New Delhi (India) : Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Wednesday handed urns with former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s ashes to party presidents from across the country. The party will be organising ‘asthi kalash yatras’...
International
Moscow : Russia has sent over 63,000 troops to Syria over the course of its involvement in the conflict, the Russian defence ministry said Wednesday. A total of 63,012 Russian personnel have “received combat experience” in the war-torn country, the ministry said in a video about...
New York : Donald Trump stood accused of conspiring to commit campaign finance fraud and two of his closest aides faced jail time Tuesday, after court proceedings delivered a legal and political one-two punch to his embattled presidency.
In a drama that played out simultaneously across two US...
North Korea : Hundreds of South and North Koreans torn apart by the 1950-53 Korean War met for the first time in over six decades in a tearful, long-dreamed-of family reunion on Monday. Eighty-nine South Koreans, mostly in their 70s and older, met about 180 long-separated family members...
Tehran : Iran unveiled its first domestic fighter jet at a defence show in Tehran on Tuesday. Images on state television showed President Hassan Rouhani sitting in the cockpit of the new “Kowsar” plane at the National Defence Industry exhibition. It is a fourth-generation fighter...
Seoul (Yonhap) : Defense Minister Song Young-moo said Tuesday that Seoul will withdraw about 10 border guard posts on a trial basis, in line with the April inter-Korean summit agreement to transform the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) into a “peace zone.”
Song did not give a specific timeline...
Istanbul : A German journalist and translator who is on trial in Turkey on terror-related charges said Monday that Turkish authorities had lifted her overseas travel ban. “The reports about the lifting of my exit ban are correct,” Mesale Tolu wrote on Twitter. “I would like to...
Yangon : A Myanmar judge said Monday he would deliver a verdict next week in the trial of two Reuters reporters accused of leaking state secrets, a case which has sparked an international outcry over declining press freedom. Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, could be jailed for up to 14 years if...
Geneva : Former UN chief and Nobel peace laureate Kofi Annan died Saturday at the age of 80, his foundation announced, prompting a barrage of grief-stricken tributes from around the world. The Ghanaian national, who lived in Switzerland, was a career diplomat who projected quiet charisma and was...
Beijing : Two Chinese academics have proposed a controversial idea to encourage childbirth as their country faces an ageing population: Make people with no or fewer than two children pay into a “maternity fund”. The suggestion sparked a furious social media debate in a country whose...
