KATHMANDU, Nepal (AFP) — Nepal has imposed a 10-year mountaineering ban on an Indian couple who faked photographs purporting to show them at the top of Mount Everest, an official said Tuesday. Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod, both police constables, said they reached the top of the world’s highest mountain on May 23. But fellow climbers cast doubt on their claim, saying their photos at the summit were doctored. Nepal’s tourism department initially certified their claim […]
Asia
Strong typhoon Lionrock aims for Japan’s northeast
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — A strong typhoon was on course Tuesday for a direct hit on northeastern Japan, with authorities warning of heavy rain and high waves along the Pacific coast. Typhoon Lionrock was 170 kilometers (105 miles) east of the city of Choshi, as of 9 am (0000 GMT). Choshi lies straight east of Tokyo. Packing wind gusts up to 180 kilometers per hour, the storm was moving north at 30 kilometers per hour […]
‘Missile practice’ caused deadly Taiwan misfire: prosecutors
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — An unsupervised Taiwanese naval officer who decided to experiment with a missile launcher and accidentally fired towards China was one of three people charged Monday over the fatal incident. The misfiring of the supersonic “aircraft carrier killer” last month struck a damaging blow to the military’s image, embarrassing new president Tsai Ing-wen and angering Beijing. The Hsiung-feng III (Brave wind) missile hit a Taiwanese trawler, killing the skipper on board and […]
Libyan forces push into last IS-held areas of Sirte
by Mahmud Turkia SIRTE, Libya (AFP) — Forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed unity government on Sunday pushed into the last areas of Sirte held by the Islamic State group in what was the jihadists’ coastal stronghold. The battle for the hometown of Libya’s slain dictator Moamer Kadhafi was launched more than three months ago by forces loyal to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord. IS captured the Mediterranean city in June 2015, sparking fears they […]
40 dead as Turkish shelling, raids hit Syrian civilians
by Layal Abou Rahal with Stuart Williams in Istanbul BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Turkish shelling and air strikes killed at least 40 Syrians on Sunday, a monitor said, in the first significant civilian casualties in Turkey’s intensifying campaign in northern Syria. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said the army had killed 25 Kurdish “terrorists” in air strikes as part of its unprecedented operation inside Syria. The bombardments came after Ankara suffered its first military fatality […]
Rebels, civilians to evacuate Syria’s Daraya under deal
DARAYA, Syria (AFP) — Ambulances and Red Crescent vehicles entered Syria’s besieged town of Daraya as thousands of rebels and civilians prepared to evacuate on Friday ahead of its takeover by government forces. It was unclear exactly when residents and fighters would start leaving the devastated town near the capital Damascus that has been under rebel control since 2012. An estimated 8,000 people remain in the town, despite a government siege lasting four years and […]
Barrel bombing kills 11 children in Syria’s Aleppo
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Eleven children were killed on Thursday in a barrel bomb attack carried out by government forces on a rebel-held neighborhood of Syria’s Aleppo city, a monitor said. “Fifteen civilians, among them 11 children, were killed in a barrel bomb attack on the Bab al-Nayrab neighborhood” in the south of Aleppo city, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said. The group also reported eight civilians, including two children, were killed […]
Ten more Turkish tanks head across border into Syria
by Bulent KILIC KARKAMIS, Turkey (AFP) — At least 10 more Turkish tanks on Thursday crossed the border into Syria a day after pro-Ankara Syrian opposition fighters ousted jihadists from the town of Jarabulus, an AFP photographer said. The tanks were set to join around a dozen others which had crossed the frontier on Monday in Operation Euphrates Shield, which Turkey says aims at ridding the border area of Islamic State (IS) extremists and also Kurdish […]
Witness recounts attack at American University in Kabul that killed 12
KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) — At least 12 people, including seven students, were killed in an attack on the American University in Kabul that sent hundreds of students fleeing in panic, police said early on Thursday (August 25), before the assault ended when two gunmen were shot dead. The attack began at around 6:30 p.m. local time (1400 GMT) on Wednesday (August 24) with a large explosion that officials said was a car bomb followed by […]
Japan and China in talks on improving relations
BEIJING, China (Reuters) — Shotaro Yachi, head of Japan’s National Security Council, met with Chinese state councilor Yang Jiechi on Thursday (August 25) for talks in Beijing. The two shook hands at the Diaoyutai state guesthouse before sitting down to talks in which they discussed improving relations between the two countries. Yachi is expected to meet Premier Li Keqiang later on Thursday afternoon. Sino-Japanese relations, coloured by Japan’s occupation of parts of China before and […]
Death toll rises to nine in Kabul university attack: official
by Mushtaq MOJADDIDI KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) — At least nine people were killed after militants stormed the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, officials said Thursday, in a nearly 10-hour raid that prompted anguished pleas for help from trapped students. Explosions and gunfire rocked the campus after the attack began Wednesday evening, just weeks after two university professors — an American and an Australian — were kidnapped at gunpoint near the school. No group has so […]
N. Korea leader says missile test was “greatest success”: KCNA
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has declared a recent submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test the “greatest success”, Pyongyang’s state media said Thursday. The results of Wednesday’s launch proved the North had joined the “front rank of the military powers fully equipped with nuclear attack capability” and that the US mainland and the operational theatre in the Pacific were now “within the striking range” of the North’s army, KCNA news agency […]
