Sri Lanka’s parliament passed a no-confidence vote against the controversially appointed government of Mahinda Rajapakse Wednesday, a day after the Supreme Court overturned a presidential decree dissolving the legislature. Speaker Karu Jayasuriya ruled that a majority of the 225-member assembly supported a no-confidence motion against Rajapakse who was made prime minister on October 26 in place of Ranil Wickremesinghe. Parliament convened for… Read more »
Earlier this month, the Russian government hosted a much-awaited peace conference on Afghanistan, which was attended by representatives from the Taliban. After the event, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was photographed posing next to members of the Taliban leadership, who, paradoxically, are still on Russia’s terror list. For keen observers of Russian foreign policy, it was clear that the conference was… Read more »
It seems like anytime news is heard out of Afghanistan, it is seems to always be about how another attack that has happened, a United States soldier has been killed, or terrorist organizations are still active in the area. The latest news is about how a hired bodyguard opened fire following a meeting at a Governor’s compound in southern afghanistan,… Read more »
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan confirmed Thursday that its security forces have rescued five abducted Iranian border guards, saying efforts to recover other captives are ongoing. An anti-Iran Sunni militant organization known as Jaish al-Adl kidnapped a group of 12 security guards a month ago in the southeastern Iranian border city of Mirjaveh and took the captives to the Pakistani side of… Read more »
For nearly a month, a 41-year-old Indian man has been in prison for posting five satirical tweets. In September, Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, a Delhi-based defence specialist with some 20,000 Twitter followers posted what he himself described as a “disparaging” video from a visit to the 13th Century Konark temple in the eastern state of Orissa. Following outrage against his “vulgar” comments… Read more »
A 12-day-old boy has died after he was snatched from his mother and bitten by a monkey in northern India. The infant’s mother was breastfeeding him at their home in the city of Agra when the animal entered the house and grabbed him, the family said. The monkey dropped the badly bitten child on a neighbour’s roof after locals gave… Read more »
Legislators allied to disputed PM Rajapaksa fight with rivals in second day of clashes Sri Lanka’s parliament has been disrupted for a second day, with legislators allied to the disputed prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, hurling chairs at police officers and allegedly throwing chilli powder at opposing MPs. It was the latest violent incident in the crisis that erupted three weeks ago,… Read more »
Gen. Abdul Razeq, one of Afghanistan’s most powerful security officials, was killed on Thursday when a bodyguard opened fire following a meeting in the governor’s compound in the southern province of Kandahar, officials said. Gen. Scott Miller, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan who had been at the meeting with Razeq only moments earlier, was not injured in the attack…. Read more »
A daring attack that killed an leading anti-Taliban Afghan security official while sparing the top US commander in Afghanistan has sparked Afghan suspicions about the US as Afghans vote in Saturday’s parliamentary elections. Afghanistan votes once again amid familiar scenes of tightened security following yet another violent campaign season and Taliban warnings to the Afghan people to desist from exercising their democratic rights…. Read more »
One US soldier was killed and another wounded in an “apparent insider attack” in Kabul on Saturday, NATO said, in the latest such assault on international forces in Afghanistan. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the third so-called “green-on-blue” attack in less than three weeks that have rattled foreign troops tasked with training and assisting the war-torn country’s… Read more »
