A 22-year-old Indian-origin man in the US has been arrested and charged with sexual enticement of a minor girl through social media, authorities have said. Sachin Aji Bhaskar, a resident of New York's Buffalo city, faces a minimum penalty of 10 years in prison, maximum of life in prison and a USD 250,000 fine. Assistant US Attorney Wei Xiang said Tuesday that Bhaskar, using a social media application in August, contacted the 11-year-old girl in Buffalo claiming to be 15. He picked her up by...

Pakistan seems to have failed to seal the US $700 million deal for the purchase of eight F-16 fighter jets from the US following a row between the two countries over their financing, a media report said on Saturday.The Pakistani government was required to provide the Letter of Acceptance for purchase of the jets by May 24, but Dawn News reported that the document was not issued leading to expiry of the offer."Pakistan decided not to fully fund the case with national funds, so the terms of sale...

  The European Union made its strongest call yet for China and other Asian nations to resolve their dispute over the South China Sea, a position Brussels insists is neutral but that the United States is likely to welcome after pressing the bloc to speak up. At a summit of EU and Asian foreign ministers, Beijing escaped any public admonishment over its construction and militarisation of islands in the South China Sea but the EU's foreign policy chief took a firm line in the bloc's first public...

Armored vehicles lined this battered city’s main thoroughfares and thousands of law enforcement officers and National Guard troops worked to maintain order and enforce a citywide curfew Tuesday night, amid scattered reports of unrest after a day of largely peaceful protests. As the curfew went into effect at 10 p.m., hundreds of people remained in the streets near the intersection of Pennsylvania and West North Avenues in blighted West Baltimore, where a CVS drugstore had been looted and burned...

Defying international condemnation and rejecting 11th-hour pleas for clemency, the Indonesian government executed eight drug convicts after midnight on Wednesday, including seven foreigners. But the execution of a ninth convict, scheduled to happen at the same time, was unexpectedly postponed at nearly the last minute, according to the Indonesian attorney general’s office. The executed prisoners, from Australia, Brazil and Nigeria, along with one Indonesian, were shot by police firing squads...

Optics, symbolism and body language are crucially important in diplomacy. If one goes by that, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a powerful statement in Sri Lanka already. He came here with folded hands, and then stretched out his arms with an open mind. In bitter contrast, the last time an Indian Prime Minister visited Colombo – Rajiv Gandhi on 30 July, 1987 – he was famously hit by a soldier’s rifle butt when he was inspecting a guard of honour. If Rajiv Gandhi had not been alert and ducked,...

An Egyptian court has reportedly declared Palestinian group Hamas as a terrorist organisation after accusing it of supporting an insurgency in northern Sinai. Judge Mohamed el-Sayed said in his verdict that the group was undoubtedly involved in acts of sabotage, assassinations and the killing of innocent civilians and members of the armed forces and police in Egypt, reported the BBC. The court ruling will effectively ban Hamas inside Egypt. It comes a month after another court listed the armed...

In 2011, Lea T. was one of the most in-demand supermodels in the world. She had it all -- beauty, fame and a big paycheck. But, as she revealed that year on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," she had spent much of her life tormented by a painful secret. Lea T. was assigned male at birth and grew up the son of a world-famous Brazilian soccer star and a very religious Catholic mother. As a child growing up in Italy, T. always felt different and questioned her sexuality at a young age. "Realizing young [that]...

Three persons were killed and nearly a dozen injured in violent clashes on Monday in West Bengal's Birbhum district, between suspected supporters of the ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP. Footage on channels showed scores of armed assailants running through paddy fields in a village and firing country-made guns indiscriminately. Several people suffered bullet injuries; three of them reportedly died at a local hospital. Many houses were also set on fire. No arrests have been made so far,...

There was much celebration earlier this week when HBO said you would soon be able to access the network's programming without having to pay for a TV subscription. One day later, CBS announced a $6 monthly service that will stream most of its live programming, as well as past and current shows, over the Internet. Analysts have called this the beginning of the great unbundling -- the dawning of an age where we'll be able to pick programming a la carte and choose what we want to watch, rather than...

Sierra Leone on Thursday took the dramatic step of sealing off districts where more than 1 million people live as it and other West African countries struggle to control the Ebola outbreak that has claimed thousands of lives. With three new districts under quarantine, about one-third of Sierra Leone's 6 million people are now living in areas where their movements are heavily restricted. In parts of Sierra Leone and in neighboring Liberia where these cordons have been used in this outbreak, food...

Kurdish militants in Turkey have issued a new call to arms to defend a border town in northern Syria from advancing Islamic State (IS) fighters, and the Turkish authorities and United Nations prepared for a surge in refugees. About 70,000 Syrian Kurds have fled into Turkey since Friday as IS militants seized dozens of villages close to the border and advanced on the frontier town of Ayn al-Arab, known as Kobani in Kurdish. Carol Batchelor, the United Nations refugee agency's (UNHCR) representative...

America’s rapidly-expanding war against ISIS won’t involve large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground, President Obama is promising. And it’s clear that airstrikes alone won’t beat back the extremist group. Which means that if the President wants to have any hope of meeting his far-reaching goal of destroying ISIS, he’s going to have to rely on private military contractors. At least, that’s what the contractors are hoping. At the height of the Iraq war, these firms hired hundreds of thousands...

Israeli air strikes have killed four Palestinians in Gaza as European governments sought UN action to end more than six weeks of bloodshed. Fighting flared anew on Tuesday as Egyptian-brokered truce efforts collapsed, with Israel insistent on its demand for security from rocket fire by Gaza militants, and Hamas defiant over its call for an end to eight years of Israeli blockade. The death toll since July 8 now stands at least 2087 Palestinians dead, three-quarters of them civilians according...

 When German chancellor Angela Merkel visits Kiev today, she could be forgiven for imagining she hears an ominous rumbling in the distance. Her talks with Ukraine’s leaders will begin a crucial week of negotiations aimed at ending the country’s bloody crisis, but it will now start not only with guns booming in the east, but a huge convoy of Russian military trucks rolling through disputed territory. By sending his aid convoy into Ukraine yesterday without its permission or the co-operation...

With all the hustle, bustle, glitz and glamour you could ever want, urban centers are hard to pass up. But for the 1.5 million readers who casted their bracket-style votes inOUTSIDE magazine’s Best Towns Competition, that's certainly not the case. Between their "delectable dining scenes, friendly, walkable neighborhoods and unparalleled access to outdoor adventure," the top spots included in the publication's annual ranking are proudly showing what quality access to healthy eating options and...

Russia sent dozens of aid trucks into rebel-held eastern Ukraine on Friday without Kiev's approval, saying its patience had worn out with the Ukrainian government's stalling tactics. Ukraine called the move a "direct invasion." The unilateral move sharply raised the stakes in eastern Ukraine, for any attack on the convoy could draw the Russian military directly into the conflict between the Ukrainian government in Kiev and separatist rebels in the east. Ukraine has long accused Russia of supporting...

The Federal Council of the Football Federation was convened for the 13 next Monday, August 18, at the headquarters of the Football Association, in Rome. The meeting will be chaired for the first time by the new federal president, Carlo Tavecchio. On the agenda: Election of Vice-Presidents; Communications from the President; nominations of competence; regulatory changes; order of the High Court of Justice n. 24 11/8/2014: action taken FIONA MAY TO THE ROLE OF ADVISER - Even Fiona May will be...

The severity of the woman’s injuries is not yet known and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is witholding further information until her family members have been consulted. “The Australian Consulate-General in Geneva is providing consular assistance to an Australian woman in relation to a railway accident in Switzerland,” DFAT said in a statement just after midday today. Swiss police have confirmed that five people were seriously injured while a further six sustained only slight...

Child protection services in Australia have made contact with a couple accused of abandoning a baby with Down’s syndrome with its surrogate mother in Thailand. There was international outrage when it emerged the Australian couple returned from Thailand with a baby girl born to the surrogate mother, but left her twin brother, Gammy, who has Down's, behind. Local media has since claimed court documents released by the Supreme Court of Australia show he was jailed in 1997 for a minimum of three...