LIMA, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Peru's Consumer Price Index (CPI) at the national level saw a 0.30 percent increase in December, closing the January-December 2023 period with an inflation rate of 3.41 percent, the National Institute of Statistics and Information (INEI) reported Monday.

The report said that the CPI increase registered in December at the national level was due to increases above the national average in the transport divisions by 1.10 percent, food and non-alcoholic beverages by 0.38 percent, and tobacco by 0.36 percent.

JERUSALEM, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Only 15% of Israelis want Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stay in office after the war on Hamas in Gaza ends, though many more still support his strategy of crushing the militants in the Palestinian enclave, according to a poll published on Tuesday.

Netanyahu promised to crush Hamas after its Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 abducted to Gaza. Israeli forces have laid much of Gaza to waste in their nearly three-month retalitory offensive.

WASHINGTON, January 2. /TASS/: The Israeli leadership rejected a new proposal from the radical Palestinian movement Hamas for a deal involving the release of hostages, the Axios portal reported citing sources.

According to them, on Sunday, Hamas through Qatari and Egyptian mediators gave Israel a new proposal for a deal that would involve the release of the hostages in three phases.

ROME, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors on Tuesday placed a lawmaker from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's party under investigation after a bystander was injured by a shot fired from his gun at a New Year's celebration.

Emanuele Pozzolo, who is a member of Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, said the small revolver from which the bullet came belonged to him but has denied discharging the weapon himself.

Jan 1 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces are suffering heavy losses and the notion that Moscow is winning the nearly two-year-old war is only a "feeling" not based on reality.

"Thousands, thousands of killed Russian soldiers, nobody even took them away," he told The Economist magazine in an interview published on Monday, referring to fighting around the besieged eastern town of Avdiivka which he visited last week.

WAJIMA, Japan, Jan 2 (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake that hit Japan on New Year's Day killed at least 55 people, with rescue teams struggling in freezing temperatures on Tuesday to reach coastal areas where many are feared trapped under possibly thousands of destroyed homes.

In Suzu, a town of just over 5,000 households near the quake's epicentre, 90% of houses may have been destroyed, according to its mayor Masuhiro Izumiya.

"The situation is catastrophic," he said.

MOSCOW, January 3. /TASS/: Russian air defense forces shot down two Ukrainian Tochka-U missiles and seven Olkha MLRS projectiles over the borderline Belgorod Region, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported.

TEHRAN, Jan 2 (NNN-IRNA) – Iran said yesterday, it would reserve the right to respond to the recent assassination of a veteran Iranian commander in Syria “at the appropriate place and time.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, at a weekly press conference in the capital Tehran, condemned Israel for attacking a commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), who was in Damascus to fight terrorism, at the request of the Syrian government.

PARIS, Jan 2 (Reuters) - A team of forensic experts from planemaker Airbus (AIR.PA) and French state agency BAE will arrive in Japan on Wednesday to help authorities investigate the deadly accident involving a A350 plane at Tokyo's Haneda airport, they said on Tuesday.

"4 @BEA_Aero investigators will be on site tomorrow joined by 5 @Airbus technical advisors," the BEA agency said in a post on social media platform X.

MOSCOW, January 2. /TASS/: Russia is closely watching the situation in the wake of an explosion on Roosevelt Island in New York City, Russian Consul General in New York Alexander Zakharov said in a comment for Rossiya-24 television.

"So far, there has been no [information] about any injuries, moreover among Russians, from among students of a university located on that island. We will watch the situation closely," he said.

Calls were received for reports of "a building shaking and explosion" at 5:54 a.m. local time (10:54 a.m. GMT) on Tuesday.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish authorities have detained 33 people suspected of spying for Israel, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported on Tuesday.

Authorities were still searching for 13 others believed to have links to Israel’s Mossad security service, the Anadolu Agency reported.

The suspects were detained in raids in Istanbul and seven other provinces for allegedly planning to carry out activities that included “reconnaissance” and “pursuing, assaulting and kidnapping” foreign nationals living in Turkey, the agency reported.

JAKARTA, Jan 2 (NNN-ANTARA) – An earthquake, with a magnitude of 5.1, struck off East Nusa Tenggara province, in central Indonesia today, the country’s meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency said.

The earthquake rocked at 11:46 a.m. local time (0446 GMT), with the epicentre situated 16 km south-west of Kupang regency, and a depth of 37 km, the agency said.

No tsunami warning has been issued by the agency, as the quake would not trigger giant waves.