A Bangladesh court on Monday sentenced five convicts to death for crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.

The International Crimes Tribunal’s three-member panel of judges led by Justice Shahinur Islam announced the verdict, reports bdnews24.

The five were sentenced for killing 17 people, vandalism, arson, abduction and torture in Itabaria village of Patuakhali during war.

They were also sentenced to death for the rape of at least 15 women from the same village.

The court said that the convicts had used rape as a weapon and that their victims had to live with the repercussions of those attacks for the rest of their lives.

“These women are our true war heroes. It is time to recognise them,” the tribunal said in the verdict.

The convicts will however be able to appeal against the ruling at the Supreme Court within a month of the verdict.

According to the prosecution, all the convicts were supporters of Conventional Muslim League prior to 1971, but they were involved with the local wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) at the time of their arrests in 2015.

The Tribunal had indicted them on March 8, 2017.

The inaugural session of Pakistan’s 15th National Assembly (NA) was underway here on Monday during which 331 members of the Lower House of Parliament took oath after their election in the July 25 general elections.

Outgoing NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq administered the oath to the members in the 342-member house, reports Dawn news.

Prime Minister-in-waiting and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan and other prominent political leaders, including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shahbaz Sharif, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and former President Asif Ali Zardari, were present in the assembly for the oath-taking.

Television footage showed the PTI chief shaking hands with Bilawal, who is entering the NA for his maiden term.

After administering the oath to the MNAs, the Speaker will prorogue the NA session until August 15, when the new speaker and deputy speaker of the assembly will be elected.

The nomination papers for the same will be submitted on Tuesday.

Sessions are also set to begin in the provincial assemblies of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan for the MPAs-elect to take oath.

Imran Khan will take the oath as Pakistan’s Prime Minister on August 18, a senior Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader said today.

Senator Faisal Javed also tweeted that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party led by Khan has invited Indian cricketers Kapil Dev, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sunil Gavaskar to attend the oath taking ceremony of the cricketer-turned-politician.

“Imran Khan to take oath as Prime Minister of Islamic Republic of Pakistan on the 18th Aug 2018 inshALLAH (if God wills)”, Javed tweeted. His tweet came after President Mamnoon Hussain summoned a session of the National Assembly on August 13 during which the newly-elected members will take oath.

The PTI’s parliamentary committee on Monday officially named party chairman Khan as their parliamentary leader and nominee for the next prime minister of Pakistan. The PTI, which secured 116 general seats in the National Assembly in the July 25 polls is the largest party in the lower house of parliament.

Geo News reported that President Mamnoon Hussain has decided to postpone his visit to Scotland in order to administer the oath to the next prime minister. Mamnoon was scheduled to visit Edinburgh from August 16 to August 19. “The president will now embark on his trip after the oath-taking ceremony,” the report said.

Earlier in the day, the Election Commission of Pakistan accepted the unconditional written apology from Khan for violating the secrecy of the ballot, removing the last possible hurdle in his swearing-in. The 65-year-old leader had contested from five constituencies and won all of them.

Yesterday, PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry said, “Imran Khan will be elected prime minister of the country ‘within the first round’ of vote in the parliament.” He further claimed that his party has the support of 180 members in the National Assembly. The party needed the support of 172 lawmakers in the house of 342 to form the government.

As many as 28 independent winning candidates of the National Assembly yesterday notified the election commission of joining the PTI, giving a major boost to Khan’s party which can now claim seats reserved for women and minorities. There are a total of 70 nominated seats in the National Assembly.

Tibetans are ready to be a part of China if guaranteed full rights to preserve their culture, the Dalai Lama said on Friday.

“Tibetans are not asking for independence. We are okay with remaining with the People’s Republic of China, provided we have full rights to preserve our culture,” the 83-year-old spiritual leader said at “Thank You Karnataka” event here in the city.

Organised by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), the event was a part of “Thank You India – 2018” held by the Tibetan community across India to mark 60 years of its exile in the country.

“Several of Chinese citizens practicing Buddhism are keen on Tibetan Buddhism as it is considered scientific,” the Nobel laureate said.

Born in Taktser hamlet in northeastern Tibet, the Dalai Lama was recognized at the age of two as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso. He fled to India from Tibet after a failed uprising against the Chinese rule in 1959.

China annexed Tibet in 1950, forcing thousands of Tibetans, including monks, to flee the mountain country and settle in India as refugees.

Since then, India has been home to over 100,000 Tibetans majorly settled in Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh among other states.

The Taliban launched a massive offensive in Afghanistan’s Ghazni city on Friday amid reports of multiple casualties even as heavy fighting continued between the government forces and militants.

Afghan soldiers fought back as militants converged from four sides of the city, resulting in several deaths on all sides, Ghazni provincial government spokesman Mohammad Arif Noori said.

Sporadic gunfire could still be heard in the provincial city as Afghan forces exchanged fire with militants. The spokesperson said that a group of Taliban fighters who had made their way into the city were holed up near the provincial police headquarters and were firing on the building, CNN reported.

Noori claimed that Ghazni security forces managed to drive out most of the Taliban forces from the city centre but as per reports, residents in several neighbourhoods said that heavy fighting was ongoing around them.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement to the media that the Taliban entered Ghazni city around 1 a.m. and captured a number of strategic sites within the city.

“Hundreds of Mujahedeen entered the city, captured the police headquarters and all six police districts and an important military base, Bala Hesar,” he said.

“Attacks were underway on the governor’s office, the National Directorate for Security (Afghan intelligence agency) headquarters and other government offices,” he said, adding that more than 140 Afghan soldiers were killed.

One resident Nasir Ahmad Faqiri told the New York Times that the militants were fighting with “their whole power”.

“There are Taliban militants in all roads and streets of the city, but they are facing strong resistance from government forces,” he said.

The Ghazni attack was the second assault on an Afghan city this year. In May, insurgents overran the western city of Farah, but they left a day later amid counterattacks from the Afghan government and American airstrikes.

The Afghan government had unilaterally called off a ceasefire with the militant group that it had in place for Eid ul-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

In a tweet, US Forces Afghanistan called the attack a “failed attempt to seize terrain”, saying that Afghan forces were able to maintain control of government buildings.

“US Forces responded with close-air support this morning in #Ghazni. Afghan forces held their ground and maintain control of all (government) centres. Another failed attempt by Taliban to seize terrain, while creating strategically inconsequential headlines,” it read.

An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale struck Indonesia’s Lombok Island on Thursday, less than a week after a major earthquake in the region left at least 168 people dead, more than 1,500 injured and 156,000 affected.

The US Geological Survey said the hypocentre was located at a depth of 10 km and 23 km from Mataram, the capital of the province, reports Efe news.

The quake caused people to rush out of their houses and damaged some buildings, National Agency for Disaster Management (BNPB) spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

In an earlier tweet, Sutopo had raised the death toll from the 6.9 magnitude quake that struck the island on Sunday to 168, adding that official data on casualties was slow due to the verification process.

He referred to informal figures provided by other entities, which in one case put the number of deaths at 381.

The agency also reported that 1,467 people have been hospitalised and more than 156,000 displaced.

The search and rescue teams on Thursday continue to try to locate victims or survivors under the rubble of thousands of demolished buildings.

The Sunday quake occurred a week after another 6.4-magnitude tremor struck Lombok and left 16 people dead, 355 injured and 1,500 buildings destroyed.

The Indonesian archipelago is situated along the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, an area known for its intense seismic and volcanic activity, which produce about 7,000 earthquakes each year, most of which are of moderate magnitude.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman and Prime Minister-in-waiting Imran Khan has said that his party wants to build a relationship with the US based on trust and mutual respect.

Speaking to Acting US Ambassador to Pakistan John F. Hoover who called on him at his Banigala residence on Wednesday, the cricketer-turned-politician said Pakistan and the US had witnessed many ups and downs which were the outcome of trust deficit between the two countries, reports Dawn news.

“Our government will engage with the US to make this relationship more balanced and trustworthy. We count trade and economic relations with the US extremely important,” the PTI chief said.

He stressed the need for revitalization of diplomatic ties between the two countries and transforming the relationship for each other’s benefit.

According to the PTI’s media cell, the US delegation and Khan discussed other issues of mutual interest, including bilateral trade and stability in Afghanistan.

Hoover felicitated Khan over his party’s victory in the July 25 general election.

Lawyers for US President Donald Trump said they have responded to the latest proposal from special counsel Robert Mueller over a potential interview with the president as part of the wide-ranging Russia probe.

“We have responded in writing to the latest proposal from Office of Special Counsel regarding the request to interview the President,” Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow said in a statement on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported.

“It is not appropriate, at this time, to comment publicly about the content of that response.”

Rudy Giuliani, another lawyer for the president, reportedly rejected Mueller’s terms.

Trump’s legal team has also suggested a narrow path for answering questions and do not want the president to be asked by investigators about whether he obstructed justice, according to The New York Times, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The two sides have gone back and forth for months over the scope and conditions of an interview with Trump, raising speculation that Mueller would seek a subpoena for the president, a move set to prompt a high-stakes legal battle.

Mueller is looking into the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and any potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow, among other matters that may arise from the investigation.

Mueller’s team has questions for Trump over the firing of FBI Director James Comey last year and his public criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who rescued himself from the Russia investigation against the president’s wishes.

It was reported earlier this month that Mueller has offered to reduce the number of obstruction-related questions that investigators would ask the president but wants obstruction to be addressed in person, not just in written answers.

Giuliani said Wednesday that millions of pages of documents have been provided to Mueller along with testimony from dozens of witnesses while reiterating a call for ending the Russia inquiry “without further delay.”

Since Mueller began to lead the probe in May 2017, he has indicted or secured guilty pleas from 32 people, including several former Trump campaign aides.

Former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, who was indicted by Mueller last fall, is facing trial for bank and tax fraud in federal court in the state of Virginia.

As the Russia probe continues with no immediate end in sight, Trump and his political allies have in recent months ratcheted up pressure on Mueller and his team.

The President escalated his attacks against the Russia probe last week, urging Sessions to shut down inquiry overseen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a defender of the special counsel.

A lawyer has moved the Peshawar High Court seeking removal of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s name from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) after the latter’s conviction for corruption.

Khanzada Ajmal Zeb filed the petition on Monday urging the court to ask the Election Commission to delete “N” from the party name, Dawn online reported on Tuesday.

The respondents in the petition were the Chief Election Commissioner, the poll body secretary and Nawaz Sharif, who is now in jail.

Zeb said that Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was the head of the Muslim League who wanted the party to be a symbol of good governance, development and national interest. But the petitioner held Sharif responsible for the division of the PML.

He said Sharif hijacked the party before forming his own faction, PML-N, and registered it with the poll body.

Sharif, currently serving a 10-year jail term in a corruption case, misled the public at large by using the name of PML-N. Therefore, “N” needed to be deleted from the party name, said Zeb.

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has appointed a task force to study the possibility of granting visa-free entry to visitors from certain tourist friendly nations in order to boost arrivals, authorities said on Monday.

Tourism Minister John Amaratunga said that some of the countries under consideration are India, China along with some other European and West Asian nations, reports Xinhua news agency.

Amaratunga said this proposal was aimed at encouraging more people to visit Sri Lanka and avoid “chaos” at the immigration.

Following recommendations from the task force, this proposal may be implemented in the off-season months of October to November and March to April, the minister said.

He further said the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) was currently working on this plan.

Additionally, the Minister said the government was also in discussion with airlines, tour operators, and hotels to provide low-cost packages.

“These efforts are underway to ensure Sri Lanka becomes a destination that would be a visited location throughout the year,” Amaratunga said.

Sri Lanka’s tourism industry, which was once heavily scarred by a 30-year civil conflict, has become one of the leading industries of the country.

Tourist arrivals have recorded a growth of 15.3 percent during the first half of 2018 compared with the same period last year.