Sunny Peter

Protesting Russian action against the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise, an activist of the organisation, staged a two-hour protest inside a tent hanging from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, on Saturday. Reports said the Greenpeace activist who climbed atop the Eiffel Tower, unveiled a banner which read "Free the Arctic 30" and "Militants in prison, climate in danger.”

Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy for Syria, said Saturday that Iran should be invited to participate in the proposed Syria peace talks in Geneva, as reported in Iran's Press TV.

Former, ousted Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, on Friday said he feared that al Qaeda agents were plotting to kill him. Maldivian authorities are investigating the matter.

Following Australia’s stringent crackdown, people smugglers from Indonesia may use shipping containers to transport asylum seekers, in place of traditional fishing boats. Customers are also being told that New Zealand is a safer destination than Australia.

An American man in Georgia, Atlanta has risked his life to save a case of beer from his burning house. The disabled man walked out from his burning house Thursday with a case of beer. He said he was lucky not to die.

Chinese crackdown on Uighur Muslim, continues in the country’s restive Muslim-majority Xinjiang province, as security agencies arrested over 139 activists over the past few weeks on charges of promoting jihad online.

With over 200 Australian in Syria, several of them for aid work and some others fighting for the jihadist cause, former Foreign Minister Bob Carr has said the government should look at options to ban the return of Australian youth, participating in the fighting.

In an effort to garner support for its cause, the Palestinian Authority has sent letter to over 50 countries asking them to freeze business dealings and withdraw investments from Israeli settlement areas occupied since the 1967 war. In the latest diplomatic offensive, the Palestinian Authority has sent letter to countries in Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia including South Africa, Australia, Japan and South Korea.

Democratic governance, land rights and demilitarisation will be key priority issues for the new government of Sri Lanka’s Tamil-dominated Northern Province, said its Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, on Friday. Mr Wigneswarn was addressing the first inaugural session of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) since the end of the military operation against Tamil separatist organisation the LTTE. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) won the recent NPC polls with an impressive 30 out of 38 seats.

Next month’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from November 15 to 17, received another blow, on Saturday, when the country’s main Tamil party announced that it will boycott the Summit.

Kieron Bryan, a 29-year old, British video journalist from London, who is one of 30 people arrested on boat Arctic Sunrise by Russia authorities at an offshore oil drilling rig on 18 September, says he fears "losing years of his life" languishing in Russian prison.

Saudi Arabian feminist defiance of an Islamic ban against driving seems to have gone off relatively peacefully Saturday with more than 60 women across the country claiming to have driven their cars. Al-Madina newspaper Sunday reported that authorities arrested 14 women for driving in Riyadh and the cities of Jeddah and Mecca and in the Eastern Province.

Upon Chinese request, Pakistan has banned three Islamic outfits allegedly carrying out insurgent activities in China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang province.

As the New South Wales fire rages on, with some relief to firefighting efforts due to the weather conditions, Australian government’s climate change policy seems to have come under some intense fire. The United Nations (UN) climate chief Christiana Figueres in an interview with CNN, said that NSW bushfires were absolutely linked to climate change. She noted that the Tony Abbott government in Australia will end up paying a heavy political and economic price for walking away from Labor's commi...

Confirming weeks of speculation, and planning to "reinvent" himself as an expert on Asia, former Foreign Minister Bob Carr said he will be resigning from this Senate post for a life in academics. He will be submitting his resignation on Thursday. Post-retirement, Mr Carr will take up two part-time academic positions. He will join the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre as a professorial fellow and also join the University of New South Wales as an adjunct professor.

Muslim sectarian antagonism was reported in the Holy City of Mecca in Saudi Arabia Oct. 16 when a group of Lebanese-Australian Sunni Muslims allegedly attacked men and threatened to rape women of an American Shiite Muslims group from Detroit.

For over six decades, they courted the West as their closest allies, and now left in the cold; the Saudi’s are desperately attempting to flash the Arab card. Having rejected the UN Security Council seat, on high moral grounds, Saudi Arabia is attempting to break away from the U.S. and reaffirm its place in the Arab world.

With a key group in Syria's main opposition threatening to boycott next month's talks in Geneva, Arab and Western foreign ministers are expected to meet Syrian opposition members in London in a bid to convince them to participate in the peace talks. With both sides narrowing their perspectives, last month's hope for peace in Syria is receding; Geneva II is expected to enter rough weather.

Microsoft Nokia maybe all ready to get cracking at the smartphone market on the same day as Apple announces the release of its new iPad. If reports are to be believed, Nokia is all set to launch a slew of new mobile devices on Tuesday at an event in Abu Dhabi. The expected launch, which includes six new devices, will be the first major product launch by Nokia since its handset division was taken over for $7.17 billion by Microsoft.

Russia and Netherlands seem set on a diplomatic collision course on the recent detention of a ship used by Greenpeace International and its 30 crew members of various nationalities who attempted to stage a protest against the offshore ice-resistant fixed platform ‘Prirazlomnaya’ in the Barents Sea. Netherlands has approached the United Nations-backed International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, requesting provisional measures - for the Greenpeace International ship, ‘”Arctic Sunrise” which fi...

Aggressive firefighting strategy seems to be yielding “positive results” in the raging inferno that have enveloped Blue Mountains of New South Wales (NSW). The NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) had started backburning in an effort to contain the spread of the fire front.

India and Russia, on Monday, reaffirmed their strong bilateral relations and pledged to “resolve all outstanding issues” related to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu. Russia has been opposing the liability clauses which India is seeking to apply to nuclear power plants under its new Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act.

In a horrific incident, a US couple is facing charges for forcing their four underage daughters into performing sexual acts for pornographic filmmakers. The enormity of the horror faced by the four girls came to light when investigators found the “deplorable” conditions under which the girls where living inside a trailer in Tennessee, U.S. Reports say the girls, aged five to 16, were taken around town, to sex customers.

As the mountain side turns red, smoke fills the Sydney air, blanketed by hazardous gases. Even as firefighters battled the raging fire in New South Wales (NSW), the Australian military has been asked to prepare to face what many see as a doomsday disaster.

As New South Wales continues to battle the bushfire disaster, it is being reported that two boys, aged 11 and 14, have been charged with starting two separate fires – one near Newcastle and another one at the Hunter Valley. In a similar incident, two teenage girls, aged 12 and 13 have also been arrested on charges of deliberately lighting grass fire.

As the New South Wales (NSW) fire rages on, the Australian military on Saturday said it would investigate whether an explosive training on its land in Lithgow started the State Mine fire there. This comes after the NSW Rural Fire Service said the fire started on defence land. Reports, meanwhile say, the blaze has severely damaged the Lithgow's iconic Zig Zag Railway which was expected to restart operations soon.

As the mountain bushfire in New South Wales continues to rage and threaten to emerge any time soon, authorities prepare for the worst "mega-fire" Australia has yet to see. But the people in the local communities will have to undergo the worst post-trauma psychological and physical pain. Experts warn the resident abouts the hazardous consequences that any unprecedented fire will have on people living in the communities. Here are a few tips on how people can cope in times of fire.

Chad, Chile, Lithuania, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia have been elected to serve on the United Nations Security Council for a two year term beginning Jan 1, 2014. The UN General Assembly, elected the five countries as as non-permanent members to the Security Council on Thursday. These countries will replace Azerbaijan, Guatemala, Morocco, Pakistan and Togo, whose terms will conclude by the end of the year.

With the election of Chad and Saudi Arabia for the two-year term to the all powerful United Nations Security Council (UNSC), human rights groups fear that getting a unanimous Security Council agreement to act against rogue nations and rights abusers may become even more difficult