1. U.S. vote

Newt Gingrich swept to victory in the South Carolina primary on January 21, riding two strong debate performances to overtake Mitt Romney in the final days of campaigning and disrupt Romney’s inexorable* march to the Republican nomination for U.S. president.

The former House speaker did it by capturing a plurality of voters in crucial blocs of the modern Republican coalition, with more than half those casting ballots making up their minds in the last few days.

2. Australian PM surrounded

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition head Tony Abbott were rushed out of a Canberra restaurant last Thursday after being surrounded by protesters.

As the approximately 200 demonstrators banged on windows to protest Aboriginal* rights, Gillard tripped and lost a shoe as a security detail* hustled her and Abbott to a waiting car, Sky News reported.

3. Peru fire kills 27

A fire swept through a two-story private rehabilitation* center for addicts in a poor part of Peru’s capital on Saturday, killing 27 people and critically injuring five as firefighters punched holes through walls to rescue residents locked inside.

The “Christ Is Love” center for drug and alcohol addicts was unlicensed and overcrowded and its residents were apparently kept inside “like prisoners,” Health Minister Alberto Tejada said.

4. Yemeni chief arrives in U.S.

Barely clinging to power, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived in the United States on Saturday, apparently to treat burns and other wounds suffered in an assassination attempt in June.

U.S. and Yemeni officials confirmed his arrival for a private, short-term medical visit but withheld* details. An aide said he was headed to New York but his whereabouts could not be confirmed.

5. Four shot dead in Thailand

Thailand paramilitaries* shot dead four people including an elderly man and a teenager in the kingdom’s violence-torn far south because they feared they were under attack, police said on Monday.

The victims were male Muslim relatives returning from a funeral in a truck, the driver of the vehicle told police in Pattani, one of three southernmost provinces plagued by a long-running insurgency*.

6. Japan nuclear plant leakage

Japan’s stricken nuclear power plant has leaked more than 600 liters of water, forcing it to briefly suspend cooling operations at a spent-fuel pond at the weekend, but none is thought to have escaped into the ocean, the plant’s operator and domestic media said.

The Fukushima plant, on the coast north of Tokyo, was wrecked by a huge earthquake and tsunami in March last year, triggering the evacuation of around 80,000 people in the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.

7. Florida highway pileup

A long line of cars and trucks collided one after another early Sunday on a dark Florida highway so shrouded in haze and smoke that drivers were instantly blinded. At least 10 people were killed.

When rescuers first arrived, they could only listen for screams and moans* because the poor visibility made it difficult to find victims in wreckage that was strewn* for nearly a mile, police said.

(SD-Agencies)