Asian Lite News Archive

Category: World News

  • Nepal avalanche toll reaches 39

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    At least 39 climbers died while hiking on a key Nepali route after it was hit by a major snowstorm and avalanches earlier this week, BBC reported Saturday citing officials. Over 350 stranded people have been rescued from the area. Nepalese, Indian, Israeli, Canadian, Slovak and Polish trekkers are among the dead. Meanwhile, rescuers have…

  • Cameron appeals for support to fight Ebola

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    After the UN chief berated the nations over their cold response to contain Ebola, British Prime Minister David Cameron has called on world leaders to “wake up” to the crisis posed by the disease’s outbreak, and follow Britain, the US, and France to medically and financially support countries in West Africa . UN Secretary General…

  • Pistorious’ lawyer says he’s broke

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    Oscar Pistorius’s chief defence lawyer said the paralympic athlete has “lost everything” since killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp but the prosecution said he deserved at least 10 years behind bars. On the fifth day of the sentencing hearing, defence lawyer Barry Roux said Pistorius had “not earned a penny” since fatally shooting Miss Steenkamp, lost…

  • Now a musical tribute to Malala

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    World premiere of choral work inspired by Malala in London on 28th October Malala: A Child of Our Time – Tuesday 28 October 2014, 7.30pm | Barbican, London              Now a musical tribute to Malala   A new choral work inspired by Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the…

  • Putin to meet Ukraine’s president

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    Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko  to discuss the eastern Ukraine crisis. The dialogue will be held on the sidelines of the ongoing Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Milan, BBC reported. British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister…

  • 200,000 dead in Syria civil war: UN

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    More than 200,000 people have died in Syria’s civil war since it started in March 2011, said new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein. He said new statistics would be published shortly on the number of victims in the Syrian conflict and predicted that the updated death toll “will be well over…

  • Obama seeks greater commitment to fight Ebola

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     US President Barack Obama has urged European leaders to make a greater commitment in the global fight against Ebola during a video conference with the leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Britain. The impact of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa was tragic but it also constituted a threat to international security, said the president,…

  • India Bans Cosmetics Tested on Animals

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    Groundbreaking Move Will Save Countless Lives and Send Worldwide Message That Cruel Cosmetics Aren’t Welcome in India After intensive efforts by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi and others, the Indian Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has made an announcement that will save millions of animals from…

  • UN volunteer dies of Ebola in Liberia

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    The UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) said Wednesday that a volunteer who worked in UNMIL Medical passed away in hospital after testing positive for Ebola Oct 6. This is the second death in the mission due to Ebola, according to a statement reaching Xinhua from UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative Karin Landgren. The statement did not…

  • NATO violate Pakistani airspace

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    NATO gunship helicopters violated Pakistani airspace by entering territory near its border with Afghanistan, media reported Wednesday. According to officials, at least five helicopters were seen flying near the border and two of them entered Pakistani territory in Torkham and Pasidkhel, Dawn online reported. The helicopters remained in Pakistani airspace for 10 minutes and returned…

  • Tony Blair for Global Lessons in Religious Respect

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    The last few weeks have seen a significant shift in the global response to events in Iraq and Syria. Led by the US, more than 40 countries are now joined in fighting the scourge of ISIS. This is a sensible decision, but it is not enough. Because the issue is larger than terror groups like…

  • Six months since 200 Nigerian girls were kidnapped

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    Six months after 10 trucks with 50 armed terrorists on board broke into a village in northeastern Nigeria to kidnap more than 200 girls, time and the inefficacy of the Nigerian Army threaten to plunge the incident into oblivion. The abductions occurred at Chibok village in the state of Borno, the worst-hit by Boko Haram…

  • Zuckerberg donates $25 mn to fight Ebola

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    Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced on that social networking site that he and his wife, Priscilla, have donated $25 million to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention for the fight against the Ebola virus disease. “We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn’t spread further and…

  • Obama talks long-term campaign against ISIS

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      US President Barack Obama warned that there would be periodic setbacks in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) and said it is a long-term campaign. “This is going to be a long-term campaign; there are no quick fixes involved,” Obama said after a meeting with coalition military leaders at Joint Base Andrews in…

  • Richard Flanagan wins Man Booker

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    The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan won the 2014 Man Booker prize. Taking its title from a book by the haiku poet Basho, Flanagan’s novel is a love story set against the construction of the Thailand-Burma Death Railway in World War Two. In a Japanese POW camp, surgeon Dorrigo Evans is…

  • Tackle the twin digital divides

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    At UN, India calls for action on twin digital divides …reports Arul Louis  India has called on the international community to tackle the twin digital divides — that between developed and developing nations and that between men and women in developing countries. While “growth of information and communications technologies (ICT) over the past decade has exceeded…

  • Saeed Naqvi on UK air strikes

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    Ankara, Baghdad and Riyadh ask: Are US air strikes working? …asks Saeed Naqvi  The ISIS, plaguing many countries in West Asia, made a symbolic assertion during Haj too. At the ritual stoning of the devil at Mina, five kilometres to the East of Mecca, fluttered a black banner of the Islamic State (IS). The police said…

  • SPECIAL REPORT: Pratchett’s Discworld novels

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    Vikas Datta looks into Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels  No tyranny – be it a repressive regime or of outmoded customs and entrenched attitudes – can withstand the subversive sound of laughter. From the earliest times, perceptive observers of the human condition have used the devastating literary weapon of satire to ridicule the vices, follies, and abuses of…

  • Global stock market faces correction

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    Central banks will not be able to avert next global crash…says Vatsal Srivastava in his weekly column Currency Corner Last week marked the inflection point many market pundits have been waiting for. The stage is set for the deepest global stock market correction since the rally began in March, 2009. As can be seen in the price action,…

  • Heathrow begin screening for Ebola

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    London’s Heathrow airport  began applying new precautionary measures to detect possible cases of Ebola virus disease in passengers arriving from West African countries even as a Sudanese national infected by the virus died in Germany. A Heathrow spokesman told Efe news agency that the new measures went into effect Tuesday morning and were being applied…

  • Under 60 barred from Al-Aqsa mosque

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    Palestinian pilgrims under the age of 60 were  barred from entering the Al-Aqsa mosque in Old Jerusalem, a day after clashes with Israeli police. Many worshippers trying to enter the compound were turned away by police, who prevented all but those aged over 60 from entering the site, forcing many Palestinians to offer their dawn…

  • Turkish fighter jets bomb Kurdish militants

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    Turkish fighter jets  bombarded positions of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) following militant attacks on military outposts in southeastern Turkey. The Turkish General Staff ordered the bombing of the PKK’s positions in the Daglica district in the southeastern Hakkari province Monday, Hurriyet news reported. The bombarded targets were reportedly involved in “assassination, armed incidents…

  • THE COLOUR OF PREJUDICE

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    Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Foreign based Indians coming home, generously bruised after their varied bouts with racism around the world discover a certain domestic reflection of the prejudice, cheerfully forgetting they might well have been willing contributors to its flourishing before they left Indian shores. This fact was brought home to me rather powerfully…

  • HOW NOBLE IS THE NOBEL PRIZE?

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    Bikram Vohra comments on Kailash Satyarthi’s Nobel winning noble cause I have to admit I have never heard of Kailash Satyarthi. Not even indirectly. That the Nobel prize committee has heard of him and thought it fit to give him the award is a testament to my ignorance… definitely… and the general muted response in…

  • Jean Tirole wins Nobel Prize for Economics

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    The 2014 Nobel Prize for Economics, or officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was awarded to French economist Jean Tirole “for his analysis of market power and regulation”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Monday. Answering questions during phone interviews, Tirole said he was “so moved” upon…

  • Pistorius in court for sentencing

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     South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius arrived  at the High Court in Pretoria for the final sentencing on charges for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius is on trial for fatally shooting Stenkamp through a locked toilet door Feb 14, 2013, at his house in Pretoria. On Sep 11, Judge Thokosile Masipa of the high court…

  • Turkey to allow its military bases for US

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    Turkey will allow the US-led international coalition the use of its military bases for carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State terrorist group in Iraq and Syria, US President Barack Obama’s chief security advisor has said. “It is a new commitment and we welcome it with great satisfaction,” Susan Rice, Obama’s national security advisor, told…

  • Cairo conference talk Gaza re-construction

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    US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Cairo  to participate in a conference aimed at raising funds for the re-construction of the war-torn Gaza Strip. The conference will be attended by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon, chief of Arab League Nabil Al Arabi, and representatives of the International Tripartite Committee,…

  • Ebola threat unprecedented: UN

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    The Ebola crisis was an “unprecedented” challenge since the virus is “far ahead” of the global response, UN officials briefed on disease said here. “The world has never seen anything like it. Time is our enemy. The virus is far ahead of us,” said Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response…

  • ISIS at the gates of Turkey

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      Turkey tried to strengthen security measures along the Turkish-Syrian border so as to confront threats from the Islamic State (IS) militant organisation in Syria by sending a dozen of military tanks to its southeastern part, a media report said Friday. A military convoy including 15 tanks on trucks started moving to the southeastern Turkey,…

  • Victory for all striving for human dignity: Obama

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    President Barack Obama has congratulated Indian and Pakistani activists Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai saying their Nobel Peace Prize “is a victory for all who strive to uphold the dignity of every human being.” In a message on behalf of himself, wife Michelle and all Americans, Obama, who himself won the prize in 2009, said:…

  • Ebola advances in West Africa

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    The Ebola virus disease continues its relentless expansion through West Africa, the region where it first emerged, despite the resources deployed by other countries and new health protocols aimed at preventing the contagion from spreading. In Liberia and Sierra Leone, the two worst-affected countries, Ebola has taken root in the respective capitals, Monrovia and Freetown.…

  • Pak Taliban condemns Malala

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    Members of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) offshoot Jamat-ul-Ahrar has condemned the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Malala Yousufzai, calling her an “agent of kuffar (disbelievers)”. Jamat-ul-Ahrar’s spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan and other members together Friday posted comments on Twitter about Malala and the award, stating that she did not represent Islam, Dawn online said. Ehsanullah…

  • Happy to share Nobel prize with an Indian: Malala

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      Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai  said she is “really happy” on sharing the Nobel Peace Prize with a person from India and both have decided to invite Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif for the award ceremony in Oslo. The Pakistani teenager, shot in the head by Taliban militants in…

  • 31 die in anti-ISIS protests in Turkey

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    Thirty-one people have been killed and 351 others wounded in violent protests in Turkey against the Islamic State Sunni radical group, Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala said . Thousands of Kurdish people have flocked into streets since Monday for demonstrations against the advance of IS militants into the Kurdish-populated town of Kobane in northern Syria,…

  • Kim Jong-un in stable condition despite rumours

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    North Korean leader Kim Jong-un skipped his routine public activity  on the occasion of one of the country’s largest annual celebrations. The secretive North Korean state media kept silent on whether Kim paid tribute to his father and grandfather at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, as the country marked the 69th anniversary of the…

  • Malala & Satyarthi are true inspirations: Amnesty

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    Amnesty International  praised Nobel peace prize winners Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai for willing to promote the “rights of the world’s most vulnerable children”. “The work of Satyarthi and Yousafzai represents the struggle of millions of children around the world,” Amnesty Secretary General Salil Shetty said in a statement. “Satyarthi has dedicated his life to…

  • Malala & Kailash shares Nobel Peace Prize

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    Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi  shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Pakistani teenager Malala Yousufzai who stood up to the Taliban and survived a near-fatal shooting. The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize for 2014 to Satyarthi and Malala Yousufzai “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for…

  • Leaving No Escape Route For ISIS

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    Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU, says ISIS is a movement driven by religious fanaticism that rejects any other brand of Islam and defies any limits or constraints to achieve their perverse objective to establish a Caliphate encompassing Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and…

  • Turkish PM vows to keep peace

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      Turkish security forces will maintain peace, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, after 19 people were killed during protests by Kurds against the advance of Sunni insurgents into Syria. The mass protests followed the advance of Islamic State militants into the Kurdish populated Kobane town in Syria, Xinhua reported. The protests left 19 Turks dead…

  • Iran to meet US,EU over n-talks

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      Top diplomats of the US, the European Union (EU) and Iran will meet next week as the deadline approaches for negotiating a comprehensive agreement over Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme. US Secretary of State John Kerry, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will have a tri-lateral meeting Oct…

  • UN chief appoints Ebola crisis managers

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    UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed three crisis managers for Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone where the Ebola epidemic is spreading. His spokesperson said Wednesday Ban appointed Marcel Rudasingwa of Rwanda as Ebola crisis manager for Guinea, Peter Jan Graaff of the Netherlands for Liberia and Amadu Kamara of the US for Sierra Leone,…

  • Australia launches air strike against ISIS

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    Australian fighter jets have made their first strike against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) announced . In carrying out the overnight airstrike, pilots of an F/A-18F Super Hornet dropped two bombs on “an ISIL facility”, Xinhua reported. “Two bombs were dropped from an F/A-18F Super Hornet onto an ISIL…

  • US fears Syrian city of Kobani will fall to ISIS

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    US Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey has said that it is possible that the Syrian city of Kobani, bordering Turkey, could be seized by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in the next few days. “I am fearful that Kobani will fall,” said Dempsey in an interview with ABC television aired Tuesday about…

  • Australia cancels ISIS air strikes

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     Australian combat jets were pulled out of a potential strike on a moving Islamic State (IS) target in Iraq because of concerns that civilians could be killed, the defence ministry said . Defence chiefs revealed in a media briefing Wednesday, that the F-18 Super Hornet pilots stopped pursuing their IS target when it moved into…

  • Drugs to soon treat Ebola

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      The lethal virus Ebola can have many strains but thanks to a new drug discovery tool, there could soon be therapies to treat all known strains and likely future strains of the disease. Researchers have produced a molecule, known as peptide mimic, that displays a functionally critical region of the virus that is universally…

  • Death of a Good Samaritan

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    Muslims in Great Britain have been united in their condemnation of Mr Henning’s murder…writes Kaliph Anaz It happened on an Arafa Day. The day is just before Eid.ul-Adha aka Bakrid. When the entire Muslim world celebrates Bakrid, which marks the submission of man to God, a family in Salford near Manchester was grieving. Many set…

  • Obama calls for efforts against Ebola

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    Calling Ebola crisis an issue of global security, US President Barack Obama  urged further efforts from international community to fight the deadly virus in West Africa. After meeting his national security aides, Obama said at a White House press conference that the US was “making progress” at containing the disease in West Africa, but other…

  • Nobel Prize in physiology announced

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    Three scientists – John O’Keefe, and May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser – have shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, the Nobel Committee announced . The Nobel assembly at the Karolinska Institute has decided to award one half of the physiology or medicine prize to John O’Keefe and the other half jointly to May-Britt…

  • India joins to build the world’s biggest telescope

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    India, along with four other countries, will Tuesday start work to build the world’s biggest telescope in Hawaii Island, the media here reported . The 30-metre telescope, also known as TMT, will be constructed near the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii Island. Construction is likely to be completed by 2022, Japan Times…