32 Taliban killed

Kandahar: Thirty-two Taliban and three soldiers have been killed in an Afghan-NATO operation in Helmand province ahead of a major anti-Taliban push, the provincial government said on Thursday. The operation took place in Nad Ali district, west of the provincial capital Lashkar Gar, on Wednesday, provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi said. “We had an operation in the Nad Ali area last night,” Ahmadi said. “During the operation 32 Taliban were killed.”

Afghan war discussed

RIYADH: Afghan President Hamid Karzai held talks with Saudi King Abdullah on Wednesday as he sought support to negotiate peace with the Islamist Taliban rebels in his war-torn country. Karzai met King Abdullah and senior officials in Riyadh, the official SPA news agency reported. “They discussed international efforts to achieve security and stability in Afghanistan as well as the prospects for cooperation between the two countries,” SPA reported. — AFP

EU team visits victims

BHUBANESHWAR: A European Union delegation on Thursday visited Indian villages hit by deadly anti-Christian riots in 2008 to review resettlement efforts for the thousands of people left homeless. The 11-member group arrived in Kandhamal in the eastern state of Orissa, where scores of Christians were massacred by rampaging Hindu mobs who burned churches, orphanages and Catholic-run schools.

China mob trials

BEIJING: A Chinese court sentenced two convicted mafia figures to death on Thursday in the latest verdicts handed down in a series of trials exposing rapacious mobsters and official collusion. Chen Mingliang, dubbed by the media as the “richest godfather” in Chongqing, and fellow mobster Zhou Yong were among 33 people sentenced in trials that have gripped the huge southwestern city, a government news website said. The verdicts bring the number of people executed or sentenced to death over the mob trials to nine.