Beirut: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says he won't step down before elections are held in his war-ravaged country.
The Syrian leader's comments, published on Saturday in the Argentine newspaper Clarin, highlight the difficulties the US and Russia face in getting the Assad regime and Syria's political opposition to the table at an international conference envisioned for next month. The country's main opposition group has demanded that these talks lead to Assad's departure.
However, Assad says such a dialogue shouldn't "decide a matter that has not been decided by the people."
...
more
07:50 AM, May 19, 2013
A report on Friday night from WBBH, an NBC television affiliate in Fort Myers, Fla., said Phelps will return to swimming with an eye toward competing at the 2016 Rio Olympics. The three-paragraph story on the station's Web site was posted by news anchor Peter Busch, who is the son of Frank Busch, director of the U.S. national swim team. "The greatest Olympian of all time isn't hanging up his...
12:32 PM, May 18, 2013
Washington: Opening up the prospects of export of shale gas to energy starved India, the US today granted conditional authorization to export domestically produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to nations that do not have Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with it. In a decision, which has major implications for India, the Department of Energy announced that that it has conditionally authorized Freeport LNG Expansion, LP and FLNG Liquefaction, LLC (Freeport) to...
11:10 AM, May 18, 2013
New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to travel to Washington in a few months at the invitation of US President Barack Obama. Obama's invitation to Singh was delivered by US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns during his recent visit here, sources said. Singh has accepted the invitation and will be travelling to Washington, the sources said. The Prime Minister's visit to Washington could be clubbed with his...
09:20 AM, May 18, 2013
New Orleans: Residents of one of America's most violent cities cheered six arrests in a Mother's Day parade shooting that left 19 people wounded and three in critical condition. Two New Orleans brothers were booked with 20 counts each of attempted second-degree murder in Sunday's shooting spree. Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who strongly promotes the city's tourism industry, including the annual Mardi Gras celebration, said the arrests are the latest evidence...
08:00 AM, May 18, 2013
Beirut: The United States chided Russia for sending missiles to the Syrian government as plans for a peace conference promoted by Washington and Moscow were hit by diplomatic rifts over its scope and purpose. Sectarian bloodshed in neighbouring Iraq during Friday prayers, a hacking attack on a Western newspaper by sympathisers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and defiant comments by a rebel commander filmed eating a slain soldier's flesh were...
07:35 AM, May 18, 2013
Boston: A judge has rejected a request from lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who want to take periodic photos of him in prison. US Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler on Friday said the prison where Tsarnaev is housed has a policy against visitors bringing cameras. Tsarnaev's lawyers argued the photos could provide evidence on the voluntariness of his statements and be used in an argument to mitigate his...
07:15 AM, May 18, 2013
Washington: An Indian has been sentenced to three years of imprisonment on charges of trafficking immigrants from India into the United States, the Department of Justice said. Kaushik Jayantibhai Thakkar, 33, along with Brazilian national Fabiano Augusto Amorim were sentenced on Friday to serve 36 months in prison for their roles in smuggling undocumented migrants to the US for private financial gain, the Acting Assistant US Attorney General Mythili Raman...
06:27 AM, May 18, 2013
Washington: Indian-American Srikanth Srinivasan inched closer to scripting history as the first South Asian judge after a key Senate committee confirmed his nomination to the DC Circuit Court, America's second highest. Described as "trailblazer" by US President Barack Obama, Chandigarh-born Srinivasan's nomination to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was unanimously approved by the 18-member Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. He was first nominated to...
03:16 PM, May 17, 2013
Washington: President Barack Obama said on Thursday he reserves the right to resort to a range of both diplomatic and military options if he receives conclusive proof that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons in the country's civil war. Obama, at a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, said there was evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria but that it is...
11:45 PM, May 16, 2013
Boston: The lone-surviving Boston bombings suspect has claimed responsibility for the deadly terror attack in a note written on the wall of the boat he hid in, saying it was retribution for US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Boston bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, left a note in the boat he hid during a massive manhunt for the April 15 attack on the Boston Marathon that killed three people and...
10:50 PM, May 16, 2013
Moscow: Russia expelled a US diplomat on Tuesday after saying he had been caught red-handed with disguises, special equipment and wads of cash as he tried to recruit a Russian intelligence agent to work for the CIA. Apparently detained in an incongruous-looking blond wig, with props reminiscent of a schoolboy's spy kit, US Embassy Third Secretary Ryan Fogle hardly looked like a Cold War secret agent. But the announcement still...
09:46 AM, May 15, 2013
Washington: Gunmen fired shots during an informal Mother's Day afternoon parade in New Orleans in Louisiana state injuring 19 people, two of them children, according to police. The wounded in Sunday afternoon's shooting in the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana, governed by Indian-American Bobby Jindal, included 10 men and seven women as well as a boy and a girl, both 10. Local Nola.com cited police...
06:25 PM, May 13, 2013
Washington: The police officer who risked his life to save victims of the Wisconsin Gurdwara shootout in 2012 was honoured by US President Barack Obama at a White House award ceremony. Six people were shot dead while three others injured when gunman Wade Michael Page went on a shooting rampage in August, 2012. The toll could have been much higher if not for Lieutenant Brian Murphy of the Oak Creek...
11:16 AM, May 12, 2013
Washington: There is no more important partner for the United States in Asia than India and the growing convergence interests and outlook has brought about unprecedented cooperation between the two nations on regional and global security, a top US official has said. "President Obama has called our partnership with India a 'defining partnership for the 21st century'. And as we go about the much-talked about 'Asia rebalance', there's no more...
07:52 AM, May 12, 2013
Washington: Kolkata-born Ritankar Das, a bioengineering and chemical biology double major at the University of California at Berkeley, has become the youngest student to receive the University Medal in more than a century. The medal is given to the year's top graduating senior. Das, who began his freshman term when he was 15, will be graduating with more than 200 credits and a GPA of 3.99, which includes eight A+...
11:20 AM, May 11, 2013
New York: The United States will return to Mongolia more than a dozen illegally smuggled dinosaur skeletons, including two Tyrannosaurus bataars that are 70 million years old and at least six fossilized Oviraptors, US officials said on Friday. The announcement followed the handover to Mongolian officials on Monday of another T bataar skeleton, which had been sold at auction in New York for more than $1 million before it was...
07:50 AM, May 11, 2013
Amman: Syrian casualties treated in Turkey show signs of being victims of chemical weapons, the Turkish foreign minister said on Friday, adding to indications that President Barack Obama's "red line" on the use of such arms may have been crossed. Wary of the false intelligence used to justify the 2003 war in Iraq, the United States says it wants proof that chemical weapons have been used before taking any action...
06:56 AM, May 11, 2013
Moscow: Russia and the United States agreed to seek new peace talks with both sides to end Syria's civil war, but opposition leaders were sceptical on Wednesday of an initiative they fear might let President Bashar al-Assad hang on to power. Mindful the conflict may be far from over, Britain has urged fellow European Union states to lift an arms embargo, arguing it would strengthen those rebel groups favoured by...
07:27 AM, May 09, 2013
Washington: The California-based subsidiary of State Bank of India (SBI) has agreed to take a series of steps to improve its banking practices related to bad loans following a review by US regulators. The largest Indian bank consented March 6, 2013 to the orders of the federal and state regulators "without admitting or denying any charges of unsafe or unsound banking practices relating to the June 18, 2012, examination". The...
04:28 AM, May 09, 2013
