The Dalai Lama has revealed he fears that Chinese agents have trained Tibetan women for a mission to kill him. The Tibetan Buddhist leader said that he had been passed reports from inside Tibet warning that the Tibetan women would poison him while posing as devotees seeking his blessings. “We received some sort of information [...]

A Russian Sukhoi passenger plane with 44 people on board, including businessmen and Russian envoys, has gone missing during a demonstration flight over West Java in Indonesia, officials said today. Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said radio contact was lost with the plane after it descended to 6,000 feet. The Indonesia military said the plane [...]

Vladimir Putin has been sworn-in as Russia´s new president on Monday, international news agencies reported. He is starting a third presidential term after four years as prime minister. Putin has remained in power since 2000, first as president and then during the past four years as prime minister. The new, now six-year term will keep [...]

In letters from his last hideout, Osama bin Laden fretted about dysfunction in his terrorist network and crumbling trust from Muslims he wished to incite against their government and the West. A selection of documents seized in last year’s raid on bin Laden’s Pakistan house was posted online today by the US Army’s Combating Terrorism [...]

Asia leads the world when it comes to weapon imports, according to a study released Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Globally the volume of international transfers of major conventional weapons was 24 percent higher in the period 2007-11 compared to the 2002-06 period, the report said. Over the past five years, [...]

At least 26 infants have died in the past five days in a state-run hospital in India’s West Bengal state, reports quoting authorities said on Sunday. The hospital in Malda, about 340 kilometres (211 miles) north of Kolkata, has come under attack for negligence while state health officials claim the babies were underweight and several [...]

A 15-year-old Afghan girl was brutally tortured, beaten and locked in a toilet by her husband’s family for months after she refused to become a prostitute, officials said Saturday. Sahar Gul was in critical condition when she was rescued from a house in northern Baghlan province last week, after her neighbors reported hearing Gul crying [...]

Extravagant firework displays lit up the skies from Sydney to New York in a global New Year’s party that saw millions set aside their world of worries to welcome 2012. Turning the page on a year of financial turmoil in Europe and the United States, uprisings across the Arab world, devastation in Japan, and the [...]

The Srimadbhagawat Publicity Service Association has welcomed the annulment of the case filed to ban the new publication of the translated Russian version of Bhagawat Geeta. The case was annulled by the District Court of Leninski at Tomsk of Siberia. A group had filed a case at the court with demands to ban it calling [...]

Seven months pregnant, Wu Weiping sneaked out early in the morning carrying a shoulder bag with some clothes, her laptop and a knife. “It’s good for me I wasn’t caught, but it’s lucky for them too,” said Wu, 35, who feared that family planning officials were going to drag her to the hospital for a [...]