
Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa regime losing its grip
Delhi: Casino mogul James Packer must wish he could vote in Sri Lanka’s presidential elections next Thursday. Not only is the main challenger Maithripala Sirisena threatening incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s bid for an unprecedented third term – he is also promising to cancel... read more »

Chinese react to stampede deaths: Thought this happened only in India
China on Friday mourned the 36 dead from New Year festivities at its financial capital Shanghai, as the city government revealed the victims of the deadly stampede were mainly young women. Among the 47 who were injured – many of them students – at Shanghai’s famous waterfront area, called the... read more »

AirAsia QZ8501: Bad weather hinders hunt for black boxes
International experts with sophisticated acoustic detection gear joined teams scouring the sea for the wreck of an Indonesia AirAsia passenger jet on Friday, but bad weather was again hindering the hunt for the plane’s black box flight recorders. Strong wind and heavy seas have stopped divers... read more »

Australia seeks return of Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste jailed in Egyp...
The lawyer for one of three Al Jazeera journalists jailed in Egypt has formally applied to the government in Cairo to have him deported to Australia. It comes after Egypt’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, ordered a retrial, citing “procedural flaws” in the original proceedings which... read more »