World

Melbourne, Apr 18: In an unexpected announcement, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull today said the government will replace its popular 457 visa that brings temporary foreign workers to the country with a new version that will recruit only the "best and the brightest in the national interest". The move to abolish the visa, used by over 95,000 temporary foreign workers, a majority of them

Washington, Apr 18: US President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order that would tighten the process of issuing the H-1B visas and seek a review of the system for creating an "entirely new structure" for awarding these visas, the most sought-after by Indian IT firms and professionals. Trump is scheduled to travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the home state of House of Representatives Speaker

Istanbul, Apr 17: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared victory today in a historic referendum that will tighten his grip on power, but the knife-edge result left the country bitterly divided, with the opposition crying foul. Opponents fear the sweeping constitutional changes, which would grant Erdogan more power than any leader since modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his

Beirut, Apr 16: More than 3,000 Syrians are expected to be evacuated Sunday from four areas as part of a population transfer that was briefly stalled the day before by a deadly blast that killed scores of people, most of them government supporters. The United Nations is not overseeing the transfer deal, which involves residents of the pro-government villages of Foua and Kfarya and the opposition

London, Apr 16: Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai hit out at Pakistan following the lynching of a university student accused of blasphemy. Mashal Khan was stripped naked and beaten to death with planks on a campus in the city of Mardan. "No one is maligning the name of your country or religion... we ourselves are bringing a bad name to our country and religion," Malala said in a video posted to

Kabul, Apr 15: The number of militants killed in an attack by the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the US military has risen to 94, an Afghan official said today. Ataullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor in Nangarhar, said the number of Islamic State group dead was up from the 36 reported a day earlier. A Ministry of Defence official had said yesterday the number

Apr 15: Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has strongly criticised the cold-blooded murder of Abdul Wali Khan University student Mashal Khan, who was lynched by a mob over allegations of blasphemy on Thursday. “This is an incident filled with terror and fear,” Yousafzai said in a video message. Malala lamented that some Pakistanis have forgotten the message of peace given by Islam, saying:

Washington, Apr 15: The Trump administration has officially declined to brand China a currency manipulator, in another major U-turn for the US president, who had repeatedly pledged during his campaign to do so soon after taking office. The reversal by the Treasury department was one of the aslmost half-a-dozen instances when Donald Trump or his administration have gone back on his poll campaign

New York, Apr 14: A 44-year-old Indian-origin woman doctor has been arrested and charged with performing genital mutilation on girls aged 6 to 8. Jumana Nagarwala has been charged with performing FGM on minor girls out of a medical office in Livonia, Michigan. According to Nagarwala's profile in the Henry Ford Health System website, she speaks English and Gujarati. According to the complaint, some

Jalalabad, Apr 14: The US military's largest non- nuclear bomb killed at least 36 militants as it decimated a deep tunnel complex of the Islamic State group, Afghan officials said today, ruling out any civilian casualties. The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb -- better known as the "Mother Of All Bombs" -- hit IS hideouts in Achin district in eastern Nangarhar province yesterday. "As a