Nepal’s newly elected Maoist Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai has said he expects to complete the country’s peace process within six months. Speaking to the BBC, Dr Bhattarai said that he hoped to lead a consensus government to break political deadlock. Uncertainty has plagued Nepal since the end of the Maoist rebellion in 2006. The Maoists are the largest party in parliament but left... 

Its body would have been just a few cm in length. Its feet indicate it often scurried about in the trees. A small, 160-million-year-old Chinese fossil has something big to say about the emergence of mammals on Earth. The shrew-like creature is the earliest known example of an animal whose kind evolved to provide nourishment to their unborn through a placenta. Its features clearly set it apart from... 

A group of nearly 27,000 South Koreans is suing Apple for £15.8 million over what they claim are privacy violations from the collection of iPhone user location information. Each person in the suit is seeking one million won (£568) in damages, Kim Hyeong-seok, one of their attorneys, announced today. He said they are targeting Apple and its South Korean unit to ‘protect privacy’ rights. Apple’s... 

Endangered Asian elephants are also being targeted by poachers. Elephant poaching in Africa and Asia is being fuelled by China’s economic boom, says a study of the ivory trade. Authors of the report say the number of ivory items on sale in centres in southern China has more than doubled since 2004, with most traded illegally. The survey comes amid reports of a dramatic rise in rhino poaching... 

The Chief of the General Staff of China’s People’s Liberation Army, Chen Bingde, has met his Israeli counterpart Benny Gantz and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv. Chen stressed that ties between the two countries’ militaries have been developing in recent years, and the deepening of Sino-Israeli cooperation contributes to regional peace and stability. For his part, Gantz said... 

If the Sarah Mclachlan ASPCA ad for abused animals makes your heart sink, the idea of caged bears kept under inhumane conditions to have their gall bladders milked daily for use as a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) might bring you to tears. Even more heart wrenching is a recent report of a mother bear killing her cub and herself to stop a life of continued torture and pain. A bile farm worker in... 

Belief it can cure cancer has led to a huge rise in poaching of endangered animals. Britain is to ask China, Vietnam and other Asian countries to tell their citizens that rhino horn has no medicinal value, in an attempt to halt a wave of rhino poaching that may drive the endangered animals to extinction. Although long known as a powdered ingredient in traditional Asian medicine, a recent belief in... 

The world’s most expensive city from the point of view of real estate prices is Hong Kong. The Asian city holds the leadership on this index since 2005. Prices on real estate in Hong Kong are 107% higher than the average prices in ten other largest cities of the world. Real estate prices in other major cities of the world are lowest in India’s Mumbai. They are 43% lower than average prices... 

The building of the US Embassy in the Uzbek capital Tashkent. Uzbekistan has expelled eight American nationals from the Central Asian country on charges of making “unlawful” attempts to convert local Uzbeks to Christianity. Under the guise of businessmen or English language teachers, the eight US nationals “carried out unlawful missionary activity to attract Uzbek students” to Christianity,... 

Now is the time for China to use its “financial weapon” to teach the United States a lesson if it moves forward with a plan to sale arms to Taiwan. In fact, China has never wanted to use its holdings of US debt as a weapon. It is the United States that is forcing it to do so. The US House of Representatives just passed a debt ceiling bill on Aug. 1. On the next day, a total of 181 members... 

Japanese scientists in Hasegawa Lab of the Tokyo Institute of Technology have built a robot that is capable of thinking, learning and having human reactions. The robot has been designed based on “unsupervised learning mechanism” called Self-Organizing Incremental Neural Network (SOINN) and enables the robot to estimate future patterns and networks, PC magazine reports. Unlike the robots that... 

The fungus was found growing on the underside of a large tree. Scientists have discovered the largest fruiting body of any fungus documented so far, on the underside of a tree in China’s Hainan Province. The new giant fungus is believed to be at least 20 years old with a fruiting body equivalent to the mushrooms produced by other fungi species, the BBC reported. The body which is up to 10m long,... 

Xi Jinping looks set to follow the policies of his predecessors in Tibet. The man expected to be China’s next president has promised to “smash” any attempts to destabilise Tibet. Xi Jinping, who is due to succeed President Hu Jintao in 2013, said he would fight against “separatist activities” linked to the Dalai Lama. He was speaking in Lhasa as part of a trip to mark... 

Police gunned down several rioters who attacked a police station and killed 18 people in Hotan city of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Monday noon, sources with the Ministry of Public Security said. Rioters broke into the police station shortly after 12 p.m.. They assaulted the police, took hostages and set fire to the station, according to the ministry. A member of the... 

China has accused the United States of “grossly” interfering in its internal affairs and damaging relations after President Barack Obama met the Dalai Lama at the White House. Barack Obama met the Nobel Prize laureate for about 45 minutes on Saturday, praising him for embracing non-violence while reiterating that the US did not support independence for Tibet. China, which accuses the exiled...