The pause will begin on January 21 and will remain in effect indefinitely until the State Department completes a reassessment of visa processing, the report said.
US President Donald Trump, who has campaigned aggressively this year for a Nobel Peace Prize, was given FIFA's inaugural peace prize for his efforts to promote dialogue and de-escalation in some of the world's biggest hotspots.
In a calibrated operation, the Indian Navy on Saturday 'coerced' 35 Pirates onboard a merchant ship around 1,400 nautical miles from the Indian coast to surrender and ensured the safe evacuation of 17 crew members without any injury, officials said.
That's the 27 year old who shot an insurance CEO in New York and nearly got away with it...until he was spotted at a McDonalds in Pennsylvania by an alert employee who tipped off the cops...
The women receive no funding. When they play matches, the trainers pool money to buy a cheap cup as a prize. But they love what they do, and dream of starting teams all over Somalia.
Eight Somali nationals suspected to be pirates, who were apprehended by the security agencies have been brought to Kochi for further interrogation.
A year after a Hamas attack against Israel on October 7 and the ensuing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, India's trade with most West Asian countries has largely escaped any major disruption, except with countries like Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. However, repeated flare-ups of geopolitical tensions in the region continue to drive up shipping and logistics costs.
Deploying helicopter gunships and airborne troops, the European Union on Tuesday for the first time struck land bases of Somali pirates, sinking five fast patrol boats of the sea-bandits, who have plagued vital oil shipping lanes across the Indian Ocean.
Relatives of one of the sailors claimed that pirates had initially demanded $15 lakh and later raised it to $25 lakh for the release of the crew but it was not clear whether the ransom was paid or not.
'Due to the Israel-Hamas conflict, a faction operating in the Red Sea -- which is a typically safe area - has been firing projectiles arbitrarily.' 'Additionally, there have been two incidents involving Somali pirates, and one vessel has been hijacked.'
Fifteen Somali and Ethiopian pirates apprehended by the Indian Navy after a gunbattle off the Lakshadweep coast while trying to loot a foreign merchant vessel were on Monday placed under arrest and would face the Indian law for the first time.
The Indian Navy's specialist team had protected them from nine armed pirates, and completed sanitization and seaworthiness checks of fishing vessel Al-Kambar.
Eleven Indians, who were hijacked by Somali pirates 11 months ago, were released on Wednesday. Babu, father of Roji V John, a second officer in a cargo ship and a native of Pathanamthitta district, told PTI that authorities of the Rack International company, which owns the ship, handed over the ransom amount. John was part of the 26-member crew of M V Rack Africana, which was hijacked on April 10, 2010 while on its way to Morali in Africa.
Aman Kumar Sharma from Himachal Pradesh, an Indian national, was among the 11 crew members of a ship freed after being held hostage for nearly four years by Somali pirates, with a top United Nations official calling for the release of all remaining captives.
Somali pirates have released a Greek-owned oil tanker with 26 crew members, including 11 Indians, after holding them captive for ten months, the vessel's operating company said on Tuesday.
Gujarat police on Monday arrested fourteen Somali pirates and three Yemeni nationals after they reached the Gujarat coast after being stranded for a month in the sea without food or water.
Ending a six-month ordeal, the crew of nine Indian and 12 Iranian sailors of cargo ship MV Sinin was freed on Saturday by Somali pirates. "Nine Indian sailors along with 12 Iranians of M V Sinin have been released by the pirates today. All of them are safe," said Director General of Shipping S B Agnihotri. The Somali pirates had on February 12 seized the Malta-flagged, 52,000 tonne bulk carrier 315 nautical miles off Masirah (Oman) while it was on its way to Singapore.
The Indian Navy rescued an Iranian-flagged fishing vessel with 19 Pakistani crew members and a Sri Lankan trawler in two swift operations after armed pirates hijacked the boats in the Arabian Sea amid deteriorating security situation arising out of Iran-backed Houthi rebels targeting various cargo ships in the region.
Twenty two hostages, including five Indians, who had been kidnapped by Somali pirates nearly three years ago have been freed. Forces of Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region said their maritime force began the operation to free the hostages, and their ship, nearly two weeks ago.
Somali pirates are "shifting their location" towards India, but the country is watchful to deal with such threats, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said.
Indian warship INS Sharda came to the rescue of the vessel FV Omaril with 11 Iranian and eight Pakistani crew members after it came under attack from pirates, they said.
The preventive patrolling by navies of different countries has not denied Somali pirates the availability of pockets where they can still pounce on unsuspecting ships and hijack them. This is because of a lack of co-ordination in patrolling, writes security expert B Raman
Indian Navy has foiled an attack by Somali pirates on a merchant ship, west of the Lakshadweep Islands, by apprehending 16 Somali pirates and rescued 16 hostages.
The government of Egypt and Dubai has complained to India about the excessive media coverage given to relatives of the kidnapped Indian sailors by Somali pirates. According to them, the hype by the Indian media is not helping negotiators who are trying to strike a deal with pirates for the early release of the sailors.
Somali pirates have struck again, this time taking hostage 11 men hailing from Gujarat's Kutch district who were working on a Dubai-based cargo vessel. "According to information received late last night, some 11 men from Mandvi who were working on the Dubai-based vessel Al-Barari were taken hostage after Somalian pirates hijacked the ship from near the port of Mogadishu," Kutch Vahanvati Association president Kasam Ali Bholim told PTI.
The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a public interest litigation seeking direction to the government to frame effective anti-piracy guidelines in the wake of increasing incidents of Indian seamen being held hostages by Somali pirates.
The Indian Navy rescued the hijacked Iranian fishing vessel 'Al-Kambar 786' and its crew after more than 12 hours of intense coercive tactical measures as part of an anti-piracy operation on March 29.
Suspected Somali pirates on Tuesday hijacked an Italian cargo vessel with 18 crew, including seven Indian seafarers, off the coast of Oman.
On December 17, heavily-armed pirates stormed a German oil tanker SP Brussels belonging to the Medallion Marine company. They went on to loot the ship and took hostage five Indian sailors.
A group of sailors taken hostage by Somali pirates nearly two years ago have appealed to the government to get them released from captivity.
Somali pirates released seven Indian sailors on Friday by after remaining in captivity for about four years. The sailor will be back in India over the weekend.
Indian Naval Ship Sukanya, deployed on anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden under the operational control of the Western Naval Command, thwarted a multiple-boat attack by pirates on Thursday and rescued 26 Somali crewmembers.
In a major operation, the Indian Navy intercepted a pirate mother ship, rescuing 13 crew members, and arrested 61 Somali sea brigands nearly 600 nautical miles off the western coast. "Vega 5, a pirate mother vessel, was intercepted by fast attack craft INS Kalpeni and 61 pirates were apprehended and 13 crew members rescued," a Navy spokesperson said on Monday. The pirates and their ship were being brought to Mumbai for further investigations, the spokesperson said.
The coming together of Lashkar-e-Tayiba and southern Somalia-based Al-Shahbab poses new maritime protection issues for India.
The world needs to wake up to this new dimension of war at sea and be prepared to face the 'unknown enemy' who have the advantage of attacking at their choice of location and time, cautions Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
British-Somali super-bantamweight Ramla Ali took little more than a minute on Saturday to win the first sanctioned female professional boxing bout held in Saudi Arabia.
33 Indian labourers, including 25 workers from Uttar Pradesh, have been allegedly held hostage by a company in Somalia for the last eight months. They had joined the company 10 months ago.
Ethiopia's Yalemzerf Yehualaw stormed to victory in the women's London Marathon on Sunday ahead of last year's winner Joyciline Jepkosgei.
'What really saved me, what made me different, was that I could run'
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