Kanpur: Addressing a public meeting at Halim College here on Monday, Nasimuddin Siddiqui said if the Muslims should unite the Bhartiya Janta Party would not be able  to win a seat at the Ward level. 

He was speaking in support of the party's candidate Sri Prakash Jaiswal contesting election from Kanpur seat. He cautioned the gathering about the SP-BSP alliance which had formed the govt previously with the support of the BJP. In such a case they would not bring any benefit to the Muslims. 

Exhorting the gathering he made it clear that this alliance was not reliable. 

MOSCOW, April 23. /TASS/. Sri Lankan Minister of Mass Media and State Minister of Defense Ruwan Wijewardene stated on Tuesday that according to investigators local extremists committed explosions in churches and hotels on the island in response to the mosque attacks in New Zealand’s city of Christchurch in which 50 people were killed. The TV channel News First quoted the minister of mass media on Twitter.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Nine bombings of churches, luxury hotels and other sites on Easter Sunday killed more than 200 people and wounded hundreds more in Sri Lanka’s deadliest violence since a devastating civil war in the South Asian island nation ended a decade ago.

BEIT JALA, West Bank (AP) — A hospitalized Palestinian teen said Monday he was shot in his thighs by Israeli soldiers while he was handcuffed and blindfolded — the latest in what a leading rights group portrayed as a series of unjustified shootings of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers.

The military said it was investigating last week’s incident, which it said took place as Palestinian youths were throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani insisted Sunday there was “nothing wrong” with the president’s 2016 campaign taking information from the Russians, as House Democrats pledged stepped-up investigations into campaign misconduct and possible crimes of obstruction detailed in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report .

Giuliani called the Trump campaign’s effort to get political help from representatives of the Russian government possibly ill-advised but not illegal.

LONDON (AP) — Two teenagers who were arrested in the shooting death of a 29-year-old journalist in Northern Ireland have been released from police custody without being charged.

Police let the 18- and 19-year-old men go Sunday night and appealed to anyone with information about whoever killed Lyra McKee to come forward.

McKee was fatally wounded during rioting Thursday night in the city of Londonderry.

Police say she was probably hit by a bullet someone fired at police. Video from the scene showed a gunman wearing a black face mask aiming at officers.

KIEV, April 22. /TASS/. Ukraine’s front-running presidential contender Vladimir Zelensky increased his lead in the runoff election, with 90.25% of ballots counted.

According to the Ukrainian Central Election Commission, Zelensky secured 73.18% of the vote in the presidential race. Incumbent President Pyotr Poroshenko is losing ground, garnering just 24.49% of the vote.

More than 12.2 mln voters backed Zelensky and over 4 mln Ukrainians supported Poroshenko.

DAMASCUS, April 20. /TASS/. Syria may soon lease out to Russia its seaport of Tartus for a term of 49 years for economic uses, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said on Saturday after his meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In 2017, Moscow and Damascus signed an agreement on the deployment of a Russian navy logistics support center in Tartus for the term of 49 years.

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A comedian whose only political experience consists of playing a president on TV cruised toward a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election Sunday in what was seen as a reaction against the country’s entrenched corruption and low standard of living.

Results from 52% of polling stations’ tallies showed sitcom star Volodymyr Zelenskiy receiving 73% of the vote and President Petro Poroshenko about 25% — a crushing rebuke to Poroshenko’s five years in office.

MOSCOW, April 22. /TASS/. A group of Russian inspectors will conduct an observation flight over the United States’ territory on April 22-27, Head of the National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center Sergey Ryzhkov said, according to Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

"In the framework of implementing the international Treaty on Open Skies a Russian group of inspectors plans to perform an observation flight on a Russian aircraft Tu-214ON over the United States’ territory," the newspaper writes on Monday.

CAIRO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday called for Arab political and financial support for the Palestinian people against what he described as "Israeli intransigence."

"Israel has not respected its agreements with the Palestinian Authority since 1993," Abbas told an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers at the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo.

Israel has recently cut more than 138 million U.S. dollars of the Palestinian tax revenues used by the Palestinian Authority for running Palestinian affairs.

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The Pentagon confirmed on Sunday one U.S. soldier was killed in a non-combat related incident in Iraq.

The soldier died on Saturday in a non-combat related incident in the northern Iraqi province of Ninawa, said the U.S. Defense Department in a statement.

The soldier was in Iraq supporting Operation Inherent Resolve by the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS), the statement added.

The incident is under investigation, said the Pentagon.