BEIJING, Aug 8: Pakistani support of the Taliban as well as other militant networks has led to many terrorist attacks in Pakistan and India, a state-run Chinese daily said on Wednesday, fearing that “in future, jihadist networks may undertake major attacks” in China.

An article in the Op-Ed section of the Global Times said the broader problem is that sponsorship of militant ...

DAMASCUS, Aug 8: Iran has dismissed the idea of foreign intervention in violence-ridden Syria, Xinhua reported.

On Tuesday, the visiting secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili, stressed that his country rejects foreign intervention in Syria.

Speaking during a press conference after meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Jalili said Iran will...

ISLAMABAD, Aug 8: The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a show-cause notice to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf for failing to implement its order to write to the Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.

“We hereby issue a notice to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf…to show cause why he may not be proceeded against for committing con...

WASHINGTON, Aug 8: Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney called for a moment of silence in honour of the victims of Sunday’s tragic shooting at a Wisconsin gurdwara, saying the gunman was “motivated by hate”.

The tragedy that claimed the lives of six worshippers at the Oak Creek suburb of Milwaukee “is even more profound because the Sikh religion and the ...

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 8: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez inherited 31.6 million pesos ($6.8 million) from her late husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, the media reported on Tuesday, citing financial disclosure statements.

The President’s net worth in 2011 reached a total of 39.6 million pesos ($8.6 million), according to a declaration presented to the Anticorruption Offic...

WASHINGTON, Aug 8: Jared Lee Loughner pleaded guilty on Tuesday to the January 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, that left six people dead and 13 wounded, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

US District Judge Larry Burns declared Loughner, who has been forcibly medicated for his schizophrenia, competent to stand trial shortly before the defense filed its guilty plea.

LONDON, Aug 8: US Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney twice confused the word “Sikh” with “sheikh” while paying tribute to the Wisconsin temple shooting victims, The Telegraph reported on Wednesday. Speaking at a fund raising event in Des Moines, Romney twice used the word “sheikh”, denoting an Arab leader, rather than “Sikh”, the religion ...

TEHRAN, Aug 8: Tehran has now admitted that retired members of its Revolutionary Guards and army are among 48 Iranians taken hostage in Syria by rebels. In an embarrassing u-turn for Iran, which has always said that the hostages are pilgrims, the country’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was forced to admit that military personnel are among them. “A number of the (hostages) are retir...

GENEVA, Aug 8: Conflict-related violence in Afghanistan caused 1,145 civilians to be killed and 1,954 injured in the first half of 2012, said a report released by the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on Wednesday. The total number of casualties dropped by 15 per cent compared with the same period last year, according to the UNAMA’s 2012 Midyear Report on the Protection of Civili...

WASHINGTON, Aug 8: Some 30,000 Indians among 1.76 million unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the US as children could gain a two-year relief from deportation under President Barack Obama’s new guidelines.

India and South Korea, each with about 30,000 potential beneficiaries, or 2 per cent, are the two top countries of origin outside Latin America for prospective beneficia...

LONDON, Aug 8: Parrots are a lot smarter than previously thought. In a test that puzzled monkeys and defeated dogs, parrots passed with flying colours.

The test was taken by male and female African greys, a class of parrots from a rescue centre, who did as well as three-year-old children.

Pieces of walnut were hidden inside one of two opaque containers. One or both were then sha...

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 8: The UN Refugee Agency is calling upon Bangladesh to allow provision of humanitarian assistance to Myanmar refugees who have entered its territory, Xinhua quoted a UN spokesperson as saying here on Tuesday.

“The UN Refugee Agency is appealing to the government of Bangladesh to ensure that assistance from non-governmental organizations continues to be provided...

WASHINGTON, Aug 8: Leaner or normal weight adult diabetics have a higher death rate than their overweight or obese counterparts with the same disease, says a study.

The Northwestern University study found that normal-weight or thinner diabetics experienced both significantly higher total and non-cardiovascular mortality than overweight participants.

Thinner adults with type-2 di...

WASHINGTON, Aug 8: Specific patterns of brain activity can tell which teenagers are at risk of becoming problem drinkers later on. Using special MRI scans, researchers looked at 40 teenagers of 12 and 16 years who had not started drinking yet, then followed them for about three years and scanned them again.

Half of them started to drink alcohol fairly heavily during this interval. The i...

LONDON, Aug 8: A glass of grapefruit juice a day could indeed boost the efficacy of cancer drugs, check their side effects and also reduce the cost of the medication, according to a study.

Combining the fruit with a specific anti-cancer drug delivered the same benefits as patients would have from taking more than three times of the medication by itself.

University of Chicago res...

TORONTO, Aug 8: Researchers have documented the role dams play in global warming and the surges of greenhouse gases as water levels go up and down.

Bridget Deemer, doctoral student at Washington State University (WSU)- Vancouver, Canada, measured dissolved gases in the water column of Lacamas Lake in Clark County and found methane emissions jumped 20-fold when the water level was drawn ...

SYDNEY, Aug 8: Scientists have identified nine genes that seem to weaken or strength bone, which could pave the way to more effective treatment for osteoporosis, affecting millions worldwide.
Out of 100 ‘knockout mice,’ which have a gene disabled, scientists identified these genes that appear to weaken or strengthen bone. Osteoporosis is a disease that leads to an increased risk o...

LONDON, Aug 8: A children’s play-centre in Britain has barred fathers from attending with their children and is now facing a probe by equality watchdogs, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday. Kids Go Wild is believed to be the first such play-centre in the country to introduce a “women only” policy - which also bans boys over the age of nine. Bosses at the centre, which opened le...

HAVANA, Aug 8: Cuba is developing a National Forest Programme to increase the nation’s green cover, the Granma official daily reported. The director of Cuban ministry of agriculture’s forestry department, Isabel Russo Milhet, said the programme would increase forest land by 2.3 per cent to 29.3 per cent of the country’s total area by the end of 2015, reported Xinhua. Cuba has alr...

LONDON, Aug 8: Staring lecherously at bikini beauties happens to be the top cause of trouble among holidaying couples abroad, a survey has found. While other causes for conflict included the woman wanting to sunbathe while her partner wants to try an activity, where and what to eat, drinking too much, road map reading, the woman packing too much or taking too long to get ready and overspending, th...