Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era

WORLD

NATIONAL STATE

CAIRO -- Egypt's president declared on Sunday a 30-day state of emergency and night curfew in the three Suez Canal provinces hit hardest by the wave of violence that has left more than 50 dead in three days.

Angry and almost screaming, Mohammed Morsi vowed in a televised address that he would not hesitate to take even more action to stem the latest eruption of violence across much of the country.

The three provinces are Port Said, Ismailiya and Suez and the curfew, also for a month, is effective 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

The worst violence this weekend was in the Mediterranean coastal city of Port Said, where at least 44 people died in two days of clashes there that began on Saturday. The spark was a court conviction and death sentence for 21 defendants involved in a mass soccer riot in the city's main stadium on Feb. 1, 2012 that left 74 dead.

NEW DELHI -- An Indian news report says India has successfully tested a medium-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile fired from an underwater platform in the Bay of Bengal.

Pallava Bagla, a defense expert, said Sunday's test off the east coast was 14th in the series with a range of 435 miles. It would complete India's nuclear triad -- the capability to launch missiles from land, air and below the sea.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.

PARIS -- Thousands of people marched in the streets of Paris on Sunday to show their support for a same-sex marriage bill that lawmakers will begin to debate on Tuesday.

According to police, about 125,000 people marched. Two weeks ago, a demonstration by those opposed to the proposal drew what the police said were 340,000 people into the streets of Paris.

But during his campaign, the Socialist Francois Hollande, now president, promised to legalize gay marriage within a year of taking office in May.

BEIRUT -- Violence flared across Syria on Sunday, as government warplanes and artillery intensified attacks on rebels in the suburbs east and south of Damascus, fighting closed the highway to the southern city of Daraa and clashes continued in the strategic central province of Homs and the eastern city of Deir al-Zour, according to state media and antigovernment activists.

ROME -- Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi praised Benito Mussolini for "having done good" despite the Fascist dictator's anti-Jewish laws, sparking outrage as Europe on Sunday held Holocaust remembrances.

Berlusconi also defended Mussolini for allying himself with Hitler, saying he likely reasoned that it would be better to be on the winning side.

The media mogul, whose conservative forces are polling second in voter surveys ahead of next month's election, spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony in Milan to commemorate the Holocaust.

In 1938, before the outbreak of World War II, Mussolini's regime passed the so-called "racial laws," barring Jews from Italy's schools and many professions. When Germany's Nazi regime occupied Italy during the war, thousands from the Italian Jewish community were deported to death camps.

"It is difficult now to put oneself in the shoes of who was making decisions back then," Berlusconi said of Mussolini's support for Hitler. "Certainly the (Italian) government then, fearing that German power would turn into a general victory, preferred to be allied with Hitler's Germany rather than oppose it."

Berlusconi added that "within this alliance came the imposition of the fight against, and extermination of, the Jews. Thus, the racial laws are the worst fault of Mussolini, who, in so many other aspects, did good."

A barge carrying 80,000 gallons of oil hit a railroad bridge in Vicksburg, Miss., on Sunday, spilling light crude into the Mississippi River and closing the waterway for eight miles in each direction, the Coast Guard said. A second barge was damaged.

Investigators did not know how much had spilled, but an oily sheen was reported as far as three miles downriver of Vicksburg after the 1:12 a.m. accident, said Lt. Ryan Gomez of the Coast Guard's office in Memphis, Tenn.

It wasn't clear whether the second barge also hit the bridge or if it ran into the first barge, he said.

The bridge was found safe for trains, said Petty Officer Carlos Vega.

YONKERS, N.Y. -- New York authorities say two people have been rescued from a small plane that went down into the Hudson River off Yonkers.

Yonkers police say the small plane with only two people aboard crashed just before 5:30 p.m. Sunday. Police say the two survivors were plucked from the waters about 20 to 30 minutes after the crash and taken to Jacobi Medical Center.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said the survivors were wearing life vests when they were rescued by local authorities. Lt. Toni Scherer of Empress Ambulance Service says the two -- a man and a woman in their 30s -- were treated for hypothermia and were listed in stable condition at Jacobi.

A judge in Ohio is expected to rule this week on whether to move the trial of two high school students charged with raping a drunk and unconscious girl as classmates tweeted comments and shared pictures of the incident in Steubenville, Ohio.

The change of venue is one of three decisions facing Judge Thomas Lipps, who heard arguments Friday from attorneys representing the media, the girl's family, and the accused boys, both 16.

The defense also wants the trial's Feb. 13 start date delayed. The girl's family wants the trial closed to the press and public to protect her privacy. The media are demanding it remain open.

The incident took place on the night of Aug. 11. The 16-year-old girl and her family did not report it until Aug. 14, after pictures and videos of the incident taken by witnesses had been posted online and shared among local students. They included images of the girl naked, either unconscious or seemingly too drunk to move. The defendants have said any sexual contact was consensual.

BOISE, Idaho -- The U.S. State Department says an American pastor who has been jailed in Iran since September has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

Spokesman Darby Holladay said Sunday that the department is calling on Iran to respect Saeed Abedini's human rights and release him.

Earlier this month Iran's semi-official news agency, ISNA, quoted Abedini's attorney as saying his client stood trial in the Revolutionary Court on charges of attempting to undermine state security by creating a network of Christian churches in private homes.

The pastor, who is of Iranian origin but lives in Boise, Idaho, has rejected the charges.

PHILADELPHIA -- The civil case alleging that a Franciscan friar sexually abused students at a western Pennsylvania high school will go on despite the friar's suicide over the weekend, attorneys representing some of the accusers said Sunday.

Brother Stephen Baker, 62, was found dead of a self-inflicted knife wound at the St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday, according to Blair Township police. He had been named in recent legal settlements involving sexual abuse allegations at a Catholic high school in northeast Ohio three decades ago, and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese said it had received allegations of abuse at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

When Baker was the school's athletic trainer, 20 former students allege that he assaulted or molested students under the guise of providing therapeutic treatment or medical care for treatment of sports injuries, said Attorney Michael Parrish of Johnstown, who represents the accusers.

Parrish said Baker's death appeared to end the possibility of criminal charges, but he and attorney Richard Serbin, who said he represents about a dozen former students, said their civil cases would proceed.

From our wire services