Neighborhood

Pakistan had “significant” work to do and was, with regard to an action plan agreed in June 2018, “lacking in almost every respect”, Mr. Billingslea said.

The country office of the ADB had to issue a rare rebuke on a holiday after two cabinet ministers claimed that the lender would extend $3.4 billion to Pakistan.

The Paris-headquartered Financial Action Task Force has asked Pakistan to explain whether it has launched any investigation into the USD seven million allocated to maintain schools, madrasas, clinics and ambulances originally operated by terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and LeT fronts Jamat-ud-Dawah and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation.

Top local government sources in Male told TOI that the agreement Yameen signed with China in 2017, which raised a security alarm in India, is “not on the table”. Titled ‘Protocol on Establishment of Joint Ocean Observation Station’, the agreement was meant to allow China to construct an observatory at Makunudhoo, the westernmost atoll of the Maldives in the north.

In a bid to fight the dire global pollution menace, Philippines has passed a landmark new law which requires all high school and college students to plant at least 10 trees if they want to graduate school or college.

“I have not received any reports which say that they have travelled to India. My officers have not reported any connection to India up to now,” Sirisena told a news conference at which he spoke in Sinhala.

The grouping, which looks into money laundering and terrorism financing meets from 16th to 21st June in Orlando, Florida.