Palestinian recognition gains momentum: UN chief
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon says the international community’s failure to advance a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was spurring governments and parliaments to take action to recognise the state of Palestine and that momentum would grow.
Role of US troops in Afghanistan to shift to training:White House
The role of US troops in Afghanistan will shift in 2015 to training Afghan security forces and counter-terrorism activities, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday.
US troops to remain in Baltics, Poland next year
The United States will keep troops in Poland and the Baltic states for at least the next year as tensions with Russia remain, the commander of US land forces in Europe said on Sunday.
Suicide blast at Afghan volleyball game kills 50
Around 50 people were killed and 60 others wounded when a suicide blast ripped through crowds gathered to watch a volleyball game in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, officials said.
Israeli forces kill Gazan since Aug ceasefire
The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, the first such fatality since a 50-day Gaza war ended in August. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
SAARC foreign secys begin deliberations in Kathmandu
The foreign secretaries of the SAARC countries on Sunday began their two-day deliberations in Kathmandu on the agenda of the 18th SAARC summit to be held on November 26-27.
IS kills 25 tribesmen near Ramadi
Islamic State militants have killed 25 members of a Sunni Muslim tribe during their assault on a provincial capital west of Baghdad, local officials said on Saturday, in apparent revenge for tribal opposition to the radical Islamists.
37 homes collapse, dozens injured in Japan quake
Helicopter surveys on Sunday showed more extensive damage than earlier thought from an overnight earthquake in the mountainous central Japan area that hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics. At least 37 homes were destroyed in two villages, and 39 people were injured across the region.
Turkey strained by Syrian refugees: AI
With Turkey’s government-run refugee camps operating at full capacity, more than one million Syrian refugees who have flocked to Turkey to escape fighting at home are struggling to survive on their own, according to an Amnesty International report released Thursday. Turkey, which hosts half of the 3.2 million refugees who have fled Syria, is shouldering the heaviest burden of what the report calls the world’s worst refugee crisis in a generation. ‘In three days in September 2014, Turkey received some 130,000 refugees from Syria – more than the entire European Union had in the past three years,’ the report said.
Fears grow in India about Hindu ‘Modi-fication’ of education
Indians were flying aeroplanes, carrying out stem cell research and may even have been using cosmic weapons 5,000 years ago, according to the chairman of India’s leading historical organisation.
