Beijing,  Aug 29 :  More than a dozen human rights groups have sent a letter to Google urging the company not to offer censored internet search services in China. The joint letter dated Tuesday calls on CEO Sundar Pichai to explain what Google is doing to safeguard users from the Chinese government’s censorship and surveillance. That follows a letter earlier ...

Mexico City, Aug 29 : About 300 sea turtles have died on Mexico’s southern Pacific coast after they were trapped in an abandoned illegal fishing net. The office for environmental protection says the Olive Ridley turtles drowned after getting caught in the net. The office said in a statement Tuesday that the endangered turtles were badly decomposed when found in ...

Tokyo, Aug 28 : Global shares were mostly higher Tuesday after the White House said it reached a preliminary agreement with Mexico on replacing a North American free-trade deal. KEEPING SCORE: France’s CAC 40 rose 0.1 percent in early trading to 5,485.39, while Germany’s DAX was up 0.2 percent at 12,561.44. Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.7 percent to 7,630.36. U.S. ...

Countries should quickly agree a treaty banning the use of so-called killer robots “before it is too late”, activists said Monday as talks on the issue resumed at the UN.   They say time is running out before weapons are deployed that use lethal force without a human making the final kill-order and have criticised the UN body hosting the ...

UN human rights experts believe war crimes may have been committed by all parties to the conflict in Yemen. In their first such report, they allege Yemeni government forces, the Saudi-led coalition backing them, and the rebel Houthi movement have made little effort to minimise civilian casualties.   They point to the bombing and shelling of schools, hospitals and markets, ...

Police in the Indonesian part of Borneo island have arrested more than a dozen people suspected of starting forest fires that have killed four people in the past month. West Kalimantan police chief Didi Haryono said Tuesday that two of the 27 people wanted by police died in blazes they started to clear land for planting. He said 14 people ...

British Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific Mark Field has said the gravity of the UN report on human rights violations in Myanmar warrants the attention of both the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Security Council. He said there cannot and must not be impunity for such acts, which the Mission has concluded warrants “the investigation ...

  British MP Tulip Siddiq, who is the niece of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has called on her aunt to release arrested photojournalist and artist Shahidul Alam, according to the British newspaper The Times. Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, said that the detention of Shahidul Alam by the government was “deeply distressing and should end ...

   British Prime Minister Theresa May has started a three-nation visit to Africa in Cape Town, where she is to meet South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. In an effort to strengthen Britain’s economic relations with Africa, ahead of the U.K.’s departure from the European Union in March 2019, May will be visiting three of Africa’s largest economies, South Africa, Nigeria ...

   The British government has been accused of threatening a close ally in an increasingly bitter diplomatic tug-of-war over the fate of a tiny, strategic archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The dispute over the Chagos Islands – home to the US military base on Diego Garcia – is being portrayed by some as an indication of Britain’s ...