World News

Nepal's octogenarian Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala announced his resignation at the meeting of the Constituent Assembly (CA) on Thursday afternoon, clearing the decks for the formation of new government.

ON A plane, the safest place to sit is an aisle seat close to the emergency exit row, according to an exhaustive study carried out in the UK. The study, which took into account 105 accidents and tales of 2,000 survivors, found that the safest seats were in the emergency exit row and the row in front or behind it.

Foreign tourists can once again visit Tibet, the region Beijing closed in March after battling the worst unrest against Chinese rule in 20 years. The ban was lifted on Wednesday, soon before Beijing will host approximately half a million visitors and athletes from across the world for the summer Olympics in August.

LESS THAN 50 days before the Olympics open in Beijing, China's one lakh strong anti-terror force of commandos and police is on high alert. China has said that terrorism will be the biggest threat to the Olympics, and it has mobilised masses of ordinary citizens, the elderly and collegians to be out on the streets from August 8-24 to report suspicious behaviour.

Primark, the UK clothing chain which could soon surpass Marks and Spencer in garment sales - fired three Indian suppliers - sending 20,000 garments a year - from the Tirupur region of Tamil Nadu because they used child labour.

A suspected LTTE suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up in front of a heavily guarded police complex in the strategically located Vavuniya town about 250km north of Colombo on Monday morning, killing 12 police personnel and injuring more than 20.

Nepal's Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala on Sunday afternoon hoisted the national flag at Narayanhity Palace and declared the majestic castle as a national museum.

Two NRIs - Rajinder Loomba and Surina Narula - figure in the Queen's birthday honours list for 2008. Well-known philanthropist and head of the charity trust to support the education of the children of poor Indian widows, Raj (Rajinder) Loomba, has been honoured with the CBE (Commander of the British Empire).

Tory Councillor Lucy Ivimy of the Hammersmith and Fulham council in west London has sparked a racism row by accusing immigrants, particularly Indians, of showing a 'total disregard for cleanliness of a public area.' She said that the council estate was being blighted by rubbish thrown from flats.

BOTH INDIA and China need to be 'patient and realistic' in resolving their differences, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said at the Peking University on Friday.

HE WAS a god-fearing man who would hold pujas at his office every Diwali. Normally his prayers would be answered. On Friday, they weren't. Virendra Rastogi, 40, once listed as among the richest in Britain and lauded as a successful young entrepreneur, got a nine-and-a-half year jail term for one of the biggest and longest-running frauds in banking history.

A DAY before External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's four-day visit to China, Beijing said it sought to 'build up trust' and discuss a 'fair, reasonable and acceptable' solution to its boundary dispute with India.

AFTER deciding to turn Narayanhity palace into a museum, Nepal's Maoists on Sunday opened another 240-year-old Shah dynasty palace in Gorkha district to the public. Once the address of the Shah dynasty, the historic Gorkha palace was opened to the public with Maoist chief Prachanda unveiling a signboard with 'Federal Democratic Republic Nepal' written on it.

Nepal's Constituent Assembly was all set on Wednesday night to declare the country a secular, federal democratic republic, and bring to an end the 240-year-old institution of monarchy in the Himalayan nation.

AS Nepal's monarchy draws near to an end, political parties on Tuesday decided to have a ceremonial president and an executive prime minister. After three days of intense closed-door negotiations, leaders of the three largest parties in the Constituent Assembly - the Maoists, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) - agreed to the proposal after Nepal is declared a republic.

Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung's six-day visit to China is being seen a groundbreaking step towards the thawing of relations between China and its island neighbour. His televised arrival ceremony in Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, on Monday, marked a rare break in China's coverage of the Sichuan earthquake on May 12, which killed over 65,000 people.

A powerful bomb ripped through a packed passenger train on the outskirts of Colombo on Monday evening, killing seven civilians and injuring more than seventy.

As Nepal is set to create political history on Tuesday with the swearing-in ceremony of the new members of the Constituent Assembly, two minor explosions in the capital have created a sense of insecurity.

Nepal's Maoists on Sunday made it clear that they would not accept Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala as head of the state. Senior Maoist leader Ram Bahadur Thapa said the Maoists would lead the next government as per the people's mandate and would thwart any attempt by other political forces to block them.

A senior journalist with a leading English daily was picked up by unidentified people late on Thursday night and beaten up severely before being released early on Friday.