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Obama seeks more transparency in use of drones
WASHINGTON In a major counter-terrorism speech, President Barack Obama Thursday defended the covert US drone program and stressed that despite the controversies around it, the strikes are legal and save lives. He also said the use of lethal force extends to U.S. citizens as well. This disclosure comes a day after his administration acknowledged publicly for the first time that four US ...
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Taliban car bomb kills 13 in Pakistan
QUETTA, Pakistan - At least 13 people, including two civilians, were killed in a car bomb targeting a police vehicle in western Pakistani city of Quetta Thursday, police officials said. The bombing also injured at least 20 people in the capital of Baluchistan province, riven by Islamist militancy and a violent separatist insurgency. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the ...
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Kerry begins efforts to restart Israeli and Palestinian peace talks
JERUSALEM - US Secretary of State John Kerry Thursday separately began meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials but appeared doubtful about his success on getting the two warring sides back to peace negotiations. This is Kerry's fourth trip to the Middle East in as many months of his assuming the office of the top US diplomat. He was been trying to revive a peace process that has been ...
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Istanbul hosts meeting of Syrian opposition leaders
ISTANBUL - Syrian opposition leaders Thursday began their three-day meeting in this Turkish capital city to decide on their participation in talks aimed at end the civil war in the country. As the meeting began in Istanbul a prominent Syrian figure in the opposition proposed a transition plan for the country that requires President Bashar al-Assad to hand over power to a senior aide and ...
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Canada threatens to retaliate against change in US meat labeling rules
OTTAWA - Canada has threatened "retaliatory measures" against the United States move changing the so-called country of origin labeling that would track beef and hogs through the meat processing and distribution systems, stating that it is discriminatory, a view shared by the World Trade Organisation. On Thursday, the United States Department of Agriculture issued a final modification to its ...
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Import alert by USFDA hits Wockhardt shares
MUMBAI - Shares of Wockhardt, one of the leading Indian pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, witnessed a sharp fall of 20% to Rs. 1,315 ($23.61) on the Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE) on Thursday after the US FDA published an import alert on one of its three manufacturing facilities near Aurangabad. The import alert, 'detention without physical examination of drugs from firms which have ...
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Ford Motor to shutdown 2 units in Australia
MELBOURNE Ford Motor Company Wednesday announced plans of closing its local manufacturing operations in Broadmeadows and Geelong in October 2016 thereby forcing 1,200 people out of work. Spelling the end of the iconic Ford Falcon in the country, Ford Australia president Bob Graziano announced that the carmaker would shut its Victorian facilities in October 2016, bringing an end to nearly ...
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Search for survivors nearly over in Oklahoma as damage estimate is $2bn
MOORE, Oklahoma - Rescue workers were combing through the battered remains of buildings left behind in the path of the gigantic tornado that killed two dozen people, including nine children, in Oklahoma on Monday. Officials say the search for survivors is nearly over as efforts turn towards recovery. Gary Bird, fire chief of the badly hit Moore suburb, said he was "98% sure" there were no ...
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Florida man known to Boston bombing suspects shot dead by FBI
MIAMI - A man known to the Boston Marathon bombers was shot and killed Wednesday by an Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent after he turned violent during questioning, the investigating agency said. The Orlando Sentinel newspaper identified the man as Ibragim Todashev, 27. He was killed in the early morning incident in Orlando, Florida. The FBI said the shooting occurred in Orlando, ...
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Senate panel approves plan to ease hiring of foreign techies
WASHINGTON - A US Senate panel has cleared a proposed legislation that relaxes restrictions on IT companies to hire foreign techies, thus clearing one of the major hurdles to ushering changes in American immigration law in a generation. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill after its authors won a bipartisan support with three Republicans joining 10 Democrats in the 18-member ...
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Eight candidates for Iranian presidential race
TEHRAN - Iran has approved eight candidates for the presidential election due next month, rejecting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's top aide in a major setback to the hawkish leader of the Islamic republic. Ahmadinejad criticised the decision to remove Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei from the final candidate list and said it was an act of "oppression". He announced plans to take up the case with ...
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Top North Korean official visits China
PYONGYANG, North Korea - In an indication that North Korea may give diplomacy a chance to end regional tension, its leader Kim Jong Un Wednesday sent a special envoy to China to win the confidence of its most important ally. The trip by Vice Marshal Choe Ryong Hae, a senior Workers' Party official and the military's top political officer, comes after months of ignoring Chinese warnings to ...
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Bernanke says more positive signs needed before scaling back stimulus
WASHINGTON - Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke Wednesday said it was too soon to scale back the monetary stimulus and the central bank needs to see further signs of traction before taking a decision. A decision to scale back the $85 billion in bonds the Fed is buying each month could come at one of the central bank's "next few meetings" if the economy looked set to maintain ...
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Higher exports fail to plug widening Japan trade deficit
TOKYO - Japan's trade deficit rose substantially more than expected in the month April to 879.9 billion yen ($8.6 billion), which is a 70% jump over the trade deficit during the corresponding month a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.. The deficit, for the tenth consecutive month, was wider than what many economists had forecast. A survey from the Nikkei business daily ...
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Vitamin C offers hope of tackling drug resistant TB
WASHINGTON - Adding vitamin C to existing tuberculosis drugs regime could shorten the therapy for drug resistant TB, claims new research findings published in the online scientific journal Nature Communications. The striking discovery, by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, has determined that vitamin C kills drug-resistant TB bacteria in laboratory ...
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IMF warns UK against continuing austerity programme
LONDON - In a critique of the United Kingdom's austerity programme, the International Monetary Fund Wednesday urged the Europe's third largest economy to rebalance the policy to make the transition to a high-investment and more export-oriented economy. "The UK could boost growth by bringing forward measures already included in its fiscal plan, such as spending on infrastructure and job ...
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Obama to Heckler Part of Free Speech Is ... You Listening
"Ma'am, let me finish. Let me finish ma'am," said Obama. "This is part of free speech is you being able to speak but also you listening. And me being able to speak. All ...
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Islamist Militants Kill More Than 20 People In Niger
More than 20 people have been killed and dozens have been injured in attacks by Islamist militants in Niger. The attacks in the western African country on May 23 were claimed by one of the Islamist militant groups that seized control of northern Mali last year before being driven out by French-led African troops. At least 20 soldiers were killed when a car bomb exploded at an army camp in ...
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Obama to limit drones moves to shut Guantanamo
WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama outlined plans on Thursday to limit the use of US drone strikes against extremists abroad and took steps aimed at breaking a deadlock on closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison.In a major foreign policy speech after two weeks of fending off domestic scandals, Obama limited the scope of what his predecessor, George W. Bush, had called a global war on ...
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Maternity Ward Its Magic
For all intents and purposes, this event should never have taken place. No one should have allowed all these essential people to be in the same place at the same time. Had they taken a direct hit, it could have had serious consequences for the country's population growth figures, and that's not an exaggeration.I'm talking about the farewell party for the legendary director of ...
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Dear Jewish media stop making lists of Jews
There are some lists that have helped Jews in the past, including, most notably, Schindler's, but mainly Jewish list-making has been an activity of those who are hostile to ...
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Does Israel have a long-term strategic plan
Every year there is a new state budget with new cuts. What was approved last year has just been retracted. Half-built roads and incomplete infrastructure have been abandoned to gather dust. Metropolitan Tel Aviv still has no light rail or subway, even though plans to build them have been in the works for decades. Year after year the defense establishment is allocated more funds than any ...
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Two more arrested over London soldier murder
British police investigating the brutal murder of a soldier by suspected Islamists in London said on Thursday they had arrested two alleged ...
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President Obama defends drone strikes - but moves to rein them in
Known for his commentary on international relations and US politics, Rupert Cornwell also contributes obituaries and occasionally even a column for the sports pages. With The Independent since its launch in 1986, he was the paper's first Moscow correspondent - covering the collapse of the Soviet Union - during which time he won two British Press Awards. Previously a foreign correspondent ...
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Alexander Lebedev witnesses say they were pressured into attending court case by investigators
The trial of the businessman Alexander Lebedev has descended into farce as witnesses admitted they had been pressured into attending the court case by ...
Bangladesh in Focus
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Myanmar refugees in Bangladesh, the politics of their situation is more important than the human impact
Bangladesh and Myanmar have been disputing their sea border for years, and in recent months tensions on the land border have mounted as claims of interference and counter-claims of provocation are made by both countries, now the politics of territorial dispute have come to have a direct bearing on the respect for human life and development.
In October of 2009, the government of Bangladesh received a report from its military officials detailing a credible threat of attack from Myanmar, they feared that St Martin’s island in the Bay of Bengal, a region increasingly important economically for hydrocarbons, would be attacked and captured by Myanmar, and called for the government to strengthen the defensive capability of the island which has a circumference of just 3 miles. Read more
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