BEIJING, March 18: Authorities in China have arrested almost 13,000 “terrorists” in the restive far western region of Xinjiang since 2014, the government said on Monday, in a lengthy policy paper again defending its controversial Islamic de-radicalisation measures.

ADDIS ABABA/WASHINGTON, March 18: Ethiopia said on Sunday the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that killed 157 people had “clear similarities” with October’s Lion Air crash, revealed by initial analysis of the black boxes recovered from the wreckage of the March 10 disaster.

HONG KONG, March 18: A train collision disrupted services in Hong Kong on Monday, threatening commuter chaos during rush hour in the heart of the Asian financial hub, authorities said.

CHRISTCHURCH, March 18: A Christchurch gun shop on Monday acknowledged selling guns online to the 28-year-old white supremacist accused of killing 50 people in mosque shootings that have upturned New Zealand’s reputation as among the world’s most tolerant and safe nations.

PANAJI, March 17: Manohar Parrikar, Goa Chief Minister and former Defence Minister, who had been battling a pancreatic ailment for more than a year, died at his son's home in Panaji this evening.

CHRISTCHURCH/WELLINGTON, March 17: As New Zealanders struggled to cope with the deadly mayhem in Christchurch, stories of heroism have emerged from the tragedy, including a worshiper who chased away the gunman armed only with a credit card machine.

JAKARTA, March 17: Around 35 foreign and domestic tourists are believed to be trapped and two others died after landslides hit a waterfall site on Indonesia’s tourist island of Lombok on Sunday, a disaster agency official said.

Flash floods and landslides triggered by torrential rain in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua have killed at least 58 people, injured dozens and displaced more than 4,000, authorities said on Sunday.

KABUL, March 17: Each time Aryana Sayeed, one of Afghanistan’s most famous singers, returns to the country of her birth, she braves threats and endures scrutiny right down to her choice of clothes.

MOSCOW, March 17: Around 1.7 million Syrian refugees registered in foreign countries are hoping to return to their homeland, the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for the Reconciliation of Opposing Sides and Refugee Migration Monitoring said Saturday.