United States

School shooter kills self

A student opened fire in a school in Colorado in the United States, wounding two students before killing himself. The shooter entered Arapahoe High School, Centennial, with a shotgun on Friday - the day before the anniversary of the Newtown school massacre - and asked other students the whereabouts of a staff member, local authorities said. One 15-year-old student was shot when confronting the shooter and was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. A school janitor told a local news station that he saw a student dressed in tactical gear running through the school. He called for help and took the threatened teacher to his truck. Police arrived at the scene shortly after and began a search of the school. Within 20 minutes they found the suspect dead.

Kerry positive on talks

US Secretary of State John Kerry reassured media on Saturday that peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians were on course to wrap up a full deal by April. Speaking at the end of his second visit to the region in just a week, Kerry said the two sides were discussing a framework for a final-status accord to resolve the core issues at the heart of the decades-old conflict. "Both parties remain committed to fulfilling their obligations to stay at the table and negotiate hard during the nine-month period that we set for that," Kerry told reporters after separate talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders. Kerry wants the two camps to accept a "framework accord" that will touch on all the main issues, such as security, the future of Jerusalem and the fate of refugees, and serve as a broad outline for the final deal.

Iraq

Gunmen kill 18 at pipeline

Masked gunmen killed 18 people, most of them Iranians, working on a gas pipeline outside the northeastern Iraqi town of Muqdadiya on Friday, witnesses and officials said. One worker wounded in the assault said the attackers sped up in three cars as he and his colleagues were digging a trench to extend the line. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on the workers, 15 of whom are from the Shi'ite Muslim power Iran. Iran signed a deal in July to build a pipeline and import gas into Iraq to fuel power plants in Baghdad and Diyala province, where the attack took place. Officials said the workers were employed by an Iranian oil and gas company but did not give its name. The three other people killed were Iraqis, and eight workers were wounded, medical and local officials said.

Congo

Peacekeepers find cache

UN peacekeepers last week found an arsenal of weapons, including high-caliber arms and a year's worth of ammunition, at the site of the last stand by M23 rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said on Saturday. Congolese troops and the UN peacekeeping mission last month defeated M23, which signed a peace deal with the government on Dec 12. The Tutsi-led M23 rebel group ended its 20-month rebellion after Congolese soldiers and UN peacekeepers, known as MONUSCO, captured its last hilltop strongholds in Chanzu, near the Rwandan border.

Japan

Tokyo hit by 5.5 quake

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.5 shook eastern Japan, including Tokyo, on Saturday morning, but there were no immediate reports of damage. The earthquake was centered in a southwestern swathe of Ibaraki prefecture, just northeast of Tokyo. Tokyo Electric Power Co, operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, said there was no apparent impact from the quake. The Tohoku Shinkansen bullet trains connecting Tokyo with northern Japan were briefly suspended, while Tokyo's two international airports were operating normally, public broadcaster NHK said.

Middle East

Snow and cold hit region

A powerful winter storm left Jerusalem covered in snow on Friday, forcing police to block access to and from the city as a cold snap drove some Israelis to seek treatment from emergency medics. Rare snow also fell in Cairo's suburbs and the port city of Alexandria. In Syria's contested northern city of Aleppo, soldiers and rebels took a break from fighting as a thick layer of snow blanketed deserted streets, cars and buildings, and temperatures hovered around 0 C. The weather also delayed for the second day an airlift of urgently needed food aid from Erbil, Iraq, to Qamishli in northeastern Syria for displaced families, according to the United Nations' food agency.

Reuters

Soldiers run for deer life Two soldiers from the Chinese People's Forest Armed Police Force in Gansu province save a sika deer on their way to forest fire-prevention exercises. The 7-month-old animal got trapped in the freezing river by riverbed stones. The sika deer is a first-grade state-protected species in China. Photo by Zhao Erqiang / Xinhua

(China Daily 12/15/2013 page2)