Syria’s main opposition group in exile Thursday refused to participate in the Geneva peace talks, aimed at drawing up a blueprint of a political solution to the ongoing Syrian crisis, Xinhua reported.
On Wednesday, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) had declared it would participate in the Geneva talks only if there was a time-frame to adopt an international agreement whicht would lead to the ouster of Al-Assad.
Defence Minster A.K. Antony will be making a three-nation official visit to Singapore, Australia, and Thailand from June 3 to 6.
In Singapore, Antony will be meeting his counterpart Dr. Ng Eng Hen. Dr. Ng had visited India in November last year. The two Defence Minister will be meeting on Monday next and are expected to discuss various bilateral co-operation issues as well as issues concerning the regional global security situations.
The free medical camp in Maoist infested area of Odisha”s Malkangiri district provided respite to the locals and the tribals as the doctors treated them for various ailments. Musan Nayak, a local said, “Those who have money can go to the district headquarter of Malkangiri. We are poor farmers only. This camp is helping people like us, who don”t have money. The farmers are, moreover, not educated and they do not take the patients to the doctors.
Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde today condemned last Saturday”s Maoist attack on the Congress leaders, and said that this was brutal, barbaric and inhuman in nature. “This is an attack on our democracy. I had led the delegation to U.S at the invitation of homeland security from 19 to 23 and from 23 the delegation came back to Mumbai. I had attained prior permission to step beyond 23, because I had a discussion with Dr. Bresler who is internationally famous for eye treatment and he had given me an appointment on 28th,” said Shinde. “Till 27 he was in Malaysia so he checked me on 27th.
A 75-year-old womanwas left stunned after finding an essay she wrote as a schoolgirl tucked inside a Bible she bought at a secondhand store, more than 2,000 miles away from where she grew up .
San Clemente resident, Marion Shurtleff, noticed some folded sheets of yellowed paper tucked into its pages but did not pay attention to them for two months, the Huffington Post reported.
The cancer survivor told CBS News that when she opened it, she instantly saw her name and then noticed that even the handwriting was hers.
Actor Emraan Hashmi, who is known as serial kisser in Bollywood, has decided that he will not talk about the kissing scene in “Ghanchakkar” as Vidya’s husband Siddarth Roy Kapur is the head of UTV which is producing the film.
“I have promised myself that for this film I will not answer this question. Siddarth, Vidya’s husband, is the head of this production house. If I want to do more films with them, then let’s not talk about it,” Emraan told reporters at the promotional event of “Ghanchakkar” here Thursday.
Pakistan and the US Thursday reaffirmed their desire to work closely for consolidation of bilateral relations and partnership in all spheres of cooperation including peace and stability in the region, the Pakistani foreign ministry said.
US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan James F. Dobbins called on Pakistani Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani in Islamabad and discussed bilateral relations and the regional situation including latest developments in Afghanistan, Xinhua cited the ministry as saying.
The Planning Commission Thursday approved a plan size of Rs.53,000 crore for Andhra Pradesh for the year 2012-13, an increase of about nine percent over the previous fiscal.
The plan was finalised at a meeting between Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy in Delhi.
In a major boost to bilateral security cooperation, India and Thailand on Thursday signed the much awaited extradition treaty after 20 years of negotiations. The MoU was signed by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and Thai Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul. The treaty was signed in the presence of Prime Minister Manmoahn Singh and his Thai counterpart Yingluck Shinawatra.
The treaty provides the legal framework for seeking extradition of fugitive offenders, including those involved in terrorism, transnational crimes and economic offences among others.
Terrorists currently fighting in Syria may sneak into Russia disguised as migrants to unfold sabotage, Russia’s Federal Security Service (or FSB) said Thursday.
“We expect that amidst armed conflict in Syria the armed fighters and terrorists could infiltrate into our country inside the illegal immigrants flows,” Xinhua quoted Alexander Roshchupkin, head of the FSB’s counter-intelligence analytical department, as saying.
Roshchupkin was speaking at a hearing in the Federation Council or upper house of parliament.
He said the FSB was monitoring the security threat.
An Islamic rights group in the US said Thursday it was calling for an official investigation into the shooting death of a 27-year-old man being questioned by the FBI about his ties to a suspect in the Boston Marathon bomb attack, amid media reports that the victim was unarmed.
“The bottom line is you have an unarmed individual who was not convicted or even charged with a crime who was interrogated and then was shot and killed,” Hassan Shibly, director of the Tampa branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told RIA Novosti.
In a setback to ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh, senior party leader and former MP K Keshava Rao and two sitting parliamentarians Thursday decided to join TRS which is spearheading the movement for separate Telangana statehood.
“They (the three leaders) had lost hope in the Congress that it would grant a separate Telangana state. They would formally join the party on June 2,” K T Rama Rao, son of Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K Chandrasekhar Rao told reporters.
A woman was killed and three others were injured in a massive fire in a gym here Thursday evening, police said.
The incident took place in the busy Ramgopalpet area of Secunderabad, the twin city of Hyderabad.
According to eye-witnesses a woman died on the spot after she jumped from the second floor to escape from the leaping flames. Three others injured in the mishap were shifted to nearby KIMS Hospital.
The fire broke out in a gym in Prem Market Bhavan, a three-storey building. The flames engulfed the building before the fire tenders could rush to the scene and douse it.
With his own party having expressed reservations over his extended stay in the US following the Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde Thursday said he was consulting an eye doctor.
Shinde told reporters here that he had an appointment with an eye specialist May 28 and he returned to the country soon after. Shinde said he had received permission to stay in the US till May 29.
The minister said that the ophthalmologist gave him appointment for May 28 as he was away to Malaysia.
The UK’S interests in Gujarat were best served by engaging with the elected leadership there, the British High Commissioner to India James Bevan here said on Thursday while clarifying his country’s decision to end a decade-long boycott of Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
A Delhi court Thursday questioned police about the role of cricket batsmen in the IPL spot fixing case and asked “if the bowler was fixed, what was the batsman doing?”
“If the bowler was fixed, what was the batsman doing? How come the bowler was giving 13 runs and batsman also made that many runs? What if he could not make that many runs?” asked Additional Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Khanna, saying he wanted to know the Delhi Police were probing the role of any batsman in the case.
The Pakistani Taliban will avenge the killing of the outfit’s No.2 leader, who was slain in a drone strike Wednesday, a Taliban spokesman told CNN Thursday.
Spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said the outfit holds the Pakistani government responsible for the death of Wali-Ur Rehman Mehsud.
Rehman was one of seven people killed when a drone struck a target near Miranshah town, in North Waziristan, officials said.
The Pakistani Taliban will not accept any offer from the government for a peace dialogue, Ehsan said.
Rehman has now been buried in a secret location, Ehsan said.
Petrol prices may be hiked by up to Re 1 a litre this week as the rupee hit a 10-month low making oil imports costlier.
As per the practice of revising rates every fortnight, petrol price revision is due tomorrow and if oil ministry approves the increased prices will come into effect from June 1, sources privy to the development said.
While international oil prices have softened, the rupee has depreciated against the US currency to Rs 56.38/39 per dollar, about Rs 2 lower than the rate at the last revision in March.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi Thursday said that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was right in accusing the AGP of having links with the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).
“What Rahul Gandhi had said is 100 percent true. The AGP had links with the ULFA, and everybody knows that. They (AGP) are actually the cousins of ULFA,” Gogoi told a press conference here.
Asked for evidence to prove the link, Gogoi said: “I have evidence to prove the allegations but I am not bound to disclose it now.”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday termed his re-election to the Rajya Sabha for a fifth term from Assam as an honour and pledged to develop the northeastern state further.
“It is a great honour for me that the people of Assam, through their elected representatives in the state’s legislative assembly, have given me an opportunity to serve them again,” said the prime minister, who is in Thailand, in a statement issued here.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy Thursday said the Congress party or the government would not yield to deadlines on Telangana issue and appealed to party leaders from the region to wait for the leadership’s decision.
He was reacting to the decision of two Congress MPs from Telangana and a senior leader to join Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).
Two threatening letters sent last week to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg contained the poison ricin, the city’s police department announced Wednesday.
One of the letters was received last Friday at a New York municipal office and the other arrived at an office in Washington that houses the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an advocacy group Bloomberg founded to push for stricter gun control laws.
Bloomberg never came in contact with the letters.
The transient accused of brutally attacking an 81-year-old Sikh man outside a gurdwara in the US May 5 has pleaded not guilty of attempted murder and elderly abuse.
Gilbert Garcia, 29, was arrested for brutally attacking Piara Singh with a steel rod outside the Nanaksar Sikh gurdwara on South Cherry Avenue, southwest Fresno, in central California around 7 a.m. May 5.
The accused appeared before the Fresno County Superior Court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the charges, which the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office described as a hate crime, the Fresno Bee reported.
Supermodel Kate Upton was reportedly shocked to see old photos of herself modelling in the Victoria’s Secret catalogue, especially after officials of the lingerie brand had claimed they would “never” use them.
The 20-year-old was shocked to discover old images of her posing in the brand’s black Body bra gracing the pages of the lingerie brand’s new catalogue without her permission.
“The pictures are from 2011. Kate’s not currently contracted to work with Victoria’s Secret, and they didn’t contact her before they used these images,” contactmusic.com quoted a source as saying.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa Thursday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to guarantee that the difference between the market price of sugar and its sale price through public distribution system (PDS) would be borne by the centre as a subsidy beyond 2014-15.
Alternatively, she asked the prime minister to reconsider the central government’s decision to withdraw the levy sugar obligation on sugar mills and continue with the current system.