INDIA- Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 10 said India will help develop infrastructure in the Central Asian region. “Our ties with Central Asia are very old,” Modi said while addressing the 15th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit here. “India will be pleased to contribute to the development of infrastructure in the region,” he said. The Prime Minister noted that India has been “actively participating in SCO activities that are open to observers”. “Our membership of SCO is a natural extension of these relationships and mirrors the region’s place in India’s future,” he said. ( Indo-Asian News Service)…[+]

GUATEMALA CITY — The embattled President of Guatemala Otto Perez Molina resigned Thursday and voluntarily handed himself over to judicial authorities.

This came after the country’s congress stripped Perez Molina of his immunity from prosecution on Tuesday, given his suspected involvement in a criminal enterprise to defraud the country’s customs bureau. The Congress voted by 116 to 42 for Perez Molina to face the charges against him. “The president had resigned to resolve the legal matters facing him,” presidential spokesperson Jorge Ortega told the press. Upon arrival at the Tribunal Tower in Guatemala City, Perez Molina addressed the press, saying “this is part of the due process that I am ready to face.” Soon afterwards, judge Miguel Angel Galvez oversaw a declaration about the accusations being made against the former head of state. Prosecutors stated that the president and his former vice-president Roxana Baldetti received 3.7 million U.S. dollars in bribes in just one year. (Xinhua)…[+]

NEW YORK  — The U.S. dollar climbed against other major currencies Wednesday as the global equity markets stabilized, lowering demand for safe-haven currency like Japanese yen. U.S. and European stocks traded higher Wednesday following previous day’s sharp declines. The Japanese yen dropped against the greenback for the first time in three sessions as investors’ worries eased. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, was up 0.37 percent at 95.805 in late trading.(Xinhua)…[+]

NEW YORK,  — Oil prices plummeted Tuesday after a three-day’s big gain. Market tumbled as a renewed selloff around the world’s equity markets made investors nervous. Chinese shares slumped for a second day Tuesday on weak economic data, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index dipping 1.23 percent. China’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) came in at 49.7 in August, down from 50 for July and the lowest since August 2012, according to official data released Tuesday morning.(Xinhua)…[+]

PARIS,  — A piece of plane debris found on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion at the end of July was certainly a part Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 reported missing in March 2014, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins announced Thursday. “It’s possible to confirm with certainty that the flaperon discovered in Reunion on July 29 corresponds to the flight MH370,” Molins said. Technician from Airbus Defense and Space (ADS-SAU) in Spain, which had manufactured the part for Boeing, had identified one of three numbers found on the flaperon as being the serial number of the missing MH370 flight, he added, putting an end to one of the biggest mysteries in the aviation history.(Xinhua)…[+]

India successfully put into orbit five British satellites with its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle’s XL variant (PSLV-XL) on July 10 night in copy book style. This was the first commercial mission for ISRO in 2015. Exactly at 9.58 p.m., the PSLV-XL rocket, standing 44.4 metres tall and weighing around 320 tonnes, with a one way ticket tore into the night skies with fierce orange flames at its tail…[+]

Russian oil major Rosneft has signed a preliminary agreement with the Essar group, controlled by the Ruias, to buy a 49 per cent stake in Essar Oil’s Vadinar refinery and supply 100 million tonnes of oil to the latter for the next 10 years. Refining accounts for over 95 per cent of Essar Oil’s overall business. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals.( Business Standard)…[+]

India and Turkmenistan on July 11 agreed to push for early implementation of the ambitious TAPI gas pipeline project as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. The two sides inked seven agreements, including for cooperation in fertilisers and in defence.(Indo-Asian News Service)…[+]

ALASKA-Seeking to lend urgency to his climate agenda, President Barack Obama warned Monday that even ramped-up efforts to curb emissions were being outpaced by the effects of a warming planet. And he warned those who doubt scientists’ assertions that humans are responsible for a warming planet that their views are increasingly untenable. “We know that human activity is changing the climate,” Obama said in Anchorage, Alaska. “We know that human ingenuity can do something about it. We’re even starting to see that we might actually have the political will to succeed. So the time to heed the critics and cynics is past. The time to plead ignorance is surely past. The deniers are increasingly alone, on their own shrinking island.” Obama is visiting Alaska this week to underscore the areas global warming is already disrupting life, including melting glaciers and more severe wildfires.(CNN NEWS/ ksat.com)…[+]

INDIA-India and Uzbekistan on July 6 agreed to boost cooperation in fighting terrorism and in the field of defence and cyber security as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, on his first stop on his Central Asian tour. Modi and Karimov also discussed ways to boost connectivity and trade on uranium supplies to India. The joint statement issued after the talks said “President Karimov noted that strengthening relations with India is one of the top foreign policy priorities of Uzbekistan, while Modi emphasised that a strong strategic partnership between India and Uzbekistan is a key pillar of India’s engagement with Central Asia”. (Indo-Asian News Service/India Digest)…[+]