World News

Stopping well short of triumphalism and choosing to introspect instead on how to build on the lessons of the past, Berlin led the world in celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in a two-and-a-half-hour spectacle that was suffused as much with a sense of history as with hope for the future.

The situation of a group of emaciated Tamil men, women and children floating on an Australian ship in Indonesian waters has raised queasy questions. They are the latest among the "boat people" ? or asylum seekers who try to cross the seas on thin boats for foreign shores ? to have triggered international headlines and headaches.

Kathmandu, Nov. 9 -- India's animal rights activist and politician Maneka Gandhi's protest and Nepal's 'Budhha Boy' Ram Bahadur Bomjan's appeal won't be able to prevent the sacrifice of nearly half-a-million animals at this month's Gadhimai Mela in this Himalayan nation.

Three days ago, rock band U2 played a free mini-concert in Berlin. On Monday, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall ? an event that led to the unification of Germany ? Berlin is dancing to the music of time.

Kathmandu, Nov. 8 -- India and Nepal reiterated their commitment not to allow their territories for cross-border terrorism.

Chairman Mao custard very like. And potato pie.? We?re talking to Liu Jian, a Chinese restaurateur who introduces himself as Kevin and is unusually fond of sandwiches. If you walk in on his grandfather Cheng Ruming (83) who spent 22 years as personal chef of Mao Zedong, the controversial founder of the Chinese Republic, you may find him fixing an unlikely lunch too ? a sandwich.

The UN has said that while the pace of Tamil refugees returning to their homes has accelerated in Sri Lanka, the condition of the temporary camps in which the remaining continue to be is deteriorating.

Beijing, Nov. 7 -- This month, China's air force will exhibit warplanes to mark its 60th anniversary.

Sunand Prasad, a distinguished architect and former director of the prestigious Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), prefers to work like any ordinary individual, allowing his work to speak for itself.

The UN has said that while the pace of Tamil refugees returning to their homes has accelerated in Sri Lanka, the condition of the temporary camps in which the remaining continue to be is deteriorating.

Beneath an autumn sky not so much grey as bleached of colour, in temperatures close to freezing, thousands of people, from the elderly and the ill to babies in strollers, gathered on Sunday at the Brandenburg Gate ? the structure that stands at the border of what used to be east and west Berlin.

Twenty-five years after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India, the US-based Sikh organisations have moved away from demonstrations to a ?justice awareness campaign?.

Relations between Fiji's military government and its biggest South Pacific neighbours Australia and New Zealand were poised to worsen on Wednesday after the island state expelled their senior diplomats.

Since Sept. 1, there have been nearly 3,000 deaths and 29,000 hospitalizations across America mostly due to the H1N1 virus, better known as the swine flu. The pandemic has been declared a national emergency, with millions of people in search of a potentially life-saving vaccine--and few able to find it.

A group of about 20 armed attackers stole 5,000 children's bicycles from a manufacturing company in Mexico City, after threatening and locking up company workers.

New York, Nov. 1 -- For director Mira Nair, making a film on a legendary aviatrix who died in 1937 is personal. Her latest film is also her most ambitious: Amelia, which releases in the US on Friday, is her first biopic, and shot across Canada and southern Africa.

Former French President Jacques Chirac will be tried for abuse of public funds in an affair dating from 1983 to 1995, when he was mayor of Paris, French media reported on Friday.

President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday held extensive talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on bilateral, regional and international issues, including the current situation in Pakistan.

It isn?t often that Queen Elizabeth invites foreign dignitaries to her residential palace, the imposing Windsor Castle. But she did it for President Pratibha Patil whose three-day state visit to the UK began on Tuesday with the boom of the 21-gun salute, the roll of drums and a spectacular display of pomp and pageantry that emphasised the growing importance Britain attaches to India.

He was across the Atlantic when ?the biggest moment? of his career happened. The 28-year-old Indian-origin Briton turned New Yorker, Jay Sean?s song Down had dethroned megaband Black Eyed Peas as the No. 1 single in America on October 7.