World News

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.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown suffered another humiliating blow on Friday, when the Labour party lost the by-election from the Crewe and Nantwich seat, which was regarded as its bastion. Labour had never lost this seat since its creation in 1983.

The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakot bus services will now become weekly instead of the existing fortnightly affairs, India and Pakistan said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

DAYS AFTER the Jaipur blasts, India and Pakistan renewed their resolve to fight terrorism and said they would do everything it takes to wipe it out. They agreed that their anti-terror mechanism would meet before the fifth round of composite dialogue commences in July.

FROM THURSDAY, classes will resume for the Indian medical students in Chengdu who have been afraid to return to their dormitories since a strong earthquake struck Sichuan in southwest China last week.

INDIA AND Pakistan resumed peace dialogues after a six-month gap and said they were committed to their November 2003 agreement on ceasefire along the border. Both countries reiterated that violations of the accord should be dealt with at flag meetings and through security channels.

India invoked the memory and legacy of Benazir Bhutto on Tuesday to re-emphasise the need for Pakistan to combat terrorism and keep the composite dialogue process between the two countries on track.

AT 2.28 pm on Monday, 1.3 billion people united in grief, silent for three minutes to mourn an estimated 50,000 people killed in the most powerful earthquake to rock China in 32 years. Only air raid sirens and the horns of trains, automobiles and ships 'wailing in grief' shattered the silence of China's first national mourning for citizens lost to a natural disaster.

As External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee prepares to head for Islamabad, he will find the civilian government headed by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani wants to build positive relations with India.

Will it be a policy of engagement with Taliban militants in Pakistan's frontier areas or a mix of the carrot and stick? Contrary signals have been emanating from Islamabad, suggesting that the Gilani government is more than conscious of American sensitivities on the issue.

Women still commit fewer crimes than men in Britain, but they are rapidly catching up in this traditionally male dominated field as well. According to figures recently published by the Youth Justice Board (YJB), around 60,000 crimes in the country last year were committed by the female sex.

The European Police Office (Europol) in its latest report has described 'the United Kingdom (UK) as a fertile ground for recruitment of radical Islamists and focal point of Islamic terrorism across Europe' and has blamed it on Britain's controversial military campaigns overseas.

IN THE plush Defence Housing Authority cinema hall, a bag of large popcorn costs 80 Pakistani Rupees. It's not yet show time, but people are making inquiries about what films are showing.

Away from the hustle-bustle of Indian politics, terrorist attacks and the scorching Delhi weather, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh landed in the pristine Paro Valley on Friday, singing paeans to Indo-Bhutanese relations.

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi is hopeful that an effective counter-terrorism strategy will be devised during his Indian counterpart's visit to Pakistan next week. Speaking in Multan, Qureshi once again expressed grief on the Jaipur carnage and condemned the loss of lives in the serial blasts.

Bill (Clinton) was just bloody stupid, Cherie Blair felt on hearing his exploits with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval office. Writing in Speaking for Myself, Cherie says: 'In January 1998 the Monica Lewinsky scandal finally broke and my heart bled for Hillary, coming on top, as it did, of the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit.

Pakistan's fragile ruling coalition came apart on Monday, with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's party pulling out over Asif Ali Zardari's refusal to reinstate judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf.

WITHIN HOURS, the official death toll from a massive earthquake that shook China on Monday afternoon shot up from four to 107 to 'several thousands'. At the time of going to press, more than 9,000 people were feared dead in the earthquake - the worst in China in over three decades.

The chances of Pakistan's largest coalition partners, the Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) parting ways grew more pronounced on Sunday, as talks between their senior leaders failed to reach any consensus on the thorny issue of whether the judges who had been removed by President Pervez Musharraf should be reinstated or not.