Category: WORLD NEWS

Pakistan on Monday released Indian prisoner Hamid Nihal Ansari, who was detained by the country’s intelligence agencies in 2012 and subsequently sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by a military court in 2015 for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card. Ansari, a 33-year-old Mumbai resident, was lodged in the Peshawar Central Jail after being sentenced by the military court on December 15, 2015. His three-year jail term ended on December 15, 2018 but he was not able to leave for India as his legal documents were not ready.On Thursday, the Peshawar…

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“Yellow vest” demonstrators began gathering on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Saturday morning for a fifth weekend of protests in defiance of calls by the French government to stay home.President Emmanuel Macron, facing the biggest crisis of his presidency, announced a series of concessions on Monday to defuse the explosive “yellow vest” movement which sprang up in rural and small-town France last month.He is hoping the package of tax and minimum wage measures, coupled with a terror attack on Tuesday night in Strasbourg and bitter winter weather, will help end…

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A Russian gun-rights activist admitted Thursday that she was a secret agent for the Kremlin who tried to infiltrate conservative US political groups as Donald Trump rose to power.Maria Butina, 30, agreed to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge as part of a deal with federal prosecutors. “Guilty,” Butina said in a slight accent when asked how she wanted to plead. Dressed in a green jail uniform with her red hair pulled into a long ponytail, Butina spoke softly and mostly kept her eyes on the judge.The Butina case has provided…

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China is positioning itself to supplant America as the world’s next superpower through “economic aggression” and “relentless theft of US assets”, the Trump administration has told a powerful Congressional committee.Assistant Director of counter-intelligence Division, FBI E W “Bill” Priestap told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing on Chinese espionage activities that after the World War-II, the US and its allies created an international order that has led to greater peace, prosperity and human rights than at any other time in human history.The Chinese government has been exploiting this order while simultaneously…

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Embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May embarked on a tour of European capitals on Tuesday in a desperate bid to salvage her Brexit deal, a day after delaying a parliamentary vote on the text to avoid a crushing defeat.May had breakfast with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in The Hague before heading to Berlin for lunch with Chancellor Angela Merkel, and was then to travel on to Brussels. She is seeking “reassurances” over provisions in the EU withdrawal agreement concerning Northern Ireland, which she hopes could persuade her rebellious Conservative…

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British Prime Minister Theresa May faces a fight for her political life this week in a parliamentary vote that will decide the fate of her Brexit divorce deal.The beleaguered leader’s splintered government appears to be facing a heavy defeat in parliament on Tuesday on the draft withdrawal agreement she signed with Brussels last month.The text defining terms on which the island nation leaves its main trading partner after 46 years is the most important to face the House of Commons in years.A big loss could spark immediate challenges to May…

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US President Donald Trump on Saturday announced he was nominating Army chief of staff General Mark Milley as his next top military advisor — a new slap in the face for Pentagon chief Jim Mattis.Milley, a four-star general who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, would replace General Joseph Dunford as the military’s next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.Dunford is scheduled to retire in October 2019 at the end of his second two-year term. “I am thankful to both of these incredible men for their service to our…

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A Yemeni government official said Saturday that Huthi rebels were “not serious” on finding common ground to end the devastating war, three days into UN-brokered talks in Sweden.Nearly four years into a war that has pushed 14 million Yemenis to the brink of starvation, the Saudi-backed government of Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and Huthi rebels, linked to Riyadh’s archrival Iran, are in the rural town of Rimbo for what UN officials expect will be a week of negotiations.”Expectations stem from experience, and from experience I would say no, they are not…

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The Maharashtra government has told the Bombay High Court that it has ordered demolition of fugitive jeweller Nirav Modi’s illegal bungalow built along the beach at Alibaug in adjoining Raigad district.Government counsel advocate P B Kakade told a bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice M S Karnik on Thursday that it had served demolition notices to another 58 private properties in the area constructed in violation of the state’s rules and coastal zone norms.He made the submissions in compliance with a previous order of the bench which had…

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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has launched a new framework to combat the scourge of international terrorism and coordinate efforts across the peace and security, humanitarian, human rights and sustainable development sectors.Termed the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact, the framework is an agreement between the UN chief, 36 organizational entities, the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL) and the World Customs Organisation, to better serve the needs of Member States when it comes to tackling the scourge of international terrorism. Speaking at the first meeting of the Compact’s Coordination Committee here Thursday, Guterres…

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