UN SPOKESPERSON AMID ROW OVER BJP LEADERS' PROPHET REMARKS United Nations(PTI): Amid sharp reaction from several Muslim nations over remarks by BJP leaders against Prophet Mohammed, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that we strongly encourage respect and tolerance fo

San Francisco(AP): Sheryl Sandberg, the No. 2 executive at Facebook owner Meta, who helped turn its business from startup to digital advertising empire while also taking blame for some of its biggest missteps, is stepping down. Sandberg has served as chief operating officer at the social media gi

Colombo(PTI): Sri Lankan Muslims have decided to forgo the Haj pilgrimage this year due to the worst economic crisis facing the debt-ridden country, a media report said on Wednesday. Saudi Arabia had approved a quota of 1,585 Haj pilgrims from Sri Lanka for the year 2022, out of the one million f

Colombo (PTI): Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday expressed appreciation for the support India has been extending to his country during "this difficult period". Wickremesinghe also said he is "grateful" for the positive response from India and Japan on the proposal made for

Tokyo(AP): President Joe Biden said Monday that the US would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan, saying the burden to protect Taiwan is "even stronger' after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It was one of the most forceful presidential statements in support of self-governing in decades

Canberra (Australia), May 21: Australia's prime minister conceded defeat after an election on Saturday that could deliver a minority government. Scott Morrison acted quickly despite millions of votes yet to be counted because an Australian prime minister must attend a Tokyo summit on Tuesday with

Colombo(PTI): Sri Lanka's former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa is facing calls for his arrest from Opposition politicians for inciting violence against peaceful anti-government protesters that claimed at least five lives, left over 200 people injured and saw arson attacks on the homes of several

Colombo, May 6: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared a state of emergency with effect from Friday midnight, according to the presidential media division. The state of emergency gives the police and the security forces power to arbitrarily arrest and detain people. Rajapaksa's decis

Rome(AP): The United Nations has said that the number of people without enough to eat on a daily basis reached an all-time high last year and is poised to hit "appalling" new levels as the Ukraine war affects global food production. Almost 193 million people in 53 countries suffered acute food in

Washington (PTI): Around the world, Muslims are being targeted with violence, US President Joe Biden said on Monday asserting that Muslims make America stronger every single day even as they still face real challenges and threats in the society that they live in. At a White House reception to cel

Singapore (PTI): Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, a mentally challenged Indian-origin Malaysian man found guilty of drug trafficking, was executed in Singapore on Wednesday, his family said, after a top court dismissed a last-ditch legal challenge from his mother in a controversial case that caught global

Bangkok(AP): A court in military-ruled Myanmar convicted the country's former leader Aung San Suu Kyi of corruption and sentenced her to five years in prison on Wednesday. Suu Kyi, who was ousted by an army takeover in February last year, had denied the allegation that she had accepted gold and h

New York(PTI): Twitter's India-born CEO Parag Agrawal has told worried employees that he doesn't know what direction this company will go in once the whopping USD 44 billion deal, which will take the social media giant private, closes with new owner billionaire Elon Musk. The remarks by Agrawal,

Cairo (AP): A Sudanese aid group says that tribal clashes on Sunday between Arabs and non-Arabs in the war-ravaged Darfur region have killed 168 people. Adam Regal, spokesman for the General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur, says fighting in the Kreinik area of West Darfur provin

Washington (PTI): The US discourages India to rely on Russia for its defence needs, the Pentagon has said. In October 2018, India signed a USD 5 billion deal with Russia to buy five units of the S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems to ramp up its air defence, despite a warning from the then T

Colombo(PTI): Sri Lanka's Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa on Wednesday claimed that Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene had assured that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was ready to resign if all political parties request him, media reports said on Wednesday. There have been growing ca

Colombo, Apr 19: At least one person was killed and 12 others injured on Tuesday when police opened fire to disperse anti-government protestors in Sri Lanka's southwestern region of Rambukkana. The residents were protesting the latest fuel price hike when they clashed with the police. Police s

Kviv (Ukraine) (AP): A Ukrainian military official said street battles have begun and evacuation is impossible in the town of Kreminna. That's one of only two spots where the Ukrainians said the Russians managed to break through on Monday along a front stretching for hundreds of miles. Luhansk re