Kolkata: Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Asim Dasgupta on Sunday urged the central government to step in and launch a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the collapse of chit fund-funded company Saradha Group. Dasgupta, a noted economist who held the finance portfolio for 24 years during the Left Front rule, also rejected allegations that chit fund companies had flourished during the LF regime. "My question...
04:23 AM, Apr 22, 2013
Seoul: North Korea has moved two short-range missile launchers to its east coast, apparently indicating it is pushing ahead with preparations for a test launch, a South Korean news agency reported on Sunday. South Korea and its allies have been expecting some sort of North Korean missile launch during weeks of heightened hostility on the Korean peninsula. An unidentified South Korean military source told the South's Yonhap news agency that...
01:40 PM, Apr 21, 2013
Kolkata: Mamata Banerjee's government feels the heat as one of the largest chit fund companies in West Bengal collapses. Fearing a backlash from upset investors, thousands of the Saradha Group agents have gathered in Kolkata seeking state government's intervention. But the company's proximity to the Trinamool Congress has put the government in a corner. "If the government does something for us, then it's fine. Then they'll get votes else we...
08:05 AM, Apr 21, 2013
Kolkata: Violent clashes broke out between the investors and employees of a chit fund company in Barasat, in the Moyna area of North 24 Parganas district, on Saturday. The incident happened after investors demanding refund gathered near a local chit fund organisation's office. Scores of people were injured after crude bombs were hurled and large scale brick-batting took place between the two groups. Police resorted to lathicharge to disperse the...
06:44 PM, Apr 20, 2013
Islamabad: Four persons, including two children, were killed and several others injured in two separate incidents of violence in Pakistan s restive northwest on Friday, officials said. A tribesman was killed and 14 more were injured when militants fired four rockets at an election rally in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan tribal region, officials of the local political administration said. Two of the rockets landed near the venue...
01:08 AM, Apr 20, 2013
New Delhi: A 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the Iran-Pakistan border on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 21 people in Pakistan and injuring 5 in Iran. While earlier reports indicated at least 40 dead, the Iranian state owned media later denied the reports saying only five people have been injured. The epicentre of the quake lay 86 km east-south east of Khash, Iran, near the country's border with Pakistan, the US...
09:59 PM, Apr 16, 2013
Guwahati: An eight-year-old child was killed in a mudslide in Assam on Tuesday as two earthquakes jolted the state along with other northeastern states and Odisha. Three children, who had gone for fishing in river Beki at Kalgasia village in Assam's Barpeta district, were swept into the waters by the mudslide during the first tremor, official sources said. While Jehirul Nessa (8) drowned, the other two Moidul Islam and Kamala...
05:51 PM, Apr 16, 2013
New Delhi: A US military helicopter crashed near the North Korean border during a joint military exercise with South Korea on Tuesday. All twelve service personnel on board the helicopter have reportedly survived the crash. The cause of the crash is still unknown. Meanwhile, North Korea has condemned the joint exercises as a rehearsal for invasion and made a series of dire threats of military retaliation. There are 28,500 US...
12:01 PM, Apr 16, 2013
London: Striking a defiant tone, the BBC has defended its decision to send an undercover team with a group of London School of Economics students on a trip to secretive North Korea, saying that it was worth risking their lives. The BBC has faced calls to pull Panorama special by John Sweeney who smuggled himself into North Korea alongside his wife and a cameraman by attaching them to a group...
08:55 PM, Apr 15, 2013
Pyongyang: North Koreans celebrated the birthday of their first leader Monday by dancing in plazas and snacking on peanuts, with little hint of the fiery bombast that has kept the international community fearful that a missile launch may be imminent. Pyongyang fired off a rocket ahead of the last anniversary of Kim Il Sung's birth - the centennial - but this time the day was simply the start of a...
08:27 PM, Apr 15, 2013
Seoul: North Korea may test a new missile to mark the birth anniversary celebrations of state founder Kim il Sung on Monday. The isolated and impoverished state celebrates the former leader's birth anniversary on Monday amidst growing tensions in the east, after weeks of war threats from Pyongyang. Speculation has mounted of an impending medium-range missile test launch in North Korea after reports in South Korea and the United States...
07:12 AM, Apr 15, 2013
Tokyo: US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday stressed the United States is willing to engage with North Korea as long as it takes steps to give up nuclear weapons. He also vowed Washington would protect its Asian allies against any provocative acts by the North, but said it wants a peaceful solution to rising tensions in the region. "We are prepared to reach out but we need (the)...
06:45 AM, Apr 15, 2013
London: A leading British university criticised the BBC on Sunday for arranging an academic trip to North Korea to make an undercover documentary, saying it had put students who were unaware of the plans in danger. The London School of Economics (LSE) said three BBC journalists - including the respected reporter John Sweeney - joined a student society trip at the end of March, posing as tourists to make a...
08:40 PM, Apr 14, 2013
Beijing: The United States has reached out to China to increase pressure on North Korea to tone down its threats of a nuclear attack on the US and South Korea. US Secretary of State John Kerry met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday, where both the countries made a joint pledge to escalate the denuclearisation process on the Korean peninsula. Kerry said that the US has cancelled certain military exercises,...
06:55 PM, Apr 14, 2013
The North Korean missile test threat has brought two unlikely allies - US Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese President Xi Jinping - together. Kerry has reached out to China to help defuse the growing tension in the Korean Peninsula. CNN's Cristina Mutchler reports that both US and China will work together to uphold peace and advancing de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula. China is considered North Korea's biggest benefactor ...
10:04 AM, Apr 14, 2013
Beijing: Bound by threats from North Korea, the US and China agreed on Saturday to rid the bellicose nation of nuclear weapons in a test of whether the world powers can shelve years of rivalry and discord, and unite in fostering global stability. Beyond this latest attempt to restrain North Korea, the burgeoning nuclear crisis has so frustrated the US and China that they are forming a new and tentative...
06:29 AM, Apr 14, 2013
Washington: On the brink of an expected North Korean missile test, US officials focused on the limits of Pyongyang's nuclear firepower on Friday, trying to shift attention from the disclosure that the North Koreans might be able to launch a nuclear strike. They insisted that while the unpredictable government might have rudimentary nuclear capabilities, it has not proved it has a weapon that could reach the United States. A senior...
07:20 AM, Apr 13, 2013
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11:44 PM, Apr 12, 2013
Seoul: US Secretary of State John Kerry warned North Korea on Friday it would be a "huge mistake" to launch a medium-range missile and said the United States would never accept the reclusive country as a nuclear power. Addressing reporters after talks with South Korea's president and leaders of the 28,000-strong US military contingent in the country, Kerry also said it was up to China, North Korea's sole major ally,...
08:41 PM, Apr 12, 2013
Washington: North Korea has nuclear weapons capable of delivering by ballistic missiles, an unclassified US intelligence report says, amid heightened tensions in the Korean peninsula over Pyongyang's saber-rattling. DIA (Defence Intelligence Agency) assesses with moderate confidence the North Korea currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivering by ballistic missiles, however the reliability will be low, Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn said during a Congressional hearing on Thursday. The Pentagon, however, said...
12:47 PM, Apr 12, 2013
