11 police killed in fresh clashes in Afghanistan
KABUL, Mar 12: At least 11 police officers were killed after Taliban militants attacked security checkpoints in Afghanistan's western province of Badghis overnight, local media Tolo News TV reported on Tuesday. — Xinhua
Scientific body opens new robot research facility
CANBERRA, Mar 12: Australia's peak scientific body the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) has opened its new Robotics Innovation Center, a facility that will focus on robotics and autonomous systems. Data61, the digital innovation arm of the CSIRO, officially opened the 600-square-meter facility on Tuesday. — Xinhua
Philippine forces kill several militants in offensive
MANILA, Mar 12: Officials say Philippine troops, backed by airstrikes and artillery fire, have killed several militants aligned with the Islamic State group in a new offensive in the marshy heartland of the country's south. Army Maj. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana says several key militant commanders, including a long-wanted Singaporean, were among the more than 100 militants who came under attack Monday near Shariff Saydona Mustapha town in Maguindanao province. One soldier was killed and seven others were wounded in the firefight. — AP
Release of Indonesian within rules: Mahathir
KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 12: Malaysia's prime minister Mahathir Mohammad said on Tuesday the surprise release of an Indonesian woman who was on trial for assassinating the North Korean leader's half-brother followed the "rule of law", after suspicions of meddling amid an intense lobbying effort by Jakarta. Siti Aisyah was freed by a Malaysian court on Monday after prosecutors withdrew a murder charge without any explanation, more than two years after her arrest for the 2017 assassination of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur airport. — AFP
Iraqi faces German court in rape-murder case
BERLIN, Mar 12: An Iraqi man goes on trial in Germany on Tuesday accused of the rape and murder of a teenage girl that inflamed anti- mmigrant tensions amid a mass influx of asylum seekers. The accused, Ali Bashar, 22, left Germany for northern Iraq shortly after the May 2018 crime but was brought back in a mission joined personally by federal police chief Dieter Romann. — AFP