Anti-Indian protest in Nepal
AP, Kathmandu
Tens of thousands of students held hands, waved banners and chanted slogans in Nepal’s capital Friday to protest against a border blockade that has caused severe shortages of fuel and an increase in food prices in the Himalayan country.
The students lined the Ring Road which circles Kathmandu on Friday to demand an immediate lifting of the blockade
China to reform military structure
AFP, Beijing
China will carry out sweeping reforms to the structure of its military, state media reported, in moves intended to enhance the ruling Communist Party’s control over the People’s Liberation Army.
China’s armed forces have long been plagued by inefficiency and corruption, even as Beijing adopts more assertive stances in territorial disputes with neighbours including Japan and the Philippines over islands in the East and South China Seas.
Germany will send Tornado jets to Syria
Reuters, Berlin
Germany will deploy Tornado reconnaissance jets to support France in the fight against Islamic State militants in Syria, a senior lawmaker for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives confirmed on Thursday.
“Germany will be a more active contributor than it has been until now,” Henning Otte, defense expert for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said in a statement on Thursday.
New HIV cases in Europe
Reuters, Stockholm
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday that in 2014 it had recorded the highest number of new HIV cases in its European Region, which also includes Central Asia, since the start of reporting in the 1980s.
WHO and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said in a statement that more than 142,000 people in WHO’s European Region were diagnosed with HIV last year with the increase coming from its eastern sector which comprises 15 countries including Russia, Ukraine and Central Asia.
