LONDON: British lawmakers have voted in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state, a symbolic move intended to increase pressure for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

HONG KONG: Dozens of police are removing bamboo barriers that pro-democracy protesters had erected overnight after they were attacked the previous day by a mob of masked men.

NEW DELHI: The CBI's probe into the Saradha scam has reached uncomfortably close to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, with the agency securing details from the income tax department on purchase of one of her paintings by Sudipta Sen, promoter of the now-bust chit fund company, for Rs 1.8 crore.

CHENNAI: Going against conventional political wisdom, the newest Muslim party in Tamil Nadu, the All India Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam (AIMMK), has joined the BJP bandwagon. Celebrating its first anniversary year, the party plans to organize a 'national development conference' in January to gain some traction in the state. AIMMK founder president N K N Shathakkathullah told TOI that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been invited to inaugurate the conference.

NEW DELHI: If you thought 1 lakh central paramilitary troops were a massive number to police the counter-Naxalite grid, there will be far more boots on the ground in the days to come, particularly in Bastar.

India's middle-order batsman Cheteshwar Pujara is in talks with Derbyshire to play for the county side in the upcoming England domestic season. Pujara has featured in Derbyshire's final three County Championship fixtures in 2014, scoring 219 runs at an average of 54.75 with a top score of 100 not out.

MURSITPINAR (TURKEY): At least 500 civilians who remain trapped in the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani are likely to be "massacred" if it falls to the ISIS group, the UN envoy to Syria warned on Friday, calling on the world to help avert a catastrophe as the extremists pushed deeper into the embattled town.

SAMARRA, Iraq: Islamic State militants executed an Iraqi news cameraman and 12 other people on Friday in several towns and villages north of Baghdad, officials, relatives and witnesses said.

ATHENS: Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras late Friday won a parliamentary confidence vote, which he called in a bid to rally support, but which provided him with only a narrow majority.

HYDERABAD: Bracing for Cyclone Hudhud that is currently on course to hit the Visakhapatnam coast by Sunday afternoon accompanied by wind speed of up to 155 kmph and very heavy rain, the Andhra Pradesh government is gearing up to evacuate as many as 4.56 lakh people from the coastal villages of east and west Godavari, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts by Saturday evening.