AFP, BEIJING: China plans to send a rover to Mars to explore the Red Planet, a top space official announced on Friday, in the latest step of its ambitious space programme. Authorities approved the mission in January, said National Space Administration director Xu Dazhe told a press conference in Beijing,…

AP, Seoul: North Korea said Friday it wants to send to Seoul the relatives of North Korean citizens it says were abducted by South Korean spies, a highly unusual move by Pyongyang as it attempts to challenge what Seoul calls an embarrassing, high-profile group defection. Earlier this month, South Korea…

AFP, ALEPPO: Air strikes on rebel-held neighbourhoods in Syria’s second city Aleppo on Friday killed at least 14 civilians and wounded more than a dozen others, the local civil defence told AFP. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime warplanes carried out the air strikes and gave…

AFP, BAGHDAD: A suicide bomber targeted Shiite worshippers at a Baghdad mosque after Friday prayers, killing at least eight people, security and medical officials said. The attack in southwest Baghdad also wounded at least 25 people, the officials said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility…

AFP, KATHMANDU: A year after an earthquake flattened her home in Nepal, Menuka Rokaya still lives in a tent with her husband and nine-month-old baby as…

AFP, KARACHI: Pakistani police on Friday said they had arrested an Al-Qaeda financier who has been on the United Nations security council sanction lists for four years. Abdur Rehman alias Abdul Rehman Sindhi, who was arrested on Thursday in Karachi, was placed on the UN sanction list in 2012 for providing…