KUNDUZ: Gunmen have kidnapped two foreign women aid workers and their three Afghan colleagues in the remote province of Badakhshan in northeast Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday. "Yesterday evening, five health workers, including two female foreign nationals, were kidnapped in the Yaftal area," the provincial governor's spokesman, Abdul Mahroof Rasikh, told AFP. Police were on the trail of the kidnappers, he said. The incident was confirmed by the head of the Badakhshan provincial council, Zabihullah Attiq, who said the ...

KATHMANDU: Four years after elections ended centuries of royal rule, lawmakers in Nepal are scrambling to complete a constitution amid widespread doubt that the troubled nation is on the road to lasting peace. Once a Hindu monarchy, the country has evolved into a secular democracy and the new constitution should be a key step towards healing rifts that led to the bloody 1996-2006 civil war between Maoist rebels and the state. But with just days to go ...

DEHRADUN: At least 24 Hindu pilgrims were killed when a packed bus plunged into a fast-flowing river in northern India on Tuesday after colliding with a truck, officials said. The bus, which was on its way back from the holy shrine of Badrinath, rammed into the truck near the town of Byasi, 150 kilometres (95 miles) from Uttarakhand state capital Dehradun. "The bus plunged into the Alaknanda river following the collision and 24 people died," Kunal Sharma, the ...