Aden, Aug 10 (IANS) Yemeni government forces repelled a large-scale offensive by the Houthi group in southern Yemen’s Dhalea province and killed three Houthi militants during the confrontation, a military official told Xinhua.The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Xinhua that the Houthis used heavy artillery in an attempt to break through government defensive lines in the Bab Ghalaq area in northern Dhalea, triggering intense fighting between the group and government forces.The f…

Washington, Aug 10 (IANS) Officials of US President Donald Trump’s administration considered demanding that South Korea raise its defense spending to 3.8 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) during tariff negotiations, a news report said, citing internal US government documents.US officials also weighed the idea of requiring South Korea to publicly support operational flexibility of the US Forces Korea (USFK) to better deter China, The Washington Post reported, though it is not clear whe…

Kyiv, Aug 10 (IANS) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has firmly rejected any suggestion that Ukraine might relinquish territory to Russia as part of a potential peace deal, following comments by US President Donald Trump proposing a “territorial swap” to end the war.“Ukraine will not surrender land to the occupier,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday, emphasising that Kyiv has no intention of rewarding Russia for its aggression. “We will not give Russia any awards for what it has done,” h…

New York, Aug 10 (IANS) Three people were injured in a shooting at Times Square, said the New York City Police Department (NYPD).All the injured were hospitalized and in stable condition, said an NYPD spokesperson. A 17-year-old boy was held in custody and a firearm was recovered, Xinhua news agency reported.Saturday’s shooting occurred at around 1:20 a.m. East Time (0520 GMT) at the intersection of 44th Street and Seventh Avenue in the city’s heavily touristed district.Videos on social media sh…

Dhaka, Aug 9 (IANS) For Bangladesh, a nation where over 160 million people depend on the Brahmaputra – known locally as the Jamuna – the consequences of China building a colossal $170 billion hydropower dam in Tibet could be catastrophic, a report cited on Saturday. “It represents more than just an engineering marvel — it stands as a stark indictment of Bangladesh’s misplaced diplomatic priorities and naive trust in Beijing. As this mega-dam threatens to devastate Bangladesh’s water securi…

Dhaka, Aug 9 (IANS) Samina Lutfa, an Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology at the Dhaka University, on Saturday criticised the male-dominated decision-making process in Bangladesh, where men bargain over political participation of women, their roles, and seat allocations, quite “similar to a fish market”.Lutfa’s observations came at a roundtable titled ‘Women’s seats in the National Parliament and women’s political empowerment’ organised by Bangladesh’s leading daily Prothom Alo i…

Dhaka, Aug 9 (IANS) Several students from Dhaka University (DU) in Bangladesh took out a protest rally on Saturday, demanding the expulsion of eight students following their appointment to the hall committee of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), the student wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the local media reported. The protesting students marched through various roads of the campus, raising slogans including ‘One two three four/Hall Politics No More’, ‘Hall politics Cholbe Na Cholbe …

Dhaka, Aug 9 (IANS) Flagship Chinese projects in Sri Lanka — such as the Colombo Port City and Sinopec’s $3.7 billion Hambantota oil refinery — are now entangled in complications the government led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is struggling to resolve, a report highlighted on Saturday. While both sides had lined up multiple ventures, recent issues, including regulatory concerns, have cast doubt on the long-term sustainability of Chinese investments, the report in Daily Sun, a leadin…

Lanzhou, Aug 9 (IANS) Mountain torrents in Yuzhong County, northwest China’s Gansu Province, had left 13 dead and 30 missing as of noon on Saturday, provincial emergency authorities said. Torrential rains, which led to the mountain torrents, began pounding Yuzhong, which is under the jurisdiction of the provincial capital of Lanzhou, as well as other areas of Lanzhou on Thursday evening, with precipitation reaching 220.2 millimetres by noon on Friday.Search and rescue efforts and infrastructure …

Tokyo, Aug 9 (IANS) Japan and India are breaking through decades of constraints and traditional defence partnerships to forge an “unprecedented high-technology military collaboration”, Tokyo-based Japan Forward Association emphasised this week in a detailed report. “The Indo-Pacific region is at a critical juncture where technological superiority increasingly determines strategic outcomes. Against this backdrop, Japan and India are breaking through decades of constraints and traditional defence …