As Taliban opens new office in Doha, Hamid Karzai calls off talks with US on security agreement

Revived Afghan peace talks hit their first roadblock on Wednesday, a day after they were announced, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai said his government would not join U.S. talks with the Taliban and would halt negotiations with Washington on a post-2014 troop pact. The United States and the Taliban had announced on Tuesday that officials from both sides will meet in Doha, the capital of Qatar, in coming days, in...

Fashion designers Dolce and Gabbana convicted of tax evasion

Milan: A Milan court on Wednesday convicted the designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of tax evasion. They were found guilty of failing to declare 200 million euros ($268 million) through a Luxembourg company to authorities and given a one year and eight months suspended jail sentence. They were ordered to pay a penalty of 500,000 euros (about $670,000) to tax authorities. The court, however, acquitted them of misrepresenting income...

Obama in Berlin calls for US-Russia nuclear weapons cuts

Berlin: Summoning the harsh history of this once-divided city, President Barack Obama on Wednesday cautioned the US and Europe against "complacency" brought on by peace, pledging to cut America's deployed nuclear weapons by one-third if Cold War foe Russia does the same. The US President also declared that his far-reaching surveillance programmes had saved lives on both sides of the Atlantic, as he sought to defend the controversial data-mining to...

Somali rebels attack UN base, 22 dead

Mogadishu: Islamist militants carried out a deadly assault on the main UN compound in the Somali capital on Wednesday, dealing a blow to fragile security gains that have allowed a slow return of foreign aid workers and diplomats. The assault, claimed by Islamist group al Shabaab, began before midday when a car bomb exploded outside the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) base. Rebel gunmen forced their way into the compound...

Afghan government to shun US talks with Taliban

Kabul: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday his government would not join US peace talks with the Taliban and halted negotiations with Washington on a troop pact, underscoring the fragile nature of hopes for a negotiated peace in Afghanistan. The United States and the Taliban have said officials from both sides will meet in Doha, the capital of Qatar, on Thursday, in a step forward for a stuttering peace...

US: Agency uses drones but very seldom, says FBI chief

Washington: FBI Director Robert Mueller said the US law enforcement agency uses drones for surveillance but does so rarely. In an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mueller said the bureau is developing guidelines for drones and that the privacy implications of using drones are, in Mueller's words, worthy of debate and legislation down the road. The aerospace industry forecasts a worldwide deployment of almost 30,000 drones by 2018, with...

Boy, 11, fathers child with a 36-year-old woman in NZ

Melbourne: An 11-year-old boy in New Zealand has become a father after conceiving a child with the 36-year-old mother of a school friend. The woman coerced the boy, from Auckland, into repeated sexual encounters over a period of time before becoming pregnant, the New Zealand Herald newspaper reported. The woman gave the boy beer to drink and then later took part in a sexual encounter with him, the report said....

US Secretary of State John Kerry to arrive in India on June 23

US Secretary of State John Kerry would travel to India on June 23 to co-chair the 4th India-USStrategic Dialogue, his spokesperson said on Wednesday. Unlike his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, who had visited other Indian cities besides New Delhi during her three trips to the country, Kerry would be staying in New Delhi only. "Topics for discussion will include bilateral and regional economic engagement, regional security and defence, science and technology,...

Obama calls for one-third cut in US-Russia nuclear weapons

President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for a one-third cut in the number of deployed US strategicnuclear warheads if Russia agrees to a similar reduction, reviving his goal to work toward a world without atomic weapons. Addressing students and government officials at historic the Brandenburg Gate, which once divided East and West Germany, Obama said he had determined that the US could ensure its own and its allies security and...

India shows interest in UK's anti-extremism task force

India has evinced interest in the set up of an anti-extremism task force by the UK following the terror attack on the streets of London last month. Minority Affairs Minister K Rahman Khan, in London for talks with his ministerial counterparts, has sought information on the Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Task Force chaired by British Prime Minister David Cameron. "The task force, constituted immediately after the recent incidents in London,...

5,000 Nitaqat-hit Indians get new jobs in Saudi Arabia

Nearly 5,000 Indians in Saudi Arabia have found new jobs after the Indian Consulate in Jeddah took up proactive measures to help the expatriates affected by the Gulf Kingdom's new labour law. Consul General Faiz Ahmed Kidwai said on Tuesday that since the announcement of the three-month grace period which ends on July 3, the consulate had vigorously taken up a drive to help eligible Indians find employment, Arab News...

EU fines Ranbaxy, others for blocking cheaper drugs

Brussels: European antitrust regulators fined nine drug makers, including Denmark's Lundbeck and India's Ranbaxy, a total of 146 million euros for blocking the supply of a cheaper anti-depressant to the market, the first EU sanction against such deals. The punishments follow a 2009 report by the European Commission on the pharmaceutical sector, which said "pay-for-delay" agreements between companies lead to consumers paying as much as 20 per cent more for...

Global warming may cause extreme droughts in India: World Bank report

Global warming could lead to more extreme droughts in large parts of India, resulting in widespread food shortages and hardship in the country, in the next few decades, a new World Bank report warned on Wednesday. The impact of a possible global temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius in the next few decades threatens to trap millions of people in poverty, according to the report. The soaring temperatures will also...

Indian-origin realty broker fined one million pounds in UK

In the biggest ever penalty on an individual trader, the UK financial sector regulator FCA on Wednesday imposed a fine of nearly one million pounds on an Indian- origin realty broker for fraudulent sale and renting of homes. Birmingham-based Gurpreet Singh Chadda, who was doing business of sale and rent-back of homes through Red2Black Homes and B~~amp;L Homes, has also been banned from working in the British financial services industry,...

Google asks US court for permission to release number of data query requests from govt

Google said it asked a special US court handling national security investigations for permission to publish the number of government requests for data to the Internet giant. The court filing in Washington came amid a firestorm of protests over revelations that the National Security Agency had accessed vast amounts of data in a surveillance program under the supervision of the special court, which operates in secret. Google said it already...