International news for the week

Saturday

Islamabad: Al Qaeda-linked terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri, a key suspect in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, and Taliban commander Amir Hamza are killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan's restive South Waziristan tribal region.

Sanaa: Fresh fighting grip Sanaa as Yemen's embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh vow to hit back after he was wounded in shelling of his compound, sparking a deadly tit-for-tat.

Sunday

Jerusalem: At least 20 people are killed and 325 others wounded, as Israeli forces opened fire at hundreds of demonstrating Palestinians gathered at the Israel-Syria frontier in the occupied Golan Heights marking the 44th anniversary of the occupation of the territory.

Sanaa: Yemen's opposition vow to prevent the return of injured President Ali Abdullah Saleh from a Saudi hospital, as tens of thousands of protesters celebrated despite doubts over who holds power in Sanaa.

Monday

Beirut: Armed men attack Syrian security forces in a tense northern city , state television said, and 120 policemen and security forces were killed in a region where the army has carried out days of deadly assaults on protesters calling for the end of President Bashar Assad's rule.

New York: Disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn pleads not guilty to charges that he sexually assaulted a hotel maid here last month.

Tuesday

Chicago: Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Rana knowingly conspired with David Headley and both were part of the same team that carried out the Mumbai terror assault in 2008, a US Federal Attorney tells a Chicago court.

Chicago: Pointing at ISI's direct involvement in providing arms to militants in Kashmir, Tahawwur Rana, one of the key accused in the Mumbai terror attacks, has told FBI that Pakistan's spy agency gives weapons to terrorists when they are about to enter the Indian territory.

Wednesday

Karachi: Interior Minister Rehman Malik rejects India's claims that Pakistan was not doing enough to punish those responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks and said Islamabad is willing to cooperate and listen to New Delhi's grievances.

Beijing: At least 52 people are killed and 32 go missing in flash floods triggered by heavy rains in parts of China, which also force evacuation of over a lakh people from southwestern Guizhou province.

Thursday

London: Maqbool Fida Husain, who rose from a Bollywood billboard artist to become India's most celebrated painter worldwide, dies here, away from home on a self-imposed exile.

Karachi: An unarmed Pakistani teenager was shot dead at point blank range in a posh area here by paramilitary rangers, an incident caught on camera and beamed on television, triggering an outcry among the public forcing the government to arrest five securitymen and order a judicial inquiry.

Friday

Chicago: In a verdict that is received with disappointment by India, a US court acquits Tahawwur Rana on charges of plotting the 2008 Mumbai attacks but held him guilty of supporting Pakistan-based terror group LeT and planning a strike in Denmark that will get him a maximum of 30 years in jail.

Beirut: Syrian forces shell a town in the country's restive north and opened fire on scattered protests nationwide, killing at least 32 people. Hundreds of Syrians streamed across the border into Turkey, trying to escape the violence.

London: The body of India's most acclaimed painter Maqbool Fida Husain is laid to rest with full Muslim religious rites at Brookwood cemetery in the UK, honouring his last wishes.