The Olympic torch arrives in Hong Kong on Wednesday with authorities under fire for barring at least half a dozen activists from entering the city. Three Tibetan activists from the groups Free Tibet and Students for a Free Tibet were denied entry by Hong Kong authorities on Tuesday, while three Danish human rights activists including sculptor Jens Galschiot were barred over the weekend.
The Australian leg of the Beijing Olympic torch relay began on Wednesday in the capital city of Canberra, amid large crowds and tight security, to prevent any disruptions. At least four people were arrested after minor scuffles and demonstrations by pro-Tibetan protestors. There had been confusion over the attendants' role in the run-up to the relay, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pledging that no Chinese personnel would be allowed to provide security.
The Olympic torch arrived in Australia's capital of Canberra on Wednesday, landing at an air force base under the type of tight security usually afforded visiting world leaders. Hundreds of extra police have been called in to protect the torch, which will be carried through barricaded Canberra streets on Thursday, with authorities determined to avoid the chaos that disrupted the relay in Europe and the United States.
The Olympic torch landed amid tight security on Friday in the Thai capital, the latest leg of its world tour, with police saying they are ready to stop any attempt by anti-China activists to put out the flame. Thai Olympic chief General Yuthasak Sasiprapa said short-cuts and alternative torch relay routes have been made ready in case of any "unexpected incidents".
Amidst unprecedented security arrangements to ward off any anti-China protest and militant threat, the Pakistani leg of the Olympic torch relay kicked off in Islamabad on Wednesday at a colourful ceremony attended by President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani.
An expected stormy run in Asia for the Beijing Olympic flame on Monday prompted Pakistan to promise security worthy of a head of state to the torch, as it made a last-minute change in the route for the relay marred by anti-China protests. The Olympic torch will arrive in Islamabad early on April 16 from Muscat, and it will be taken to New Delhi later the same day.
Security officials extinguished the Olympic torch on Monday on the Paris leg of its journey, disrupted by protesters against China's crackdown on Tibet. A police source said organisers were forced to put the torch on a bus to protect it from the hundreds of protesters who swarmed the procession after it set off from the Eiffel Tower.
The Olympic torch was reportedly been extinguished following clashes between protestors, opposing a security drive in Tibet, police on the streets of Paris. The protestors, expressing anger at China's human rights record, disrupted the relay in the French capital on Monday.
Pro-Tibet demonstrators tried to hijack the Beijing Olympic torch lighting ceremony in ancient Olympia on Monday. Just before the torch-lighting ceremony inside the archaeological site that played host to the Olympics in ancient Greece, a few demonstrators tried to break a tight police cordon.
A sharp increase in police killings has cast "a shadow of death" over Rio de Janeiro as it prepares to host the Olympic Games, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
Zeenat, 18, died on the spot, police said.
Euphoric crowds chanting "Go Olympics, Go Beijing" cheered the Olympic flame through Tiananmen Square on Wednesday.
Fearing violent anti-China protests from Tibetans and human rights activists and possible skirmishes between anti- and pro- Beijing demonstrators, authorities here changed and truncated the route of the Olympic torch at the last moment. They also cancelled the closing ceremony planned at the end of relay which will now be held at an undisclosed venue for security reasons.
China said on Wednesday that the Olympic torch would go through the Himalayan region as planned on its way to August's Beijing Games. The crackdown on the protests in Tibet and neighbouring Chinese provinces, which may have killed dozens of people, have sparked calls for a boycott of Beijing's showcase Games.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday called for constant defence technology upgrades for India to maintain an edge in military capability over its adversaries.
The spectacular Milky Way over the picturesque Bavarian mountain, Herzogstand, the remarkable Horsehead Nebula and the Flame Nebula, a vast cloud of gas and dust where new stars are being born; the Royal Observatory's Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2019 has once more received thousands of outstanding images. The competition, which is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich, sponsored by Insight Investment and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine, is now in its eleventh year and has broken the record number of entries once more, receiving over 4,600 entries from enthusiastic amateurs and professional photographers, taken from 90 countries across the globe. The winners will be announced on September 12, and an exhibition of the winning images from the past years of the contest will be on show at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich from September 13.
She said she no longer believes that her fast will lead to the repeal of the 'draconian' AFSPA but she will continue the fight.
Justice Jagdeep Singh read out the verdict as soon as the special CBI Court began the hearing on the case on Friday.
India is, indeed, particularly vulnerable to this menace.
Doves flew and confetti rained down as the Olympic torch was carried along the ancient Great Wall on a misty Thursday morning, the eve of Games that China hopes will demonstrate its modern-day strength. Hours before flying to Beijing for Friday's opening ceremony, US President George W Bush used some of his bluntest language yet in criticising China on human rights.
Sharks, mating frogs, seals playing with photographers... these are the amazing photos which offer an enchanting breadth of what's beyond the shoreline. Underwater Photographer of the Year has just announced the winners of its 2019 photo contest and photographer Richard Barnden, from the UK, was named Underwater Photographer of the Year 2019. Prizes and commendations were handed out in categories including Wide Angle, Macro, Wrecks, Behaviour, Portrait, Black and White, Compact, Up and Coming, and in British waters, Wide Angle, Living Together, Compact, and Macro Shots.
Billed as the largest gathering of humanity in recorded history, Maha Kumbh has commenced in Allahabad. Over the next few weeks, pilgrims will jostle to take a dip at Sangam the confluence of two polluted rivers of the country, the Ganga and the Yamuna. Bharat Lal Seth analyses why the rivers will remain dirty.
The Russians had appealed their exclusion from the Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over the doping scandal from the 2014 Sochi Games.
Two clerics and four women were among 59 people indicted by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Wednesday for burning alive a Christian couple over alleged desecration of the Quran in Punjab province.
"I congratulate the people of Kochi on the proud moment," the PM said.
A woman and her two minor granddaughters were killed when an angry mob set alight several houses, shops in Pakistan's Punjab province belonging to the minority Ahmadi sect in riots that followed the alleged posting of blasphemous content on Facebook.
The Olympic torch relay, which was supposed to start at 3 pm, was delayed by the absence of Indian Olympic Association president Suresh Kalmadi and other officials. The Chinese officials, however, said that they were ready for the relay.
The political resolution passed at the party's national executive claimed that the Modi government has created a new "history" in the direction of the poor's welfare with its bold initiatives.
The death toll in violence across Bangladesh triggered by the execution of a top Jamaat-e-Islami leader has risen to 21, prompting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to issue a stern warning saying, "We know how to control you."
A Dalit girl, who was set ablaze after an attempted rape, died after struggling for survival for twelve days at a hospital in Bhubaneswar, triggering public protests and demands for the resignation of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
A top leader of Bangladesh's fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party was on Thursday sentenced to death for "crimes against humanity", including genocide and religious persecution, during the country's 1971 war of independence against Pakistan.
Launching a scathing attack on the Congress for seeking to pocket the credit of empowering Dalits, Narendra Modi on Monday accused the Gandhi family of stopping implementation of rights given by B R Ambedkar and even "snatching" prime minister Manmohan Singh's right of free speech.
A top leader of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami was on Tuesday sentenced to life by a special Bangladeshi tribunal on charges of committing "crimes against humanity" during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan. "He (Abdul Kader Mollah) will serve the life term," said chairman of the three-member International Crimes Tribunal Justice Obaidul Hassan.
The winner of the coveted L'Iris d'Or/ Professional Photographer of the Year title takes home a $25,000 (Rs 15 lakh) prize.
Normal life in Kashmir was disrupted on Monday with shops and business establishments remaining closed in many places due to a strike called by separatist Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front.
Incidents of arson, firing and vandalism were reported from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab as protesters agitated against the dilution of the SC/ST Act.
London moved into the final month of preparations for its Olympic Games on Wednesday with a new landmark to greet visitors, and a warning that some others would not be welcome.
'This was our country, after all, our India, humara Hindustan -- why would we go anywhere else?'
Six persons accused in a 2002 riot case where a youth and his mother were allegedly burnt to death in Gomtipur area in Ahmedabad, were acquitted by a trial court for lack of evidence.
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