NEW DELHI

Police: Five men confess to raping Swiss tourist

Five men have been arrested and have confessed to raping a Swiss woman who was attacked in central India while on a cycling vacation with her husband, police said.

Two other suspects are being sought, said D.K. Arya, a senior police officer. The five men arrested in Datia on Sunday are from villages near where the attack occurred Friday night as the Swiss couple camped in a forest in Datia district of Madhya Pradesh state.

The couple told police that the woman had been raped by seven or eight men, but that it was dark and they could not be sure of the exact number, Arya said. They said the husband also was attacked by the men.

The woman, 39, was treated Saturday at a hospital in the nearby city of Gwalior and was released later that day, police said.

BEIJING

Chinese leadership focuses on frugality, transparency

China’s new leaders struck a populist tone Sunday as they got down to the painstaking work of governing, promising cleaner government, less red tape and more fairness to enlarge a still small middle class and help struggling private businesses.

In appearances that mark the completion of a months-long, orchestrated leadership transition, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang stressed the urgency of reining in runaway official corruption to restore the Communist Party’s frayed public credibility.

Li made specific pledges to slash official perks and government extravagance to free up money for social welfare programs at a time of slower economic growth.

He said a ban will be put on building new government offices, government payrolls will be reduced, as will spending on banquets, travel and cars — behavior that has fueled public anger and protests.

Li did not mention calls from experts to introduce public disclosure of official assets nor media reports about the huge wealth amassed by the family members of many in the communist elite.

CAIRO

Vigilantes hang two thieves by their feet; both men die

Egyptian vigilantes beat two men accused of stealing a motorized rickshaw Sunday and then hung them by their feet while some in a watching crowd chanted, “Kill them!” Both men died, security officials said.

The killings come a week after the attorney general’s office encouraged civilians to arrest lawbreakers and hand them over to police.

It was one of the most extreme cases of vigilantism in two years of sharply deteriorating security after the 2011 uprising. Gruesome photos circulated quickly on Facebook and other social media outlets.

The killings were in Samanod, about 55 miles north of Cairo.

Mamdouh al-Muneer, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood group in the Gharbiya governorate, said that the lynchings followed a spate of rapes in the area. “Unfortunately, the police are completely out of the picture in Gharbiya,” he said.

The Brotherhood is the country’s dominant political group.

SAINT-JEROME, Quebec

Inmates use rope, helicopter to make daylight jailbreak

Two Quebec inmates climbed up a rope into a hovering helicopter to make a daring daylight escape Sunday from a jail northwest of Montreal, authorities said.

Quebec provincial police said later that they had arrested three people about 30 miles north of the Saint-Jerome jail from which the inmates escaped. One of those arrested was inmate Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau.

Authorities late Sunday located the second inmate and said a security perimeter had been set up around the area where Danny Provencal was found.

Earlier Sunday, police received a call from the staff at the Saint-Jerome jail, reporting the escape around 2:20 p.m., said Quebec provincial police Sgt. Benoit Richard.

The jail’s warden told police that Hudon-Barbeau, 36, and Provencal, 33, had grabbed a rope dropped from the helicopter to make their getaway, Richard said. 

— From news service reports