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CHENNAI: There is quite a celebration in the two-room tenement where Shalini Munnuswamy lives with her parents. Rescued from bonded labour when she was 11, Shalini has just graduated from high school in the southern Indian city of Chennai. For a child who earned up to 100 rupees ($1.50) for each basket of shrimp she […]

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party on Thursday won power for the first time in the northeastern state of Assam, a victory that will help his right-wing nationalist government recover some reform momentum after poll losses last year. Grabbing power in Assam, one of five states electing new legislatures, is a sign […]

MUMBAI: India’s much vaunted mobile telecom revolution has caused a lot of anguish at the country’s only toll-free emergency helpline for street children and children in distress. Set up in 1996 when most calls came from telephone booths and manned public-call offices, Childline has watched uneasily as public landlines have disappeared over the past decade. […]

TOKYO: An American working at a US military base on the Japanese island of Okinawa was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of dumping the body of a 20-year-old Japanese woman, media said, a case likely to stir anti-US sentiment ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit. Okinawa police charged the 32-year-old US civilian working at the […]

HONG KONG: A Hong Kong visit by a top leader of China’s Communist Party, which included talks with pro-democracy lawmakers, was an “important breakthrough” in relations between Beijing and the city, an influential Chinese newspaper said on Thursday. The visit by Zhang Dejiang, the third most senior member of the Communist Party, follows a period […]

  KATHMANDU: Nepal’s former rebel Maoists joined hands with hardline splinter groups to form a new political party on Thursday in a bid to bolster their strength after a string of splits. The Maoists, who staged a decade-long insurgency in Nepal, are a minority partner in government but have lost ground since winning a landslide […]

ARANAYAKA: Hopes faded on Thursday for the survival of about 130 people trapped under the mud and rubble of two landslides in Sri Lanka, as heavy rain hampered rescue operations and the death toll from the disaster rose to 58. Days of torrential rains have forced around 300,000 people from their homes across the island […]

ELANGAPITIYA VILLAGE: Soldiers and police used sticks and bare hands Wednesday to dig through enormous piles of mud covering houses in three villages hit by massive landslides in central Sri Lanka, with hundreds of families reported missing. By evening, rescuers had pulled 17 bodies from the mud and debris unleashed by several days of heavy […]

Outside the train station in Rome, teen migrants sell drugs from school backpacks and trade sex for cash or clothes. In the capital of Sweden, they steal food from supermarkets and sleep on the streets. From makeshift camps along the northern French coast, they try to hop at night onto the backs of moving trucks […]

MANILA: Communist rebel leaders welcomed on Wednesday a possible offer from the Philippines’ presumptive president-elect of four Cabinet posts, raising the prospect of a government that includes Marxist guerrillas who have long demanded an end to the US military presence and the redistribution of land. Rodrigo Duterte, who won the May 9 presidential election by […]