The United States has reached out to Islamist militias among the Syrian opposition as it seeks to reach a political solution to the civil war, a US official confirmed.
But there have been no contacts with groups such as Al-Nusra that are blacklisted by Washington as terror organizations, deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf stressed yesterday.
India on Thursday called for “peaceful” resolution of the spat over China’s new air defence zone, which is likely to adversely impact Air India flights to Japan.
Asserting that it does not support “threat as well as use of force” in the matter, India also refused to take sides.
“When you ask key people to do a dialogue, then you are on both sides,” External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said.
Dismissing allegations of irregularities in the DLF-Robert Vadra land deals, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Thursday said that his government did not favour or acquire land for anyone and the issue was being raised to malign Congress and Gandhi family.
“We have not given an inch of land to anyone. People buy land among themselves and we give (Change of Land Use) license and there are no exceptions,” Hooda said alluding to the Vadra-DFL land deals.
The Lokjanshakti Party (LJP) on Thursday supported introduction of Communal Violence Bill in Parliament and asked BJP to place its arguments in the House instead of trying to stall the presentation.
“It’s natural that the BJP will oppose it… But they should present their views in Parliament instead of opposing its presentation,” party president Ramvilas Paswan, whose party supports the UPA government from outside, said here.
Social activist Anna Hazare could not hide his displeasure Thursday over former aide Arvind Kejriwal forming the Aam Aadmi Party.
Hazare parted ways with Kejriwal last year when the latter decided to form a political party to pursue the anti-corruption movement started by the two in 2011 under the banner of India Against Corruption.
He said had the team stayed together, the picture would have been different.
“Taking the party route was not right when the movement had come to a turning point,” Hazare said at conclave organised by a news channel here.
Ahead of the Cabinet meeting to take a call on the Telangana issue, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Thursday held consultations with top party leaders here.
The meeting comes at a time when there are protests in Andhra Pradesh over the proposal to have a larger Rayal-Telangana state.
The meeting of the Congress core group, headed by Gandhi, comes ahead of the meeting of the Union Cabinet which is expected to take a decision on the Telangana issue.
The Dubai Municipality has announced that it will create five residential parks and public squares here at an estimated cost of 17 million dirhams (around $4.6 million).
“It comes as a complement to the policy of expanding green areas and in order to distribute them and provide entertainment services in a balanced manner to all areas of the emirate. The contracts have been awarded and the projects are currently in the preparation stage,” said Hussein Lootah, director general of the Dubai Municipality.
Indian-American Pulitzer prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri’s latest fiction work ‘The Lowland’ was among the nearly 20 books that US President Barack Obama bought last week during the Thanksgiving holiday for gifting as well as for his own reading.
Obama had taken his daughters Sasha and Malia to the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington as part of an annual post-Thanksgiving tradition for Small Business Saturday.
The President bought 21 books on diverse subjects, each reflecting what “Obama has already read or would like to read,” the New York Times said.
An Australian DJ involved in a royal prank call to a premier London hospital that resulted in the death of an Indian-origin nurse has settled her lawsuit with the radio network and resigned.
Southern Cross Austereo, the licensee for radio station 2Day FM, confirmed it had settled “amicably” a dispute brought by Mel Greig, one of the two DJs who made a prank call last December to the King Edward VIII hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated for acute morning sickness, The Australian reported.
World powers have assured Tehran they are “serious” about a nuclear deal clinched in Geneva and are keen to take it forward, local media today reported Iran’s top diplomat as saying.
The reports said Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had received a call from EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, chief negotiator for the so-called P5+1 powers, to stress they were committed to the deal.
A 32-year-old Indian woman has died in Australia after suffering serious burn injuries, prompting police to launch a probe into her “horrendous and horrific” death. Parwinder Kaur died on Tuesday after she suffered 85 per cent burns on her body.
Accoridng to Sydney Morning Herald, the detectives were now probing as to how she was doused in petrol and caught fire.
Her body was engulfed in flames from head to toe and she collapsed in her driveway. The report said that her neighbours saw Kaur who ran screaming and on fire from her Rouse Hill home on Monday.
A Haj pilgrim from Hyderabad passed away in the early hours of Thursday in Makkah Mukarramah, KSA.
In order to fix Electro Flow Meter on 600mm dia Inlet pipeline at Aliyabad, of Krishna Phase-I in Aliyabad Reservoir premises, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewerage Board has proposed to take 12 hours shut down on Saturday from 10 AM to 6 PM.
Therefore, there will be short and delayed water supply in the following areas: Aliyabad Reservoir areas consisting of Aliyabad, Gowlipura, Talabkatta, Maisaram, Barkas areas, Misrigunj Reservoir, Moghalpura, Sultan Shahi and Mecca Masjid area. (INN)
Nagarkurnool MLA and BJP leader Nagam Janardhan Reddy on Thursday announced that he would approach the Supreme Court against the verdict of Brijesh Kumar Tribunal on Krishna River water distribution.
Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday made it clear that the Union Cabinet has already approved Telangana and there were no plans to form Rayala Telangana.
Speaking media persons after attending the Congress Core Committee meeting here, Chidambaram described the reports in media about Rayala Telangana as false and baseless. “Where is Rayala Telangana and who said it? What we will do if the media writes stories without checking facts?” he asked.
Guntakal MLA Madhusudan Gupta on Thursday said that he would launch agitation if the Centre fails to accept the proposal fo Rayala Telangana.
Speaking to media persons at the Congress Legislature Party office here, Madhusudan said that people of Anantapur and Kurnool district would stall the Telangana formation if the Centre rejects Rayala Telangana demand. He said that the two districts need to be part of Telangana or should be merged with Karnataka to resolve the water needs.
Thousands of employees working in the State Secretariat on Thursday participated in the bandh call given by TRS against Rayala Telangana.
Indian High Commissioner Dr T C A Raghavan has said the trade turnover between Islamabad and New Delhi has improved substantially to 2.5 billion dollars, and it is expected that Pakistani exports to India will enhance to 500 million dollars.
Raghavan said that the opening of Khokhrapar-Monabao passenger train service has paved way for lots of opportunities for both countries to look forward towards the possibility of carrying out trade, the Daily Times reports.
A former headmaster in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province has been arrested for allegedly raping a minor girl student, local officials said today.
The accused, surnamed Liu, raped the student in March 2012. He had not been arrested until last week.
The local publicity office declined to explain why it took more than a year to make the arrest.
The age of the victim was not disclosed, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Liu, now in his 50s, served as headmaster of a school in Ningshan County for 10 years. He was transferred to the county’s education bureau in 2012.
Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan today said Pakistan’s relationship with the US is that of “slavery not friendship” as his party held a demonstration outside parliament here against drone strikes.
Addressing the protest, Khan accused politicians of having dual policies when it comes to the US. He said lawmakers should be honest with the people of Pakistan.
“All political parties had decided to stop NATO supplies if drone strikes did not stop. Now these parties are criticising the only party (Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf) which is doing so,” Khan said.
Researchers have been left searching for potential plasma loss mechanisms from Saturn’s magnetosphere.
In-depth observations made by the Cassini orbiter, which has been circling Saturn since 2004, have revealed fundamental differences between the behavior of Saturn’s magnetosphere and that of the Earth’s magnetosphere.
Earth’s magnetospheric plasma is largely populated by ions captured from the solar wind, whereas Saturn’s plasma comes predominantly from water vapor that spews from massive geysers on the southern end of its icy moon Enceladus.
Google’s new robotic grocery delivery service is expected to challenge Amazon’s drone project which envisages transporting goods to its customers by air.
The company has recently begun Google Shopping Express in San Francisco and San Jose, which is going to directly challenge Amazon’s Prime Air Project, the BBC reports.
According to the report, Google’s robots could be paired with its self-driving car research to help automate the delivery of goods to people’s doors.
Google said it has taken over seven robotics companies in the past half-a-year to develop its own product.
Dissemination of “wrong” information through social media to create tension in the society have worried the US Police as much as their Indian counterparts which have been witnessing riots and mass exodus due to “mis-information” being churned out through this medium.
Police chiefs of India and the US, during a two-day conference which concluded here today, discussed threadbare the problems being created due to dissemination of “wrong” information through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and online messaging portals whatsapp.
A team of researchers has revealed that the highly toxic carbon monoxide gas, which can be used to treat certain inflammatory medical conditions, may also have a role to play in treating cancer.
The study by the researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center show that in cell culture and animal models carbon monoxide (CO) can both prevent tumor growth in prostate and lung cancers and can amplify the effectiveness of chemotherapy.
A new dating site has been designed to match women who want to eat good food and the men who will pay for it.
The dating site, ‘ HiDine.com’, allows women to post their favorite restaurants and allows men to offer dates via those restaurants and cuisines and paying the bill, ABC News reported.
Kyle McGinnis, the creator of the site said that he doesn’t consider himself “old-fashioned” but admitted that he prefers to pay for the first date, and added that he doesn’t think it’s wrong for a girl to expect this kind of treatment.