Asian Lite News Archive

Category: World News

  • Special Report from Cannes

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    Aishwarya Rai may be the star attraction at the red carpet, but it was three top notch Bollywood Khans — Shah Rukh, Aamir and Salman – who dominated the film market at the ongoing 67th Cannes International Film Festival with buyers queueing up for their forthcoming films. SRK’s “Happy New Year”, directed by Farah Khan and…

  • Koreas exchange fire

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    North Korea on Thursday fired several rounds of artillery shells towards South Korean waters and two rounds fell near a South Korean patrol ship. “Two shells landed near our boat patrolling in our territorial waters near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) at around 6 p.m.,” a South Korean defence ministry official told Xinhua on condition…

  • BREAKING NEWS – Coup in Thailand

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    Thailand’s army chief says the military is taking control of government, BBC reported. In a televised statement, the army chief said the military would restore order and push through political reforms. The BBC’s Jonah Fisher, in Bangkok, says the move appears to confirm that a full-blown coup is under way. The latest unrest began in…

  • Zuma elected president of South Africa

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     Jacob Zuma was Wednesday elected President of South Africa by members of the National Assembly. “In terms of Item 6 of part A, Schedule A of the Constitution, I declare the honourable Jacob Zuma duly elected president of the Republic of South Africa,” Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, who presided over the nomination process, announced, SA…

  • Russia opens gas tapes for China

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     Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has signed a multi-billion dollar, 30-year gas deal with China. The deal between Russia’s Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has been 10 years in the making. Russia has been keen to find an alternative energy market for its gas as it faces the possibility of European sanctions over the…

  • ebay’s plea to change password

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    eBay, the online marketplace, has appealed its users to change their passwords after a cyber-attack compromised its systems, BBC reported. The US firm said a database had been hacked between late February and early March, and had contained encrypted passwords and other non-financial data. The company added that it had no evidence of there being…

  • Iraq-like scenario in Syria?

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    Russia said  it was concerned that the situation in Syria may develop similar to the Iraqi scenario, and called for a peaceful Middle Eeast, Xinhua reported. “Geopolitical situation in the Middle East has been influenced by many internal and external factors,” Xinhua cited Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov as saying to the Interfax news…

  • Nigeria’s twin blasts kills hundreds

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    As many as 118 people were killed in the twin blasts that hit a market in the central city of Jos, security agencies said. “The death toll stands at 118. This is the number of victims recovered from the scene of the explosions, but we are still searching through the smoldering debris for more bodies,”…

  • WHO concern over child obesity

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    The World Health Organisation (WHO) has expressed deep concern over the worldwide increase in childhood obesity. At the 67th World Health Assembly held in Geneva, the concern was highlighted by WHO’s Director-General Margaret Chan, Xinhua reported. The WHO annual assembly grouped more than 3,000 delegates from 194 member states at the UN headquarters here, to…

  • Putin meets Chinese leader

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    Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday held talks with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin who is in the country to attend the upcoming Asian security summit. Putin arrived in Shanghai early Tuesday and will attend the fourth Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in…

  • China summons US envoy

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    China summoned US Ambassador Max Baucus over the American indictment of five Chinese military personnel allegedly for cyber espionage. Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang summoned Baucus Monday night and lodged a protest against the indictment, Xinhua reported citing the foreign ministry statement Tuesday. The five Chinese military personnel were allegedly involved in cyber-espionage and…

  • UK gears up for EU polls

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    Kaliph Anaz reports on the EU campaign Scenario in the UK. British-Asian voters are still confused about the policies of the major political parties – but they are aware about the racist stance of Ukip and its leader Nigel Farage and the right-wing British Nationalist Party of Nick Griffin. Campaigners are urging the British-Asians to…

  • Sorry Dad..Sorry Dad…But too late

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    Sorry Dad, Sorry Dad…..But it was futile. He was kicked and hit by his dad. Prateek Verma’s  sense of humour took a real beating when he fooled his father into thinking that he had got his girlfriend pregnant. But this made him very popular. He secretly made a video of the episode, which has been viewed more…

  • UAE cements ties with Malaysia

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      General Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of U.A.E. Armed Forces, and visiting Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mohammad Najib Tun Haji Abdul Razak,  attended the signing ceremony of two Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) on tourism and higher education and an agreement on building a mosque…

  • Conmen used Dubai link for VAT fraud

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    Kaliph Anaz reports on the imprisonment of three British men who claimed to hold a contract from Dubai Tourism to due British Tax Authrorities Three men who conned several UK companies by pretending they had £15 million to spend to promote tourism in Dubai have been jailed for more than 14 years, after attempting to…

  • Indian Leftists face extinction

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    Abhimanyu Singh analyses the fall of the Communist Parties in India – From 60 to 12 MPs. Now the  supporters are targetting the  ‘jaded leadership’  There is seething anger in the ranks of the Left over the drubbing it received in the Lok Sabha elections and senior leaders as well as sympathisers are clamouring for a new leadership. Amid…

  • Jackson top on UK chart

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    The late pop legend Michael Jackson has topped the album charts, nearly five years since his death, with Xscape, BBC reported. The second posthumous album of his previously unreleased tracks features eight songs recorded between 1983 and 1999. It was reworked by producers including Timbaland, Rodney Jerkins and Stargate. Lily Allen’s Sheezus fell to number…

  • Bolly Magic in Slovenia

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     RainSlovenia from performing. A flashmob is a group of people who gather suddenly in a public place, perform an act for a brief time and then quickly disperse

  • Amnesty seeks release of journalists

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    Amnesty International (AI) has asked the Myanmar authorities to release at least six journalists arrested this year and described as being prisoners of conscience.Those detained include a cameraman from Democratic Voice of Burma who has been sentenced to a year in prison for documenting a corruption case, four journalists and the editor of the weekly…

  • Health of detainees worsens

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    The health conditions of 150 Palestinian detainees, on hunger strike in Israeli jails protesting their detention, deteriorated Sunday as they continued their strike for the 25th day, a Palestinian official said. “Their physical condition worsens every day. Some of them have already been transferred to hospitals,” Essa Qaraqie, Palestine’s minister of prisoners’ affairs, told Xinhua.…

  • Godzilla Vs Mutos

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    Kaliph Anaz reviews new Hollywood blockbuster Godzilla Yesterday we saw Godzilla. I saw the first one with my dad when I was 7 or 8. So I took my son to watch it along with me to make it on record. The other films in the row are Tower Inferno, Ben-Hur, 10 Commandments and King Kong. In…

  • UK Housing Market at risk

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    The governor of the Bank of England has given his strongest warning yet about the dangers to Britain’s economy posed by the booming housing market, BBC reported. Mark Carney said the market represented the “biggest risk” to financial stability and the long-term recovery. He added there were deep structural problems which needed to be addressed.…

  • Turkey Mourns Mine Victims

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     With the final two bodies being found, rescue operations ended on  Saturday as the death toll in the coal mine disaster in Soma in western Turkey climbed to 301, Xinhua quoted Energy Minister Taner Yildiz as saying.Yildiz said that rescue teams managed to reach the dead bodies of the last two workers. He added that…

  • France to host summit on Boko Haram

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    France is to host a security summit on the threat from Boko Haram Islamists, after they abducted more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria in April, BBC reported. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and other West African leaders will attend the talks in Paris. On Friday Mr Jonathan was due to visit the north-eastern town of Chibok,…

  • Obama invites Modi to visit US

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    Ending a decade long US boycott of Narendra Modi, President Barack Obama congratulated him on BJP’s “success in India’s historic election” and invited him to visit Washington “to further strengthen our bilateral relationship”. “The president called prime ministerial candidate and Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi today to congratulate him on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s…

  • Tea Boy Turns To Become A PM

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    M.R. Narayan Swamy writes on Modi’s dramatic growth from a tea boy to the prime minister of the largest democracy inthe world   There was a time when he sold tea at a railway station in Gujarat as his family battled poverty. After toying for a while with the life of a renunciate, he finally…

  • Pentagon refutes Israeli spying

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    US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel said Thursday that he could not validate a recent media report of alleged Israeli spying in his country. “I have heard of that report. I’m not aware of any facts that would substantiate the report,” Xinhua quoted Hagel as saying at a press conference in Tel Aviv with Israeli…

  • Toll rises in Turkey mine disaster

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    The number of workers confirmed dead in an explosion and fire at a coal mine in Turkey has reached 274. Officials acknowledge there is little hope of finding survivors inside the mine near Soma city, where roughly 100 men remain trapped some four km from the entrance. The high concentration of carbon monoxide is preventing…

  • Russia to hit back on sanctions

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    Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday Moscow may retaliate against Western sanctions if those countries continue confrontation, indicating possible blow to such payment systems as Visa and MasterCard. “We don’t want confrontation. But if the West continues its unprofessional and hysterical position, we’ll have to think how to respond,” Xinhua quoted Lavrov as telling the…

  • Turkey mine tragedy kills 200

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     At least 200 people were killed and some 400 workers remain trapped underground after an explosion and fire in a coal mine in Turkey Tuesday, officials said Wednesday. A total of 787 people were inside the mine in Soma, 250 km south of Istanbul, when the disaster occurred. As many as 363 people have been…

  • Russia warns Europe on gas supply

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    The ongoing Russia-Ukraine stand-off may jeopardise natural gas supplies to the European countries despite Moscow’s efforts to abide by contracts, a senior official said Monday. “Countries that have no alternative supply (routes) other than the Ukrainian gas transportation system are most at risk,” Xinhua cited Russian Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky as saying Monday. Yanovsky…