MOSCOW, August 4. /TASS/. A Mi-8 helicopter has crashed in the north of Krasnoyarsk region, East Siberia, killing 18 people aboard, a source at the emergency services told TASS.

"There were three crewmembers and 15 passenger abroad the Mi-8 that belonged to Utair airline," he said. "All of them died."

A well-informed official in the law enforcement agencies told TASS the helicopter had taken off from the town of Igarka, located on the River Yenisei to the north of the Arctic Circle.

Zahedan, Aug 4, IRNA – The Iranian police discovered and confiscated 2,574 kilograms of narcotic drugs in two separate operations in Sistan-Baluchestan Province, southeastern Iran, it was reported on Saturday.

Professor Akshay Venkatesh has won this year's Fields Medal, an award often described as the Nobel Prize of mathematics.

The 36-year-old professor grew up in Perth then moved to US and works at Stanford University. He specialises in pure mathematics and number theory.  He was among four mathematicians from around the world to be awarded this year's Fields Medal.

Kochi, Aug 2 (PTI) The Kerala High Court today dismissed a petition for declaring sacramental confession among Christians unconstitutional, noting whether or not to confess one's sin was an individual's right.

A division bench of the court comprising Acting Chief Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice A K Jayasankaran Nambiar said nobody was compelled to follow the custom.

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI; 3 Aug 2018; AA; In a first, Pakistan’s small yet unique communities such as the African origin Sheedi and the pagan worshippers Kalash have secured parliamentary representation, marking a major milestone in the country’s election history despite rigging allegations.

Tanzeela Qambrani is one such silver lining. The 39-year-old woman is the first ever member of the Sheedi community, which traces its roots in Africa, to get counted among lawmakers.

LONDON, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Britain has one of the highest gender pay gaps in Europe, the House of Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee said in a hard-hitting report on Thursday.

Rachel Reeves, the Member of Parliament who chairs the committee, said the study revealed that some companies have "obscene and entirely unacceptable" gender pay gaps of more than 40 percent.

Turkey was on Thursday drawing up retaliatory measures after Washington slapped sanctions on two Turkish ministers in the one of the biggest crises between the two NATO allies in recent years.

Tensions have soared over Turkey's detention on terror charges of American pastor Andrew Brunson, who was first held in October 2016 and was moved to house arrest last week.

SINGAPORE, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have arrived at a single draft negotiating text of the Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Thursday.

Wang made the remarks at the China-ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting.

The draft text will serve as the basis of future COC negotiations.

It is another significant progress on the negotiations of COC, Wang noted.

Ahmedabad, 2 Aug 2018; PTI:  Members of Dalit and Rajput communities clashed in an Ahmedabad neighbourhood after Karadia Rajputs, an OBC group, allegedly objected to a Dalit youth wearing shorts and sporting a moustache, police said today.

The clash took place in Kavitha village on Tuesday night, following which members of both the groups have filed complaints against each other at Bavla police station, P D Manvar, deputy superintendent of police, said.

He added that up to five people from the Rajput community have been detained for questioning.

SINGAPORE, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- China and the European Union (EU) agreed here on Friday to join hands to promote multilateralism and support free trade.

The agreement came as Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Federica Mogherini, the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Council on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers' meeting and related meetings.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. tech giant Apple became the first American company that saw its market cap hit 1 trillion U.S. dollars in the U.S. history after its shares rose 2.8 percent to a session high of 207.05 dollars around midday trading on Thursday.

Investors pushed Apple's market capitalization over the 1-trillion-dollar threshold amid expectations of new iPhones to be launched this fall, plus a record third-quarter financial report that the California-based company garnered a whopping 53.3 billion dollars in revenue.

Balasore, 2 Aug 2018; PTI:  India today successfully test fired an indigenously-developed supersonic interceptor missile from a test range off the Odisha coast to validate "some improved features", defence sources said.

The state-of-the-art missile was test fired from a canister at 11.24 am engaging a simulated target at low altitude, the sources said.