LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY

“For decades the Assad regime was talking about the Palestinians’ rights. But Bashar al-Assad has killed more of us today than Israel did in its latest war on Gaza.”

Abu Ammar, a Palestinian refugee who lives with his family in a Syrian camp that was bombed by President Bashar Assad’s government Article, this page

Typhoon Bopha’s toll rises to 1,020

MANILA, Philippines - The death toll from a typhoon that devastated mountainous and coastal towns in the southern Philippines with ferocious winds and flash floods this month has risen to more than 1,000.

Benito Ramos, who heads the government’s main disaster-response agency, said Sunday that previously unreported deaths have brought the toll wrought by Typhoon Bopha to 1,020. A search for 844 other people, including hundreds of fishermen and villagers who disappeared in flood-swept mountainside towns, is to continue through the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

Ramos said army troops, police and government personnel have canceled Christmas celebrations to help survivors deal with losses and search for missing loved ones, especially in the worst-hit provinces of Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley, where international aid groups have descended.

Health workers protest in Madrid

MADRID - Several thousand Spanish public health workers and other people marched from four main hospitals in Madrid to converge on a main square in the capital Sunday, protesting the regional government’s plans to restructure and partially privatize the sector.

The marches, described as a “white tide” because of the color of the medical scrubs many were wearing, finally met midafternoon in Puerta del Sol.

Doctors, nurses and public health users - grouped into four columns -marched from leading hospitals located in the north, south, east and west of the capital.

Today, the region’s health councilor will meet with a committee responsible for coordinating professional services and union representatives to try to agree on how to achieve $697 million in savings.

Madrid’s government, under regional President Ignacio Gonzalez, maintains cuts and sell offs are needed to secure health services during a deep recession.

Conservatives grab Japan’s reins again

TOKYO - The conservative party that dominated postwar Japan is back in power after a three-year absence, in a landslide election victory Sunday that will result in hawkish Shinzo Abe returning as prime minister.

Abe, 58, who served in the post once before, is likely to pursue a tougher stance toward China and prevent the nation from abandoning nuclear energy.

The conservative Liberal Democratic Party was projected by NHK Television to win 291 of 480 seats in Japan’s lower house, while its ally, the New Komeito Party, had 30. That would give them the two-thirds majority needed to overrule the upper house, perhaps breaking deadlocks that have long stymied Japanese governments.

The Liberal Democrats held a near-monopoly on power in Japan from 1955 to 2009, when they were beaten by the Democratic Party of Japan. This time, the Democratic Party was projected to win only 56 seats.

Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda resigned as head of the party Sunday night, hours after the polls closed, conceding the election results were a “disappointment.”

Front Section, Pages 7 on 12/17/2012