Colombo: Sri Lanka is drafting a new legislation to curb the growing incidents of religious slander and online vitriol, according to the country’s religious affairs minister. The move comes after a stand-up comedian Nathasha Edirisooriya allegedly made certain derogatory remarks on religions, which she uploaded online. Edirisooriya offered an apology, but a complaint was filed and…
Islamabad: Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has hinted that negotiations with former prime minister Imran Khan to end the political crisis were possible if he took “corrective measures” and apologised to the nation for the May 9 violence in which sensitive military installations were attacked. Dar made this assertion during a Geo News programme on Sunday,…
Houston: A Florida man has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling charges in a case linked to the discovery last year of a family of four migrants from India found frozen to death just steps from the Canada-US border, according to media reports. Steve Shand, 48, waived the reading of the indictment before entering the plea…
Islamabad: A powerful 6.0-magnitude earthquake jolted several parts of Pakistan on Sunday morning, sparking panic and forcing residents to flee their homes. The epicentre of the quake was the border region of Afghanistan and Tajikistan and it originated at a depth of 223 km, which considerably reduced its devastating impact, according to the National Seismic…
Lahore: Twenty-seven-years after its founding, former cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party is at the crossroads, facing a likely ban by the coalition government following the unprecedented attack on sensitive military installations by his supporters earlier this month. The mainstream parties – Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan-Fazl (JUI-F) –…
Beijing/Shanghai: China’s first indigenously built passenger aircraft C919 on Sunday successfully completed its first commercial flight, marking its official entry into the civil aviation market as part of the country’s bid to compete with Western rivals like Boeing and Airbus. The first commercial flight of C919 from the eastern metropolis of Shanghai to Beijing was operated…
Islamabad: Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has claimed that the intelligence agencies have intercepted a conversation indicating that Imran Khan’s party was hatching a plot to defame law enforcement authorities. Addressing a hastily staged press conference on Saturday night, Sanaullah alleged that the objective of the move was to falsely implicate the law-enforcement agencies in the…
Washington: Indian-American public policy expert Neera Tanden has said her experience as a daughter of immigrants is akin to many immigrants in the US and she will work on the issue of immigration in her new role as the White House Domestic Policy Advisor. Tanden, 52, on Saturday replaces former US National Security Advisor Susan…
Washington: A prominent American lawmaker has introduced a bill in the US Congress to declare Diwali, the festival of lights, a federal holiday, a move welcomed by different communities from across the country. The Diwali Day Act, if passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden would make the festival of lights…
Washington: India-born US District Judge Amit Mehta had some tough words for Stewart Rhodes before he sentenced the founder of a far-right anti-government militia for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that ended with the violent attack on the US Capitol. Mehta, in his early 50s, handed down an 18-year prison sentence to Rhodes,…
