AFP, GUWAHATI: Heavily armed rebels in India’s restive northeast kil led at least 20 troops yesterday, police said, in one of the area’s worst such attacks in years. Another 12 soldiers were seriously wounded in the ambush on a military convoy in Manipur state, which has been plagued by…

AFP, JERUSALEM: Israeli warplanes struck multiple militant targets in the Gaza Strip early Thursday in response to Palestinian rocket fire, but nobody was injured according to Palestinian security sources. They said that the raids hit three training bases of the Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades, the military…

AFP,PORT LOUIS, Mauritius: Prominent scientist Ameenah Gurib-Fakim was yesterday approved by the parliament of Mauritius as the Indian Ocean island nation’s new president, making her the first woman to hold the ceremonial position. Parliament speaker Maya Hanoomanjee, who is also the first woman…

S Korea shuts more schools for MERS AFP, SEOUL: Hundreds of schools closed yesterday in South Korea as officials struggled to ease growing panic over an outbreak of the MERS virus that has infected 35 people, killed two and caused thousands to cancel travel plans. More than 900 schools -- from kindergartens…

AFP BRUSSELS: The EU’s foreign policy chief held “constructive” talks Wednesday with Libya’s foreign minister, focused on a European naval force that would fight people smuggling gangs organising Mediterranean migrant crossings but so far opposed by Tripoli. Libya’s ambassador…

AFP, PHNOM PENH: Cambodia received its first batch of asylum-seekers from Australian custody yesterday, with rights groups labelling them “human guinea pigs” for an uncaring policy by Canberra to offload refugees onto other countries. The migrants—three Iranians and one ethnic Rohingya…

AP, texas: Lester Bower Jr is the oldest man executed in Texas since the state resumed its use of capital punishment in 1982. Prosecutors said he shot dead four men in an aeroplane hangar in Sherman, a ranching town north of Dallas. Bower had maintained his innocence throughout his incarceration. His…

AP/UNB,BEIRUT: A U.S. official said Wednesday that more than 10,000 Islamic State fighters have been killed by American-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in nine months, offering a first body count for a campaign that has yet to blunt their advance. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s figure…

AFP, PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Eight of the 10 men supposedly convicted and jailed for attempting to murder Pakistani schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai were actually cleared, officials said yesterday. Malala was shot in the head in October 2012 by Pakistani Taliban militants who boarded her school bus…

AFP, SEOUL: South Korea reported yesterday a fourth death from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), as an infected doctor fuelled fears of a fresh surge in cases and prompted Seoul's mayor to declare "war" on the virus. Five new cases overnight took the number of infected people to…

AFP, BEIJING: Myanmar's opposition leader and democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi will visit China next week, Beijing said yesterday amid cooling relations between the two countries. Beijing was a key backer of Myanmar's military junta while it was under Western sanctions, but President Thein…

AFP, JIANLI, China: Relatives of passengers missing after a Chinese cruise ship capsized expressed agony and anger on Friday after an official admitted there is no hope of finding more survivors, while cranes slowly raised the vessel out of the water. Just 14 of the 456 people -- mostly tourists aged…

AFP, ACCRA: More than 150 people have now died in a devastating petrol station fire and heavy flooding in Ghana's capital, Accra, the country's Red Cross said yesterday. "As at yesterday (Thursday) we have recovered more than 150 corpses. Sixty people have been taken to the hospital,"…

AFP, DUBAI: Yemen's Huthi rebels agreed yesterday to attend UN-brokered peace talks in Switzerland, which the war-torn country's exiled government confirmed it too would attend. "We accepted the invitation of the United Nations to go to the negotiating table in Geneva without preconditions,"…

AFP, GENEVA: Debt-laden Greece has seen a six-fold rise in the number of migrants landing on its shores over last year, the UN said yesterday. "In recent weeks, sea arrivals from Turkey have been averaging some 600 people a day," said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman of the UN refugee agency…

Japan PM to visit Ukraine AFP, TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe left for Ukraine yesterday to show "solidarity" with Kiev in its battle against Russian-backed rebels in the country's east. In a lightning visit ahead of the Group of Seven summit in Germany, Abe was set to meet…

AFP, WASHINGTON: The US government on Thursday admitted hackers accessed the personal data of at least four million current and former federal employees,…