 billion loan Cairo is seeking from the International Monetary Fund.
Mursi’s opponents have been demanding the formation of a new Government to oversee parliamentary elections expected to begin later this year. The US, a major donor to Cairo, has grown more critical of Mursi of late, listing a lack of political inclusivity as one of its concerns.
The IMF has stressed the need for broad support for a loan agreement seen as vital to easing Egypt’s economic crisis but which is also likely to bring with it politically-sensitive austerity measures such as tax increases and subsidy cuts. (Reuters)
Call for ‘coup d’etat’ march
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement’s leader Beppe Grillo called on Italians to join him in protest outside Parliament after President Giorgio Napolitano was elected for a second term yesterday in what Grillo called a “coup d’etat”.
Grillo, who drew hundreds of thousands to a rally in Rome before a February election in which his party of political newcomers claimed one in four votes, declared he was immediately abandoning a campaign in the north of Italy to drive 650 km to the Rome Parliament. “There are decisive moments in the history of a nation,” the former comedian wrote in a blog post titled ‘Call to Italians’. “Tonight I will be in front of Parliament. I will stay there as long as is necessary. There have to be millions of us.” (Reuters)