SOUTH ASIA

Ramallah: Four Palestinians were killed by Israeli army fire in Jenin, the northern West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Ministry said on Sunday in a press statement that the four victims, whose identities were still unknown, died during an "occupation assault" on the town of Sir, southeast of Jenin as reported by Xinhua news agency. Jenin Governor Kamal Abu Rab told Xinhua that the victims' identities could not be confirmed due to the severe damage and charring of their bodies. He added that the Israeli army had detained the corpses. The Ministry statement did not provide further details about the incident. Local sources and eyewitnesses told Xinhua that an Israeli drone targeted a room in the village of Sir earlier on Sunday morning. The strike was fol...

Islamabad, December 1 (IANS) The death toll of sectarian violence in Kurram district of Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province rose to 124, local administration said. An official from the local administration of the district on Saturday said that the death toll rose after 16 more people died in armed clashes during the last 24 hours, adding that over 170 others were also injured, Xinhua news agency reported. The majority of the injured are admitted to different hospitals including those who are in critical condition, added the official. The violence started after armed men attacked a convoy of passenger vehicles coming from the Parachinar area in the Mandori Uchit area of the district on November 21, killing 52 people, including children and women. The incident trigge...

Beirut: Two people were killed and six others injured in Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese official and military sources. The Public Health Emergency Operations Center of the Ministry of Public Health said in separate statements on Saturday that an Israeli airstrike on a car in the village of Majdal Zoun injured three people, including a 7-year-old child, Xinhua news agency reported. "A citizen was also injured in an Israeli raid on the village of Al-Bissariyeh," it said. Meanwhile, the official National News Agency said, "An Israeli raid on the village of Rab El Thalathine resulted in two deaths and two injuries, and artillery shelling was recorded on the Taybeh water project." A Lebanese military source told Xinhua that an Israeli force advanced fr...

Jerusalem: The Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out airstrikes on four Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, according to a statement issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), three days after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. The IDF noted that the strikes were conducted on Saturday after it spotted activities in Lebanon that posed a threat to Israel and violated the ceasefire understandings, Xinhua news agency reported. In one case, the IAF struck rocket launchers in the coastal city of Sidon in southwestern Lebanon, after it identified "terrorist activity in a Hezbollah facility." In another case, the IAF struck a vehicle that a short while ago had been observed being loaded with RPGs, ammunition boxes, and other military equipment by armed operatives. The IAF al...

Kolkata: One more monk attached to the International Society For Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) was arrested in Bangladesh, vice-president and spokesman of the ISKCON Kolkata, Radharaman Das claimed on Saturday. He said that the second monk of the society who has been arrested is Shyam Das. He claimed that Das went to meet monk and spokesperson of Bangladesh Sammilita Sanatani Jagaran Jote Chinmoy Krishna Das, popularly known as Chinmoy Prabhu, who was arrested earlier this week by Bangladesh Police, at the correctional home where he is housed now. Bangladesh Police also took Shyam Das in custody, Radharaman Das claimed. He posted a picture of Shyam Das on his official X handle and questioned whether the arrested monk looked like a terrorist. “Does he look like a terrorist? #FreeI...

Tokyo: Japan and the United States will conduct a series of high-level meetings starting July 28, including a Foreign Ministers' Meeting, the Japan-US Security Consultative Committee (2+2) talks, and a Japan-US Ministerial Meeting on Extended Deterrence. The meetings will take place during US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s two-day visit to Tokyo, as announced by the Japanese Foreign Ministry on Monday. During the 2+2 talks, Blinken and Japan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Yoko Kamikawa, alongside US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and Japanese Defence Minister Minoru Kihara, will discuss security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. They will review the outcomes of security and defence cooperation from Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s visit to Washington in April and pla...