NEWS IN BRIEF
NEW DELHI (Press TV) – India has called off forthcoming foreign secretary-level talks with neighboring Pakistan after Pakistani Ambassador to India Abdul Basit met Kashmiri pro-independence leaders in New Delhi.
Spokesman for India’s External Affairs Ministry, Syed Akbaruddin, said Monday's meeting between the Pakistani envoy and leaders from the political front Hurriyat Conference Jammu Kashmir (HCJK) has "undermined efforts" by New Delhi to resume a dialogue process with Islamabad.
"Under the present circumstances, it is felt that no useful purpose will be served by the foreign secretary of India going to Islamabad next week," Akbaruddin said.
India's Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh was due to travel to Pakistan for talks with her counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhury on August 25.
On Monday, prominent pro-independence leader Shabir Ahmad Shah emphasized that bilateral dialogue between India and Pakistan would not resolve the Kashmir issue as people of the Himalayan region of Kashmir are principal party to the dispute.
Islamabad and New Delhi have fought two wars over Kashmir since their independence from British colonial rule in 1947. The arch rivals lay claim over the whole region but control parts of it.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was due to visit Ferguson, Missouri, on Wednesday, hours after nearly 50 protesters were arrested in an 11th night of racially charged demonstrations over the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer.
The St. Louis County prosecutor's office also was expected to begin presenting evidence to a grand jury investigating the Aug. 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, in a case that Governor Jay Nixon vowed would be treated as a "vigorous prosecution."
Holder said he planned to visit Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb that is home to a predominantly African-American population of 21,000, to be briefed on the progress of a separate civil rights investigation he has ordered into the Brown killing.
In a special message to the community published online by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Holder said about 40 FBI agents have been assigned to the case, along with prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office in St. Louis, and that hundreds of people have already been interviewed.
An independent autopsy, the third conducted in the killing, has also been performed by federal medical examiners at Holder's direction, he said.
"Our investigation into this matter will be full, it will be fair, and it will be independent," he said.
He also joined Governor Jay Nixon and other officials in a renewed appeal for public calm following demonstrations that have gripped Ferguson almost every night since Brown was killed by a 28-year-old police officer, Darren Wilson. The officers has been placed on leave and gone into seclusion, while Brown's family and their supporters called for his arrest.
Most of those protests have been punctuated by looting, vandalism and clashes between demonstrators and police.
MONROVIA (FNA)- Police in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, fired tear gas on Wednesday to disperse a stone-throwing crowd.
The protesters were agitating to leave a neighborhood under quarantine because of the Ebola virus, Reuters said.
There were no injuries, according to witnesses.
Authorities introduced a nationwide curfew on Tuesday and put the West Point neighborhood under quarantine.
The rundown area has been hit by Ebola and the virus has killed more than 1,200 people in four West African countries.
Spokesman for India’s External Affairs Ministry, Syed Akbaruddin, said Monday's meeting between the Pakistani envoy and leaders from the political front Hurriyat Conference Jammu Kashmir (HCJK) has "undermined efforts" by New Delhi to resume a dialogue process with Islamabad.
"Under the present circumstances, it is felt that no useful purpose will be served by the foreign secretary of India going to Islamabad next week," Akbaruddin said.
India's Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh was due to travel to Pakistan for talks with her counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhury on August 25.
On Monday, prominent pro-independence leader Shabir Ahmad Shah emphasized that bilateral dialogue between India and Pakistan would not resolve the Kashmir issue as people of the Himalayan region of Kashmir are principal party to the dispute.
Islamabad and New Delhi have fought two wars over Kashmir since their independence from British colonial rule in 1947. The arch rivals lay claim over the whole region but control parts of it.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was due to visit Ferguson, Missouri, on Wednesday, hours after nearly 50 protesters were arrested in an 11th night of racially charged demonstrations over the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer.
The St. Louis County prosecutor's office also was expected to begin presenting evidence to a grand jury investigating the Aug. 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, in a case that Governor Jay Nixon vowed would be treated as a "vigorous prosecution."
Holder said he planned to visit Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb that is home to a predominantly African-American population of 21,000, to be briefed on the progress of a separate civil rights investigation he has ordered into the Brown killing.
In a special message to the community published online by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Holder said about 40 FBI agents have been assigned to the case, along with prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office in St. Louis, and that hundreds of people have already been interviewed.
An independent autopsy, the third conducted in the killing, has also been performed by federal medical examiners at Holder's direction, he said.
"Our investigation into this matter will be full, it will be fair, and it will be independent," he said.
He also joined Governor Jay Nixon and other officials in a renewed appeal for public calm following demonstrations that have gripped Ferguson almost every night since Brown was killed by a 28-year-old police officer, Darren Wilson. The officers has been placed on leave and gone into seclusion, while Brown's family and their supporters called for his arrest.
Most of those protests have been punctuated by looting, vandalism and clashes between demonstrators and police.
MONROVIA (FNA)- Police in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, fired tear gas on Wednesday to disperse a stone-throwing crowd.
The protesters were agitating to leave a neighborhood under quarantine because of the Ebola virus, Reuters said.
There were no injuries, according to witnesses.
Authorities introduced a nationwide curfew on Tuesday and put the West Point neighborhood under quarantine.
The rundown area has been hit by Ebola and the virus has killed more than 1,200 people in four West African countries.