Digest of international news for the week

Pak ends a 7-month-old blockade of crucial supply routes to Afghanistan

Saturday

Geneva: World powers agree to a plan for a transition in Syria that could include current regime members, but envoy Kofi Annan doubted if Syrians would pick leaders "with blood on their hands".

Cairo: Mohammed Mursi is sworn in as Egypt's first freely elected President bringing his Muslim Brotherhood to power after 84 years of struggle, even as the military seemed determined to retain control.

Sunday

Islamabad: Days after he claimed terror Suspect Zabiuddin Ansari could have mounted a "sting operation" to carry out the Mumbai attacks from Pakistani soil, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik today demanded that India apologise for sending Surjeet Singh to spy in Pakistan.

Tehran: Iran has stored up imports and hard currency for a "battle" against "dastardly" EU sanctions, officials said , the day that the measures aimed at pressuring the Islamic Republic over its controversial nuclear program take effect.

Monday

Islamabad: Days after LeT handler Zabiuddin Ansari's revelations about the Mumbai attacks being controlled and facilitated from Karachi, Pakistani authorities have claimed 40 Indian nationals were involved in the terrorist incident.

Dushanbe: Giving a push to India's 'Connect Central Asia Policy', External Affairs Minister S M Krishna arrives here today in the Tajik capital to hold talks with the resource- rich country's top leadership on bilateral issues like trade, energy and counter-terrorism.

Tuesday

Islamabad/Washington: Pakistan ends a seven-month-old blockade of crucial supply routes to Afghanistan after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologised for a cross- border NATO air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November last year.

Dushanbe: India and Tajikistan expresses concern over fundamentalism emanating from Pakistan as External Affairs Minister S M Krishna met with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon here to discuss bilateral issues and regional matters with focus on Afghanistan and counter-terrorism.

Wednesday

Geneva: In a 'quantum' leap in physics, scientists claim to have spotted a sub-atomic particle "consistent" with the Higgs boson or 'God particle', believed to be a crucial building block that led to the formation of the universe.

Islamabad: Pakistan begins allowing NATO supplies to move into Afghanistan as it lifted a seven-month blockade of vital routes to the war-torn country following a US apology over the killing of 24 of its soldiers in a cross-border raid.

Thursday

London: A Briton standing trial for the killing of Indian student Anuj Bidve last year tells a UK court that his mind "went blank" at the time, and claimed that he was not aware that he had shot someone.

London: Scotland Yard arrests six people in an early morning swoop in parts of London that included the area where the Olympics start later this month.

Melbourne: A 42-year-old Australian is sentenced to at least 35 years in jail without parole for brutally killing his Indian girlfriend and her two siblings, in the longest sentence handed down in Queensland history.

Friday

Islamabad: A US drone targets a compound in the restive North Waziristan tribal region today, killing 21 suspected militants in the first such attack since Pakistan reopens NATO supply routes to neighbouring Afghanistan.

London:  The Indian government has signed a contract with auctioneers Sotheby's to purchase a large archive related to Mahatma Gandhi that was scheduled to go under the hammer on July 10.

Hanoi: Amid increasing sparring between China and its neighbours over disputed oil blocks in the South China Sea, India says the region was key to its energy security and the conflict must be resolved peacefully as per international laws.