Bangladesh: Dhaka cafe attack mastermind killed
The Dhaka Police on 6 January confirmed that two Islamist militants, including one of the masterminds of last year's terror attack at a popular cafe in Dhaka, were killed in a gunfight with the police in Bangladesh during a pre-dawn raid on Friday.
Neo-Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen's wanted leader Nurul Islam alias Marjan and another unidentified extremist were killed by Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit in Mohammadpur Beribadh area of the capital.
"One is identified as Marjan and another still unknown," Monirul Islam, chief of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
According to the police, Marjan coordinated the 1 July attack on Gulshan's Holey Artisan Bakery that killed 22 people, including an Indian. A group of militants stormed the Bakery and took the restaurant staff hostage. The attackers had confrontations with police and two police officials were killed in the attack. On 2 July, a joint commando force stormed the bakery, killing all the attackers and rescuing the captives, ending the terror siege of nearly 11 hours.
Veteran actor Om Puri passes away
Veteran Bollywood actor Om Puri passed away on Friday morning. He was 66.
According to reports, the actor succumbed to a heart attack.
Actor Anupam Kher expressed his grief over Om Puri's demise and tweeted, "Seeing him lying on his bed looking so calm can't believe that one of our greatest actors #OmPuri is no more. Deeply saddened & shocked."
The iconic Om Puri had graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.
In 1990, he was conferred with the Padmashri, India's fourth highest civilian award. He also won the National Film Award for Best Actor for Arohan and Ardh Satya.
BJP hails President Mukherjee's remarks on demonetisation
Hailing President Pranab Mukherjee's remarks on demonetisation, the Bharatiya Janata Party has said that the opposition should take note of his remarks on demonetisation.
"I appreciate the President's remarks and it should be taken note by our adversaries who are mindlessly commenting on demonetisation time and again," BJP leader S. Prakash told ANI.
Terming the president as a financial wizard, Prakash said that he has a long experience in governance as a minister, holding many responsibilities.
"President had rightly said that it was a fight against black money and corruption and the government has also considered that demonetisation of 85 percent of the currency certainly will have hardships to be faced by the people and the economy.
Russian govt officials celebrated Trump's victory over Hillary as a geopolitical win: Report
Senior Russian government officials have celebrated Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton as a geopolitical win for their country, according to a media report which said this contributes to intelligence community's assessment that Moscow interfered in the US presidential election.
American intelligence agencies intercepted communications in the aftermath of the election in which Russian officials congratulated themselves on the outcome.
The Washington Post in an exclusive story said that Trump victory, as per these intercepts, was seen as a major geopolitical victory for Russia.
This "contributed to the US intelligence community s assessment that Moscow's efforts were aimed at least in part at helping Trump win the White House", the daily said, adding that this was part of the investigative report on Russian hacking that was delivered to the US President Barack Obama yesterday. The US president-elect Trump would also get the report in New York.
South Korea creates special post to monitor Trump's tweets
When Donald Trump said he would create jobs, even he couldn't have imagined how successful he'd be. While he's still facing an uphill struggle to keep jobs in the US or, even harder, bring them back from overseas, he's helped to create at least one job in South Korea.
The South Korean government has now hired an official whose sole job will be to monitor US President-elect Trump's erratic tweets. South Korea believes that, which not much known about Trump's foreign policy direction, his Twitter is as good an indicator as any.
Desperate for revenue, railway to rent platforms for weddings
Even as Narendra Modi talks of bullet trains, the Indian Railways finds its losses mounting. With a further slump over the last 12 months, it has now started to examine "unconventional" methods to earn revenue, among these, the bizarre decision to rent railway platforms out for weddings.
Western Railway has identified Surat Railway Station's platform number 4 for this purpose and will be forwarding their proposal to the rail ministry this week. In addition to Surat, Navapur is another proposed station where renting out platforms for weddings and parties can be done.
As bluefin tuna suffers from overfishing, price skyrockets
A single bluefin tuna just sold for 517,000 pounds in a Japanese market. The tuna, sold at an auction in the Tsukiji market in Tokyo, weighed 212-kilos, meaning that each kilo sold for well over two thousand pounds.
This comes on the back of a falling bluefin population due to rampant overfishing. As numbers dip, activists are calling for a moratorium on bluefin fishing. Activists say decades of unregulated fishing is driving the species to extinction.
Russia preparing to cut itself off from global internet
A top adviser to the Vladimir Putin has suggested that Russia must prepare for the possibility of having to disconnect from the global internet. Back in November, Russia moved to strengthen an older data localisation law that requires internet companies to store the personal data of Russian citizens on Russian soil.
While that was in response to the internet blackout in Crimea following its annexation by Russia, German Klimenko, an adviser to Putin has indicated that the larger focus of the move is so that Russia can disconnect from the global internet during times of crisis.
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