Leaders of Amnesty International in the Asia Pacific region are meeting in Hong Kong in an attempt to convince their governments to use every means possible to pressure the Burmese authorities to focus on disaster relief.

Representatives from Japan, India, South Korea and China are attending the summit which starts today. It has been over a week since Cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawady delta, killing tens of thousands and leaving over a million homeless, without essential food, shelter or healthcare.

Pakistan’s fragile coalition government suffered a blow yesterday when Nawaz Sharif, leader of the second-largest party, pulled his ministers from the six week old cabinet.

The withdrawal of the Pakistan Muslim League followed the collapse of talks with Asif Ali Zardari, the leader of the largest party, over how to reinstate around 45 senior judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf last November.

After a final attempt at talks, which shifted from Dubai to London, Sharif returned to Islamabad to announce that his ministers would resign.

World rice prices are forecast to remain high this year, in spite of a record global crop, because of export restrictions and rising consumption, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said yesterday.

Rice prices have risen 76% this year, and following the cyclone damage in Burma have been climbing back to the record levels reached in April.

A rice expert has said prices are expected to remain extremely firm, at least until the third quarter of 2008, unless restrictions on exports are easing in the coming months.

The Bangladeshi general elections will now be held in the third week of December. Fakhruddin Ahmed, head of the military-backed interim government announced the news in a televised speech to the nation.

The elections were postponed until late 2008 after many weeks of political violence. Voting had been scheduled for January last year.

The Government hopes democracy will be restored-once the elections take place at the end of the year.

A Muslim man who crashed his minibus into parked cars and knocked over a pedestrian in Accrington town centre was found to be more than four times the legal drink-drive limit.

Blackburn magistrates heard that former taxi driver Abdul Rauf left the scene of the crash but was followed by members of the public who surrounded him and detained him until police arrived.

Mr Rauf, was convicted after a trial of driving with excess alcohol, failing to stop and failing to report an accident. He was jailed for 90 days.

A gunman, thought to be Asian, burst into a Dudley restaurant wearing a balaclava and threatened an employee before making off with cash.

The robbery happened at Nando’s at 9:00 on Sunday morning as an employee prepared to open the restaurant for business. Police say the robber threatened a male staff member with a handgun and demanded money. No shots were fired, and the employee was not hurt.

The offender escaped with money in a waiting getaway car driven by a second man, also thought to be Asian. An exact figure for the amount taken has not been revealed.

The new UK Border Agency has confessed skilled migrants will have to wait longer than promised to get their visa applications processed in order to work in the UK.

Under new rules, such migrants will need to prove their eligibility for the required number of points to enter Britain, according to their qualifications.

90% of visa applications are supposed to be ready within 15 days, but will now take around 4 weeks.

The agency allocated staff to process the visa applications, but the new rules were not revealed until last Tuesday, causing the delay to the visas. The agency says ‘resource pressures’ are to blame.

India's monsoon hit parts of the Bay of Bengal five days early. The Indian Meteorological Department says the four-month monsoon normally hits the mainland on 1st June from the south-western state of Kerala.

The monsoon normally moves to the south-east Bay of Bengal and then to the south Andaman Sea by 15th May. The department says “just because it's hit the Bay of Bengal early, it does not mean it will hit the mainland early”.

Due to the fast-rising food prices, the rain will be watched closely. The Government has scheduled to update its forecast in June, saying rainfall will be 99% of the long-term average.

The radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza has launched a High Court battle against extradition to the US to face terror charges. The former Finsbury Park Mosque preacher is wanted in the US for allegedly trying to set up an al-Qaeda training camp in Oregon.

His lawyers, however, say extradition should be blocked because evidence gained by torture is being used against him. The case before Sir Igor Judge and Mr Justice Sullivan is expected to last four days.

The Commonwealth has decided to readmit Pakistan, after six months of suspension due to the imposition of emergency rule. A statement issued in London said the suspension would be lifted immediately.

Pakistan was suspended last November after President Pervez Musharraf failed to meet a deadline to lift a state of emergency and resign as army chief.

He quit the army in November, and ended emergency rule the following month. General elections held in February were won by the opposition.

At least 32 people are feared dead after a ferry capsized during a storm in northern Bangladesh. Officials say the ferry, carrying nearly 150 passengers, sank in the Ghorautura river nearly 180km from the capital Dhaka.

Reports said about 25 passengers swam ashore but others were feared trapped in the damaged boat. Bangladesh frequently sees ferry accidents, typically blamed on overcrowding on unsafe boats.

The widow of a man killed in an alleged honour killing has denied receiving death threats previous to her husband's death.

Yasmin Bibi Shahid told Leeds Crown Court that she had been seeing her brothers Arza Khan and Tahir Mahmood in prison since they were arrested on suspicion of Mian Shahid Mehmood's murder, but denied that it was at the insistence of her mother.

Mr Mehmood was found with two gunshot wounds on 11th February last year. The prosecution allege that Mrs Shahid's family took exception to her marriage when they found out, and two of her brothers took out a contract on her husband's life.

An American student of Indian descent, who travelled to India last month to pursue studies, was found murdered on Monday at his rented accommodation in north-west Delhi. A senior police official said Kannan Mehra, who was studying Philosophy at Delhi University, was found with stab wounds on his neck.

Mr Mehra was found by his landlord, who went to check on him after the student had not been seen for a couple of days. The body of the student is undergoing post-mortem examination and police are investigating the matter.

An Asian man has been accused of stabbing his neighbour after a fight broke out between the two men. Habib Khan of Stoke on Trent denies murdering Keith Brown last July. Stafford Crown Court heard the men had been neighbours for over five years and had a long-running feud over land.

It is alleged Mr Khan joined a fight involving his son, Azir Saddique, and Mr Brown, and then fatally stabbed him. Mr Khan and Mr Saddique also deny unlawful wounding.

An Asian man who terrified a 17-year-old girl has been jailed. Fadil Mulhamed, 42, from Manchester received a six month sentence at Manchester Magistrates Court but was told by District Judge the sentence hardly reflected the seriousness of what he did.

Prosecutor Tess Kenyon said Mulhamed had tried to chat up the girl as she was walking through Longsight and when she ignored him he jumped out of his car and grabbed hold of her, but she managed to escape.

Paediatrician and human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen was arrested on 14th May 2007, and has been in prison ever since without trial.

The acts under his arrest make it possible for the Government to keep him in prison. Dr Sen has been accused of helping banned Maoist groups, although he says the meetings were for medical and legal purposes.

Dr Sen is a highly respected figure in the community for his work in providing health care to the poor; he was awarded the pretigious Jonathan Mann Award on 21st April for his work on public health.

Pakistan's two-month-old ruling coalition today faced its first major threat of survival with Nawaz Sharif-led PML-N deciding to pull out its ministers from the government following deadlock over the contentious issue of reinstating sacked judges.

The PML-N Ministers will submit their resignations to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Tuesday. Mr sharif said PML-N will remain in the Pakistan People's Party-led coalition and extend issue-based support to the government.

Bookmakers have named Indian-born novelist Salman Rushdie's "Midnight Children" as the favourite to win the Best of Booker award after organisers announced a shortlist of six novels dominated by postcolonial themes.

A global vote to select the winner began Monday and will continue until 8th July. The Best of Booker will be announced on 10th July, the organisers said.

Mr Rushdie, whose bag of honours includes a knighthood, continues to use India as the dominant theme of his novels, despite being a British citizen, and "Midnight's Children" is one of the many based around the Partition of India.

Renault-Nissan has announced a joint venture with Indian firm Bajaj to produce a car that costs only $2,500, or approximately £1,276.

The vehicle, so far known only as Codename ULC, will cost about the same as Tata Motors' Nano - which is currently claimed to be the world's cheapest car.

India will be the car's main market with 400,000 to be made each year in a factory in Chakan, Maharashtra state in the west of the country. No details of the new car have been released, though production is expected to begin in 2011.

22 Nobel Laureates from around the world have appealed to the Indian government to release jailed human rights activist Binayak Sen. The appeal has been made in a letter to the Indian President and Prime Minister.

They say Dr Sen should be allowed to travel to the United States to receive the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights announced in April. Dr Sen has been held in prison accused of links to Maoist rebels for nearly a year. He denies the charge.

A deranged lodger stabbed his landlord's girlfriend to death in front of her baby son. Imtiaz Ahmed, 37, slashed the throat of Jeanette Hullah, 21, and left her body with her 18-month-old son at their home in Cheetham, Manchester.

A court heard that Ahmed had been allowed to stay at Jeanette's house as an act of kindness after her partner, Muhammed Farhan Akhter, was asked to look after him by relatives in Pakistan.

Ahmed, who suffered from mental illness, was asked to leave after he stopped paying rent, and began harassing Jeanette and following her. Later that day, Mr Akhter returned home to find Jeanette had been attacked and her body left in the house. Their son, Humza, was sitting nearby in his pushchair.

Jeanette had been strangled, her throat slashed with a knife and stabbed in the back. She was pronounced dead at the scene. At Manchester Crown Court Ahmed was detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act.

One of the Middle East’s largest private equity companies have bought farmland in Pakistan as part of plans by the United Arab Emirates. This move is to increase food security and to dampen inflation in Pakistan.

The government in Abu Dhabi have been holding talks with Islamabad for investment in its agricultural sector, to secure cheaper long-term supplies of staples such as wheat and rice.

A Pakistani official says “our aim is to raise the productivity of the farms, to turn barren land into fertile farmland”. This agreement goes against Pakistan’s own domestic concerns about increasing food prices and shortages of important commodities.

Nine railway workers have been killed in two rebel attacks in India's north-east state of Assam. Police say rebels belonging to the Dimasa tribe attacked a railway construction site at Fiding and killed eight workers late on Sunday.

Another railway employee was killed in a separate attack on Saturday. The rebels belong to a breakaway tribal rebel group called Black Widow. They are fighting for an independent homeland for the Dimasa tribe.

Six Indian citizens have been killed in a car crash in western Pennsylvania in the United States. It is reported the passengers, including two women, died when a minivan carrying them spun out of control and crashed into another car on a highway.

The driver and another passenger, also an Indian, were injured. They have been released from the hospital. The Indians worked as computer programmers for a technology firm based in Michigan.

Reports said that the passengers were on their way to Niagara Falls on a vacation when the incident happened on Saturday afternoon.

Shopkeeper Amrat Kanji was caught by surprise when police burst into his Bolton store and started to search for a cannabis farm. Drugs officers raided the Costcutter mini-market in Church Street, Little Lever, at 7.30am on Friday, following a tip-off from a member of the public.

After bursting in during business hours and ordering customers to leave, the only thing police found was a curry leaf plant. Mr Kanji said when the police realised their error, they didn’t apologise. They just thanked him for his co-operation and left.

Euro MP Tom Wise has been caught in a spending scandal by an undercover reporter for a Sunday newspaper. Mr Wise told the reporter, who was posing as a student on a work experience, “It’s a cushy £60,000 a year. I don’t even know what an MEP’s job is…you just make it up as you go along."

Mr Wise revealed that he often flies on budget airlines and stays at cheap hotels and then claims back the full allowed payment for the expenses, pocketing the extra money and admitted to the reporter, “yes, I am milking the system, in as much as I’m overpaid for the amount of expenses I’ve had…I clean up the profit”.

Mr Wise is already under investigation by anti-fraud chiefs, after being kicked out of the UK Independence Party accused of claiming a £36,000 salary for a researcher who he paying just £6,000. He is currently an Independent.

Burma is still exporting rice despite the destruction of its ‘rice bowl’ region by Cyclone Nargis and its blocking of international relief to those effected by the natural disaster.

As starving survivors of the cyclone waited for international food aid to arrive, sacks of rice were loaded on to a ship destined for Bangladesh late last week. The Burmese regime, which has a monopoly on the country’s rice exports, said it planned to meet all its contractual obligations.

With rice prices hitting a record high after more than doubling since January, the exports are a valuable source of foreign revenue for those in power.

Sri Lanka's ruling coalition has won an election in its war torn eastern region, seen as key to its strategy to win the war against the Tamil Tigers.

Opposition leaders and rights groups said the poll was marred by fraud and voter intimidation. The vote was held in a region which was under Tamil Tiger rebel control until it was seized by the army last year. The government says the result is a blow to the Tamils' demand for an independent state.

Several people are reported to have been killed in violence involving armed militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Police say the militants shot and killed two civilians in Samba district and were then confronted by security forces. A soldier was killed in the clashes that followed, and it is reported two gunmen also died.

There has been a sharp decline in fighting in recent years, after the start of an India-Pakistan peace process, but Indian officials say Islamist militants are still trying to cross into the area to sustain the insurgency.

Town halls will be ordered to compile maps of “ethnic hotspots” in an effort to tackle racial violence in Britain’s towns and cities. Communities Secretary Hazel Blears says councils will be given £50million towards improving racial integration.

Ministers hope the plan will help Britain avoid a repeat of the 2001 riots in Bradford, Burnley, and Oldham. The move follows a warning earlier this year from Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, that Britain was “sleepwalking into segregation”.

Pakistani leaders have failed to reach agreement on restoring judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf. Officials say Pakistan's two main ruling parties spent the weekend engaged in talks in London without reaching a deal.

The issue is now unlikely to be resolved ahead of a self-imposed deadline on Monday, increasing the strain on the ruling coalition.

An Asian man who was secretly filmed trying to hire a hitman to kill his estranged wife and her lover was given a five-and-a-half year prison sentence at Birmingham Crown Court. Jasbinder Heer did not realise that the man he tried to hire was an undercover journalist working for a Sunday newspaper.

Mr Heer was convicted of two charges of soliciting Neville Thurlbeck to murder his estranged wife Monica Aheer and her lover Harsarup Mehmi.

The judge said that there were a number of aggravating features leading to his sentencing decision which included a clear statement of intent and Mr Heer’s lack of remorse and regret.

Friends of the Earth, outspoken opponents of the government’s plan to expand Heathrow Airport, have announced that Labour’s failure to dazzle in the recent elections is at least in part due to the expansion scheme.

Nic Ferriday, spokesperson for west London Friends of the Earth, says the numbers opposing the expansion are over 4million if you include people in the catchment area of councils that openly campaign against the scheme, and that Labour will have to open its ears about Heathrow if it is serious about gaining the people’s confidence.

A former Islamist radical who says he helped 200 British Muslims train for jihad has been arrested on terrorism charges at Manchester airport.

Hassan Butt was arrested on Friday. Mr Butt has issued controversial statements about terrorism and Islam in the past, but he has subsequently retracted them and now speaks out against radicalisation.

Mr Butt claims that Greater Manchester Police were harassing him over suspicions that he is secretly still a jihadist.

A major medical row will erupt this month when scientists and health experts hold two key meetings to discuss the controversial subject of marriages between cousins and their impact on health in Britain. The debates will be held by the Royal Society of Medicine.

Some researchers and politicians say inter-cousin unions, which are highly prevalent among British Pakistanis, have led to a rise in the incidence of rare recessive disorders in areas such as Bradford. The trend has led to calls for cousin marriages to be banned.

Earlier this year Phil Woolas, an environment minister, provoked controversy when he claimed, “if you have a child with your cousin, the likelihood is that there will be a genetic problem”. The claim is disputed by genetic councellors and Muslim doctors who refute that the risk of a child having birth defects if the parents are cousins is double that of other children, which means it rises from 2% to 4%, and therefore is still unlikely.

India has extended its futures trading ban to four more food commodities despite warnings that the measures will do nothing to slow inflation. The Indian Forward Markets Commission suspended futures trading yesterday in potatoes, soy oil, rubber, and chickpeas for at least four months.

Last year it banned futures trading in wheat, rice and two types of dhal. India 's government is taking an aggressive stance on food and steel prices to try to lessen inflation, which hit 7.57% last month, well above the desired comfort zone of 5%.

The widow of a man shot dead in an alleged honour killing has denied she claimed she was pregnant with his child. Leeds Crown Court heard that Yasmin Bibi Shahid, 25, who asked to be referred to as Mrs Shahid, married her husband over the phone in a secret ceremony.

Later she led her in-laws to believe she was carrying his child, but yesterday Mrs Shahid denied she told them she was pregnant after her husband, Mian Shahid Mehmood, was murdered and that she kept up the pretence to curry favour with his family.

A former leader of Sri Lanka 's Tamil Tiger rebels who was jailed in the UK in January has been transferred to an immigration detention centre. Col. Karuna was sent to jail in January for identity fraud after being arrested in London late last year.

He was carrying an apparently genuine Sri Lankan diplomatic passport issued under a false name. It is not yet clear if he will be deported. Human rights groups want him charged in the UK with war crimes, but that now seems unlikely.

A former Southall councillor has been handed a 10 month suspended sentence today for cheating the council of more than £45,000 in benefits over seven years.

Joginder Saroe admitted eight charges of false accounting over housing benefit, income support and Council Tax at Isleworth Crown Court today, while other fraud charges were left on file. It is alleged he was caught using the exclusive David Lloyd gym and driving an expensive Mercedes with a personalised number plate, while claiming disability benefit in 2005.

Police have arrested four people after group of Asian men in Bolton were threatened with a chainsaw. The incident is being treated as racially motivated.

At around 7:50pm last night, two men and a woman racially abused a group of Asian men, and the girl threatened them with the chainsaw, holding it inches from the head of one of the victims and walking away laughing afterwards.

Police traced the offenders using CCTV, resulting in three men and a teenage girl being arrested. They remain in police custody.

The Pakistani military has said it has carried out a second successful test of a cruise missile capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The Hatf-VIII missile was first tested last year.

It has a range of 350km and it has been developed exclusively for launch from the air. On Wednesday, Kismat News reported that India tested a ballistic missile with a range of over 3,000km. The two neighbouring countries routinely carry out missile tests, giving each other advance warning.

The brother of a man who died in a suicide car bomb attack on Glasgow Airport has been deported to India. Sabeel Ahmed, 26, of Bangalore pleaded guilty at London's Old Bailey last month to withholding information about the attack.

The doctor was given an 18-month sentence, but was freed on account of the time he had already spent in prison whilst on remand. He admitted to not disclosing an e-mail to police that his brother, Kafeel Ahmed, wrote about plans for the attack.

Sabeel had opened the e-mail, in which his brother asked him to keep the information secret for as long as possible, after the incident had taken place.

Kafeel, who had a PhD in engineering, drove a burning Jeep into the terminal building at Glasgow Airport on 30th June last year.

He was arrested at the scene after being hosed down by an off-duty police officer, but had already suffered 90% burns. He died in Glasgow Royal Infirmary on 2nd August.

A man has died in a suspected gas explosion which ripped through three houses in north-west London. A second man and a teenage girl pulled from rubble were also hurt in the blast in Stanley Road, South Harrow.

6 fire engines and 30 fire fighters were called to the scene at around 9:40pm on Wednesday. Police sealed off surrounding roads and set up a cordon.

A spokeswoman for Harrow Council said about 40 adults and children had to be evacuated from their homes and taken to a Royal British Legion building nearby. Residents of nearby streets were held at police cordons for a number of hours before being allowed home late last night.

It is reported that two houses on the street were completely destroyed and another was badly damaged. Gas engineers are at the scene trying to establish the cause of the blast.

Pakistan's Election Commission has announced that delayed by-elections will now be held on 26th June. The last date to submit nomination papers will be 13th May, a spokesman said.

8 national assembly seats and 30 provincial ones are up for grabs. Neither of Pakistan's top politicians, Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, ran in the February elections, that saw President Musharraf's allies routed. Reports say both are considering standing in the by-elections.

Police and armed gangs have exchanged gunfire in a notorious slum district of the southern Pakistani city of Karachi. The gun battle came after an operation to arrest gangsters in the Lyari area, who have been fighting a bloody turf war.

Reports say dozens of policemen were deployed, with no immediate reports of casualties. Attempts to arrest Karachi's gangsters have had little success in recent years. The Mafia are said to have close links with those in power in the city.

Militants in north-western Pakistan have destroyed a girls' primary school in the second attack of its kind since Sunday, officials say.

The wooden building was burned to the ground during an overnight raid in the Sherpalam area of the Swat district. No group has claimed responsibility.

Another girls' school had petrol bombs thrown at it on Sunday. Attacks in the region have increased in recent days after militants suspended peace talks with the government.

A female Indian student was killed and another male student injured in a brutal attack at their university accomodation in Birmingham on Tuesday night.

The body of Jyotirmayee Nagasaibabu, 23, who was a postgraduate Physiotherapy student at the University of Wolverhampton, was found in her hostel room which she shared with four other students from Andhra Pradesh.

Jyotirmayee was hit on the head by an attacker as she opened the door of the room, and died instantly. Her roommate was also attacked, but survived. His name has not been disclosed, but officials say he is not in a critical condition.

West Midlands police said forensic tests were being carried out at the premises and a post-mortem examination would be carried out on Ms Nagasaibabu’s body soon.

A drunk taxi passenger punched the driver and then ran him over with his own car, jurors have been told. Luke Aujila of Dorchester Road, Gravesend admitted the manslaughter of Gian Chand Bajar, but denied murder at Maidstone Crown Court.

Mr Aujila sped in the car towards Mr Bajar, who lay injured in the road after the initial attack, making no effort to slow down or avoid his body. The defendant then drove the car into a service road near his home, where it was abandoned and set alight.

Mr. Bajar was a respected member of the local Sikh community. He died later in hospital from his injuries.

Police have dropped an investigation into an Asian council officer who was arrested after a gun was seized at his home.

Nadeem Ilyas was arrested after police seized what they believed to be a Kalashnikov AK-47. He was detained on suspicion of possessing an assault rifle without a certificate, but analysis revealed it to be a replica that could not be fired, and Mr Ilyas will face no charges.

Bangladesh is sending a plane filled with medicine, food and clothes to neighbouring Burma, where at least 60,000 people are missing after a devastating cyclone five days ago.

The plane left Dhaka early this morning for the capital Myanmar, where international agencies say millions of people are still without food, water or shelter. The Bangladeshi army said the relief goods were a gesture of friendship and deepest sympathy from the Bangladeshi Government.

Bangladesh is facing food shortages of its own because of damage caused to crops when cyclone Sidr hit the south-east coast in November last year, killing at least 3,400 people.

Bangladesh has banned all rice exports for the next 6 months, in order to cope with the domestic demand for rice and prevent any further rises in price.

South Asia’s poor have been badly hit by the rise in the price of wheat, rice and other staple foodstuffs, and many Bangladeshis have been forced to reduce their daily food intake.

The Bangladeshi interim government says it’s introduced the ban to stop exporters exploiting its rice export policy. As the world’s fourth largest rice importer, the country also sells a small amount of aromatic rice to other countries.

Bangladesh produces about 29million tonnes of rice every year for its 140million people, and imports 3million tonnes. Officials say they fear mass unrest unless they help provide more food, but the rice harvest is now beginning, and so far it’s expected to be a bumper year – which analysts say should ease pressures on food prices.

At least four people have been killed in a suspected suicide attack in north-west Pakistan, amid signs a truce with militants may be breaking down.

The blast in the town of Bannu would be the first suicide attack since March when Pakistan's new government indicated it would talk with militants.

In another attack in the north-west, gunmen shot dead two policemen outside a bank in the Swat valley, according to local police.

A senior Catholic bishop yesterday launched an attack on the Government over a "shameful" and "unjust" failure to regularise the position of thousands of long-term illegal immigrants in the country.

The Bishop of Brentwood, Rt Rev Thomas McMahon, has come forward in support of a policy of a one-off amnesty for long-term illegal immigrants in the country.

The proposals put forward by the Strangers into Citizens campaign would mean irregular migrants who have lived and worked in the UK for four or more years would be granted a two-year work permit.

At the end of those two years, subject to employer and character references, they would be given leave to remain.

Bhangra singer Malkit Singh was awarded with the British Empire MBE award today. Singh is the first Punjabi singer to figure in the prestigious Queen’s Honours List, and spoke exclusively to Kismat Radio.

This achievement honours his long-standing service to the nation and to the Asian community. Born in Husseinpur village of Jalandhar district, he came to Britain in 1984. Singh is a hugely successful Bhangra artist, and his contributions have changed the face of Bhangra music.

The Home Office has been accused of ‘creative accounting’ over claims its cut nearly £1billion from the cost of introducing ID cards.

The latest figures say involving the private sector in biometric finger printing will help create savings of £975million by 2017, when all UK citizens are expected to have an ID card. Edgar Whitley of the London School of Economics’ Identity Project says allowing private companies to be involved in collecting biometric data is a security risk and will increase costs.

Ministers say they have responded to the demands of Sir James Crosby, the Government’s independent advisor, to remove vital aspects of the operation from the control of Whitehall.

It is reported an Indian woman was gang-raped near the Sun temple at Konark on Monday evening. The victim was visiting the temple site when a group of men took her by force to a nearby isolated area and raped her.

She was later rescued by local people, who described the woman as “in a serious condition”. The police detained three people in connection with the incident, while two others fled the scene. This is the second such incident in the area in the last six months.

The former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been formally charged by the Anti-Corruption Commission in dealings with a Canadian oil exploration firm, Niko Resources Limited.

Two days ago her former political rival, former Prime Minister Begun Khaleda Zia was also charged over dealings connected with the same firm.

Ms Hasina is accused of allowing the oil company to operate in Bangladesh without transparent deeds, failing to address the issue and failing to recover millions of dollars in compensation for damage caused by fire at a drilling site in north-eastern Bangladesh in 2005.

In December, a Niko company official told Reuters that the firm had not operated unethically in Bangladesh, and had not been contacted by the Bangladeshi authorities after the charges were laid. The trials will start soon.

England's Sajid Mahmood believes it is only a matter of time before players turn their backs on the national side to join the Indian Premier League.

England and Wales Cricket Board chief Giles Clarke has said those playing in the IPL will not be picked by England, but fast bowler Mahmood told BBC Sport "a lot of people on the circuit are saying the IPL is the way forward."

A mum has spoken of her struggle to get medical help days before her newborn baby died. Michelle D'Rozario, 36, from Stockport - who was once told she would never have children - had an emergency operation to give birth to her daughter Nina more than two months early and the baby only survived for a few minutes.

Dr Sami Al Shenar, who treated Mrs D'Rozario five days earlier at Wythenshawe Hospital, is accused of failing to spot and act on the symptoms of the potentially-fatal condition pre-eclampsia.

At a General Medical Council hearing in Manchester Dr Al Shenar denied his care was not in the best interest of Mrs D'Rozario and below expected standards. The panel will have to decide whether Dr Al Shenar is fit to practise after hearing evidence from a series of witnesses.

Analysts are warning India’s plans to ban trading in agricultural futures commodities will not help soaring food prices. They argue the banning of trade in wheat, pulses and rice futures last year has not stopped the prices of those commodities rising.

Traders said the continued increase in prices showed forces such as strong demand and supply shortages caused by poor weather were fuelling the rise in costs.

Despite expert claims the increase in food prices is a global phenomenon beyond government control, the Indian Finance Minster said the ban would go ahead if the Indian people believed it would help.

Indian officials say India has test-fired its longest range nuclear-capable missile, the Agni-III, off the coast of Oresa in eastern India.

It has a range of more than 3,000km, and is capable of hitting targets as far off as Beijing and Shanghai.

The Agni-III is India's most sophisticated long-range missile. It was first successfully test-fired last year. Both India and Pakistan regularly test missiles; the neighbours give each other advance warning.

The Pentagon has rejected or deferred millions of dollars in military aid requests from Pakistan, saying that the government has not spent US funding wisely and has allowed al-Qaeda to rebuild a haven in its western tribal regions.

According to a report issued yesterday, the US Defense Department turned down or delayed more than $81million requested by Pakistan in February.

The rejection represents only a small portion of the nearly $1billion a year Pakistan has received through a program called Coalition Support Funds, launched after the 11th September attacks.

The program was set up to reimburse the Pakistani military for offensives against insurgents along the Afghan border and assistance given to the US military operating in Afghanistan.

The parents of a baby girl who suffered brain damage after she was hit by an Asian dangerous driver have been awarded £800,000 to pay for her care.

Cerys Edwards breathes with the aid of a ventilator and needs a specially adapted house and round-the-clock attention. The money was paid out by the insurers of Antonio Singh Boparan at Birmingham Crown Court.

The Asian millionaire’s son was convicted of dangerous driving in April and jailed for 21 months. He was driving at 70mph in a 30mph zone when he caused the crash in Sutton Coldfield in November 2006.

UK firms will have to prove they cannot find skilled workers from the European Economic Area before looking elsewhere for immigrants, ministers say.

Outlining plans, the Home Office said bosses would not be able to fill posts before advertising first in the UK. The points-based guidelines for skilled workers also say most will need a job offer before coming to the country.

Points for skilled workers, such as teachers, nurses and engineers, will be awarded according to qualifications and salary prospects.

India's economy is expected to grow around 8% in the current fiscal year, and annual inflation, now at its highest in more than three years, may moderate in a few weeks, a top official said yesterday.

The Reserve Bank of India and most other forecasts have measured the growth in Asia's third largest economy at 8.0 - 8.5% in the 2008/09 financial year as the global economic slowdown and monetary tightening takes its toll.

The Indian economy is estimated to have grown at 8.7% in 2007-08, slower than the previous year as higher interest rates hurt consumer demand.

Officials in India's Tamil Nadu state have partially demolished a wall which segregated higher caste Hindus from Dalits, formerly known as untouchables.

The higher caste residents of Uthapuram village in southern Madurai say they won permission for the wall after inter-caste violence in the late 1980s.

It kept people of the Dalit class out of the main parts of the village. Rural India is riven by caste tensions, but a physical barrier separating communities is almost unheard of.

A Londonwide Local Medical Commitee survey of over 15,000 London patients has found that 90% of patients are opposed to GP surgeries in London becoming part of a polyclinic.

60% of patients want to keep their local surgery close to home and are unaware of what a polyclinic is despite a £4million consultation carried out by the NHS.

A man has been jailed after he threatened to shoot a group of Asian men in a Nottingham bar. Kevin Eason and Clifford Rogers have been sentenced to 18 months in custody.

Nottingham Crown Court heard how the pair made racist comments about the Asian men and threatened to hit them with a bottle in the Bentinck Hotel on 19th September.

The UK's first structured volunteering scheme to target the Indian diaspora has been launched in northwest London, with cricketing hero Monty Panesar.

Sewa International in north London is aimed at promoting volunteering to the Indian diaspora, with all communities welcome to participate.

The scheme hopes to expand into other cities and towns with significant Indian populations.

The widow of a man shot dead in what has been branded an honour killing broke down in tears as she told a court she felt she was being blamed. Yasmin Bibi Mehmood, 25, said she could not believe the man she married in secret had been murdered.

She told Leeds Crown Court that she had received a phone call from her husband's family on Saturday blaming her for the death of Mian Shahid Mehmood, 29.

Mr Mehmood was found with two gunshot wounds in his back on 11th February last year. The prosecution allege that Mrs Mehmood's family took exception to her marriage when they found out, and two of her brothers (Arza Khan, 27, and Tahir Mahmood, 22) took out a contract on her husband's life.

A 51-year-old man has been arrested at an address in the Swindon area under the Terrorism Act 2000, Scotland Yard has said. The men are being interviewed about the Tamil Tigers, an organisation banned in the UK. The Tigers have fought a 3 year insurgency in Sri Lanka.

The arrest follows an eight day extension to quiz three men suspected of raising funds for a terrorist group. The men aged 33, 39 and 46 are to be held until next Tuesday.

The arrests of the first three men were as a result of a series of raids in London and Wales on 29th April. A Scotland Yard spokesman said the arrests were part of a long-term investigation into support for overseas terrorism.

An Asian man who stamped on a man's head during a vicious assault in a Manchester nightclub has been locked up for four years.

The victim had been enjoying a night out with friends at Paparazzi at the Printworks when he became involved in a fight with Janaid Iqbal, 21, at about 2.20am on Saturday 14th April 2007.

Mr Iqbal pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Three Asian men were arrested in an alleyway in Southall on Thursday 28th February. Police say “the three men were acting suspiciously”, and were later found with 26 bags of cannabis, a Class C drug.

Police found a large amount of cash on one of the men that he could not account for. All three were bailed until 30th April pending the court hearing.

Two were later charged with possesion and intent to supply cannabis. Adnan Hussain, 20, of Sentinel Close, Northolt and a 17-year-old male from Townsend Road, Southall will appear at Ealing Magitrates Court on Thursday 8th May. The 17-year-old from Perivale was later released without charge.

India will dispatch two naval ships containing relief and medical supplies to Burma. The Ministry of External Affairs announced yesterday that two Indian naval ships will sail from Port Blair to Rangoon carrying food items, tents, blankets, clothing and medicine.

A severe cyclone hit Burma on 2nd and 3rd May causing death and devastation, particularly in Rangoon and Irrawaddy delta. Over 4,000 people are reported dead, several thousand have been rendered homeless and infrastructure has been severely damaged.

Immigration raids across restaurants in the UK has sparked concern amongst owners that they are being unfairly targeted.

Four illegal migrants were found working at Indian restaurants in the coastal resort of Rhyl and deported by the Border and Immigration Agency. Similarly, nationals from Bangladesh, China and Malaysia were found in Plymouth following raids on restaurants there.

This will follow further details of the points system for people from outside the European Economic Area wanting to work in the UK, due to be revealed later.

The "highly skilled" workers category already lets most young graduates work in the UK if they have earned a salary equivalent in their country to £40,000. The Home Office is now setting out the rules for "skilled" workers, who will need required points and a job offer.

Employers will also have to show they sought to recruit in the UK first. Points for skilled workers will be awarded according to qualifications and salary prospects.

A forecast suggests Britain will become the most crowded major nation in Europe, with its population set to increase by a third over the next 50 years.

This news could further raise demands by anti-immigration activists to check migration into the UK. According to the Office for National Statistics, England's population will approach 70million. Presently there is a population of around 58million.

About 1.3million immigrants have arrived in the UK in the past decade, pushing the population density of England to almost double the level in Germany and quadruple that in France.

This news comes as details of rules controlling the number of skilled migrants from outside the European Economic Area working in the UK are set to be released today.

Over the weekend, Kismat News reported Bollywood director Prabhakar Shukla intended to make a film inspired by the events surrounding the death of Devon teenager Scarlett Keeling. The Keeling family have said today that they are concerned the film could hinder the investigation into her murder.

Shukla wants the film to show the last few minutes of Scarlett’s life, and says it will warn people about the dangers tourists face in Goa, but Fiona MacKeown’s lawyer says the family fear fiction will be presented as the truth.

Ms MacKeown says she knows the identity of her daughter’s killer, but he is being protected by police because he is a powerful local figure.

A 60-year-old man from Kerala slashed the throat of a girl and then fled on Sunday, following her rejection of his marriage proposal.

The 18-year-old victim, Miss G. Jyothi, was watching television at her grandmother’s home when the accused, known only as Shankar, came from behind and tried to slash her throat.

The teenager was rushed to King George Hospital in Thatichetlapalem where her condition is reported to be stable. Shankar used to work in a hotel near the shop in which Miss Jyothi works.

The Board of Cricket Control for India Commissioner Sudhir Nanavati has summoned players Harbhajan Singh and Shanthakumaran Sreesanth for a disciplinary hearing.

The aim is to investigate an incident which took place between the two players after an IPL match between the Mumbai Indians and the King’s XI Punjab, when Harbhajan is alleged to have slapped Shanthakumaran.

Under IPL rules, Harbhajan has been suspended from a minimum of eleven matches by referee Farokh Engineer. Mr Nanavati has been appointed by the Board to conduct a separate investigation in to the incident. He is expected to submit his report by 12th May.

At least seven people have been injured in clashes between supporters of the main ruling Communist Party and the opposition in West Bengal, east India.

The two sides traded gunfire and threw bombs at each other in the run-up to village council elections in Nandigram. The opposition is fighting against efforts to hand over land to the government for an economic zone. Nearly 600 people have fled their homes after Monday's clashes.

Two Asian brothers were found dead in a blazing car on Saturday afternoon. Paul Ross, 6, and Jay, 2, were stabbed to death and placed in the boot of a car, before their father set the vehicle alight.,/p>

The boys’ mother says "they did not deserve to die, they are irreplaceable and are greatly missed by all the family."

Paul and Jay lived with their mother who was separated from their father, Ashok Kalyanjee. Mr Kalyanjee was found alive in the car, and was under police guard in hospital last night where he was being treated for serious burns.

A local shopkeeper said he tried to help in the desperate search for the children. The two boys were later found dead in the blazing car, parked in Lennoxtown, Dunbartonshire, north of Glasgow.

India is considering a blanket ban on trading in food futures, highlighting growing concerns in Asia over the role of hedge funds and financial marketrs in the recent surge in commodities prices.

An emergency move by India to shut down its food future market, proposed yesterday by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, would reverse measures introduced only five years ago intended to aid the development of India as a finacial centre.

He said the use of crops for biofuel is the biggest reason why we are facing food crisis.

The sister of condemned Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh recently granted a stay of execution by the Pakistani government says she will help Pakistanis on death row in India.

Dalbir Kaur says she has requested a meeting with the Congress Party General Secretary Rahul Gandhi and the Central Government to ask for permission to visit the prisoners.

The names of the 45 Pakistani prisoners were handed to her by human rights activists on her recent visit to visit her brother in Lahore jail.

Ms Kaur said most of the prisoners held in jails in the Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Delhi had overstayed in India and she has copies of their identity documents.

Scientists have pinpointed a reason why people with Indian ancestry may be more prone to weight problems. They have found this group is more likely to carry a gene sequence linked to an expanding waist line, weight gain and Type 2 diabetes.

The sequence, discovered by a team led by Imperial College London, is carried by 50% of the population, but is a third more common in Indian Asians.

The finding might provide a possible genetic explanation for the particularly high levels of obesity in Indian Asians, who make up 25% of the world's population, but who are expected to account for 40% of global cardiovascular disease by 2020.

It is reported at least two people have been killed and several people injured in a suspected suicide attack in north-west Pakistan. Up to four people may have died in the blast in the garrison town of Bannu.

The bomber, who was travelling in a rickshaw, blew himself up near a security checkpoint. The tribal region near the Afghan border has seen a number of such attacks, blamed on Islamist militants.

A Muslim policeman removed from guarding Tony Blair while he was Prime Minister is suing the Met police for religious and racial discrimination. He is seeking £25,000 in damages.

Amjad Farooq, 40, was transferred from the Diplomatic Protection Group on the advice of MI5. He was told his presence might upset the US Secret Service, which works with the Met police guarding Downing Street and the US Embassy./p>

Mr. Farooq was a firearm specialist with Wiltshire Police before joining the Diplomatic Protection Group in 2003. In order to gain security clearance to carry a gun, he underwent a full counter-terrorism background check, but was demoted six weeks later to a lower role in Hammersmith and Fulham Borough.

The Met Police said Mr. Farooq was rejected because of an indirect link through his sons’ local mosque to an iman believed to have links with a banned Pakistani terror group, although officials at the mosque say the iman was forced to leave after a short period of time. The hearing is being held in secret to protect national security.

Factory owners in Bangladesh have started distributing subsidised food to thousands of their lowest paid workers. Recent price rises have forced many Bangladeshis to reduce the amount they eat each day.

Bangladesh is suffering from its worst food crisis in years, after the cost of rice doubled in the past 12 months. There have been a series of protests at garment factories in recent weeks over the rising cost of living.

Fears that rises could disrupt garment industry growth have prompted one of the main trade organisations to start selling cheap food to its workers.

The organisation hopes to help feed 200,000 people out of a total workforce of about 800,000. Each will receive 4kg of rice per week, for two-thirds of the market price.

Police in Delhi have detained dozens of protesters demanding more help for victims of the world's worst industrial disaster, at Bhopal in 1984. They were briefly taken into custody after an unauthorised protest outside Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's office.

They are demanding more compensation and a better clean-up of the site. Several thousand people died in Bhopal on the night of the gas leak from a Union Carbide factory.

An Asian banned drink driver who smashed into a taxi while being pursued by police, leaving two people with serious injuries, is facing jail.

Burnley magistrates heard how cabbie Nadeem Azam suffered severe facial injuries and needs reconstructive surgery after Rizwan Shah hit him head on last August.

Mr. Shah's passenger had to have an operation and a customer in the taxi was also hurt. Police had been pursuing the defendant, but had stopped and came upon the crash minutes later.

Mr. Shah, admitted dangerous driving, drink driving, banned driving and no insurance. He was committed on bail to be sentenced on 6th June and was given an interim ban.

An Asian doctor living in Wales has gone into hiding in her native Pakistan after being forced to leave the UK because she was disowned by the man she married.

Dr. A, who cannot be named for legal reasons, fears she could be the victim of a so-called honour killing if her husband’s relatives find her.

The medical professional moved to Britain intending to make a fresh start working in the NHS following the break-up of her first marriage.