Islamabad, Sept 26: Pulling up the government, the Pakistan Supreme Court on Wednesday said it must again revise a letter to Swiss authorities as the draft did not mention the reopening of corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.

The Supreme Court ordered the government to write the text strictly in the light of its guidelines. It gave the government time till October 5 to s...

Moscow, Sept 26: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the country would defend itself if Israel were to attack it.

“Any nation has the right and will indeed defend herself,” Ahmadinejad said speaking through a translator in an interview aired on Monday on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight.

“Why should the world be managed in such a way that an individu...

Washington, Sept 26: A nuclear-armed Iran would threaten Israel’s existence, the security of the Persian Gulf nations, and global economic stability, US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday in his speech to the UN General Assembly. “We respect the right of nations to access peaceful nuclear power. But one of the purposes of the United Nations is to see that we harness that power f...

United Nations, Sept 26: The issue of Kashmir was a “symbol of the failures” of the UN, and a resolution could only be arrived in an “environment of cooperation”, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told the UN General Assembly.

Zardari affirmed Pakistan's resolve to support the rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, which has long been the subject of conten...

Washington, Sept 26: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has moved the United Nations to immediately take notice of the anti-Islam film, insisting that such acts need to be criminalized.

“Before I take up my speech, I want to express the strongest condemnation for the acts of incitement of hate against the faith of billions of Muslims of the world and our beloved prophet, Mohammad...

Washington, Sept 26: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is reportedly planning to address a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly though a video link from Ecuador’s embassy in London, as another effort to avoid extradition to Sweden.

Ecuador’s mission to the United Nations announced that Assange would to speak on Wednesday alongside Foreign Minister Ricardo Patin...

Beijing, Sept 26: More than 50 scholars from China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan met in Shanghai on Wednesday to defend China’s sovereignty over the disputed Diaoyu Islands with historical and legal evidence, Xinhua reported.

The seminar was organized by the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, Fangxia Cultural Exchange Association and the National Society of Taiwan Studie...

Washington, Sept 26: A US soldier has been charged with killing a fellow soldier by trying to scare him out of hiccups, and by mistake shooting him comrade in the face, CNN reported. Both soldiers, joined by a third man, were drinking alcohol and watching football at the time of the incident at Fort Hood Sunday night, authorities said. “The victim had the hiccups. The suspect pulled out a gu...

London, Sept 26: Just one in 50 victims of “surgical” US drone strikes in Pakistan are known militants, a report claimed on Tuesday. The use of drones in the covert war run by the US against violent Islamists has been documented in a new report by legal experts at Stanford and New York universities, The Independent reported. The product of nine months’ research and more than 130 ...

Washington, Sept 26: Partnered operations between NATO and Afghan forces are continuing despite a decision by the US commander to scale them down after a string of deadly insider attacks, Pentagon spokesperson George Little has said. Speaking at a Pentagon news conference on Tuesday, the spokesperson described such scaling back as “a temporary measure”, adding that some patrols below t...

Moscow, Sept 26: Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended the image of “Russian girl” which was recently criticised by a senior priest in the Russian Orthodox Church. Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), a member of the presidential council for culture and art, said that Russia previously was associated with modest girls who wore their hair in plaits. But that this image has been tra...

Beijing, Sept 26: China’s first aircraft carrier, which was commissioned on Tuesday, is an important element in “comprehensive rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”, said a state-run Chinese daily amid an ongoing row with Japan over a group of islands.

An Op-Ed article in Global Times on Wednesday said that besides improving the navy’s combat capabilities in distan...

Islamabad, Sept 26: Nearly 60 million Pakistanis live below the poverty line, said a leading daily lamenting that “areas such as defence get the better of development”.

An editorial in the Dawn on Wednesday said a study on poverty has brought Pakistan face to face with a reality that it will find hard to accept: “Every third Pakistani is caught in the poor bracket i.e....

Washington, Sept 26: Many women in the US seeking curves like Hollywood celebrities are increasingly turning to the black market for plastic surgery, little realising its deadly consequences.

During a preliminary hearing in a Mississippi court earlier this week, prosecutors said 37-year-old Karima Gordon died in March after being injected in the buttocks with a silicon-like substance.&n...

Beijing, Sept 26: A Chinese resident on Wednesday claimed he has a Japanese map published in 1935, where Japan does not claim the disputed Diaoyu Islands. Yang Xiufeng from Hebei province said the map was published in 1935 and purchased in May 1939 in Fukuona, Japan, according to Xinhua.

He said the map was bought by a family friend who later gave it to his family.

The man said ...

Sydney, Sept 26: Clear evidence of major changes taking place in the Great Barrier Reef, off Australia, have emerged, based on satellite measurements of sea surface temperatures. The changes have big implications for the future management of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and its marine protected areas, say Natalie Ban and Bob Pressey, professors at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studie...

London, Sept 26: Why are older drivers being stigmatised as unsafe when they are actually involved in fewer accidents than other age groups, asks a geriatrician.

Older drivers are more cautious than other road users, but the stigma “refuses to die”, Desmond O’Neill, professor and consultant physician in geriatric and stroke medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, has argu...

Brussels, Sept 26: Don’t discount a doctor’s gut feeling when it comes to serious illness, especially those affecting children, a new study suggests. A clinician’s intuitive feeling that something is wrong, even after examination that suggests otherwise, seems to have even greater diagnostic value than most symptoms and signs. Serious infection can easily be missed in young child...

London, Sept 26: The appetite centres of children’s brains light up when they are shown advertising images such as the McDonald’s logo, a study reveals. Researchers revealed that the same areas do not respond to well-known logos that are not to do with food, The Independent reported on Sunday.  It suggests that fast-food firms are tapping into the reward areas of the brain, and th...

London, Sept 26: People in powerful leadership roles are less stressed than their minions, a study shows. Leadership brings a greater sense of being in control, The Independent reported quoting Harvard University scientists. The finding overturns the popular notion that captains of industry, heads of government and military chiefs pay a high price for their success. (IANS)...

London, Sept 26: Castration can increase a man’s lifespan by up to 20 years, The Independent reported. Researchers at Inha University in South Korea analysed genealogy records of members of the Korean imperial court dating from 1392 to 1910. The noble eunuchs lived 14 to 19 years longer than men of similar social class who were “intact”, the journal Current Biology reports. (IANS...

London, Sept 26: A Sikh US university student who defended her facial hair and faith when a photo of her went viral has won a legion of fans for her dignified response, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday. A man took a photo without Balpreet Kaur’s consent and uploaded onto Reddit in the “funny” category with the tagline “im (sic) not sure what to conclude from this”...

London, Sept 26: Harry Potter writer JK Rowling wrote her first adult novel “The Casual Vacancy” simply because she “wanted to”, and where she shows herself proficient “at tossing out the F-word”. The book is aimed specifically at an older audience and includes adult themes and swear words, BBC reported on Wednesday. “The Casual Vacancy” will be rele...

London, Sept 25: NASA will build a manned base beyond the dark side of the moon as a “gateway spacecraft”, to serve as a starting point for manned expeditions to Mars, the Daily Mail reported. It would remain permanently in space 277,000 miles from Earth - in context, the International Space Station is just 230 miles away. The spaceship would expand man’s horizons - but it will r...

Johannesburg, Sept 26: Although Beijing has commissioned its first aircraft carrier, China poses no threat to any country in the world, a South African newspaper said on Wednesday. In an editorial carried by South Africa’s Business Day newspaper, Kobus Van der Wath wrote that the launch of the aircraft carrier “serves as a marker on China’s drive to build a blue-water navy”...