Lucknow, Feb 6 (PTI) BSP president Mayawati has for the "first time" joined Twitter to interact with the media and masses, her party said Wednesday, almost a fortnight after a handle in her name appeared on the microblogging site.

She will be also expressing her views on national and matters of political importance on Twitter, a BSP release said.

Chennai, Feb 5 (PTI) A 33-year-old man who posed as an official of the Prime Minister's Office here was arrested Tuesday and remanded to judicial custody along with his car driver who caused an accident, police said.

The fake claim of the imposter that he was an "Assistant Commissioner-Protocol," in the PMO was exposed after police grilled him following a mishap in the Madras High Court campus involving his car which hit a motorcycle and injured an advocate who was riding it, they said.

New Delhi, Feb 5 (PTI) The government's push to provide clean cooking fuel to every household has turned India into the world's second largest LPG consumer whose demand is projected to rise 34 per cent by 2025, Oil Secretary M M Kutty said Tuesday.

Speaking at the Asia LPG Summit here, he said active LPG consumers have grown at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15 per cent - from 14.8 crore in 2014-15 to 22.4 crore in 2017-18.

KANPUR: A young girl was strangulated to death in Panki area. Her dead body was found in a field existing about 200-meters away from the house on Wednesday morning.   

Baghdad, Feb 4 (AFP) Iraqi politicians on Monday hit back at Donald Trump after the US president said he plans to keep American forces in the country to spy on Iran.

In an interview with CBS television, Trump reaffirmed his determination to pull the United States out of "endless wars" in Syria and Afghanistan but said American troops would stay on in Iraq, partly "to be looking a little bit at Iran".

04 Feb 2019; AFP: Pope Francis and a top Muslim cleric Monday issued a joint call for freedom of belief during the first visit by the head of the Catholic church to the birthplace of Islam -- the Arabian Peninsula.

Francis, who has made outreach to Muslim communities a cornerstone of his papacy, is on an historic three-day visit to the United Arab Emirates.

DIYARBAKIR, 05 Feb 2019; AA: A Bible thought to be 1,200 years old was found in a police operation in southeastern Turkey, the governor’s office said on Tuesday.

An anti-smuggling team on Monday seized the Bible, said to be only 34 pages long, with gold lettering on leather, in the city of Kayapinar, said the southeastern Diyarbakir governorship in a statement.

LONDON (AP) — A closely watched survey shows that the British economy is not far away from shrinking amid intensified Brexit uncertainties.

Financial information firm IHS Markit said Tuesday that its “all-sector” purchasing managers’ index dipped to 50.3 points in January from 51.5 the previous month. Were it to fall below 50, it would be indicating a fall in output.

05 Feb 2019; DW: A fire in an eight-story building in a wealthy Paris neighborhood killed at least eight people and injured 28 others early Tuesday morning.

Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz later told reporters that a woman had been taken into custody, albeit cautioning that "the investigation has just begun." He said it was still too early to determine the cause of the fire, but that authorities suspected it to be a criminal act. 

CARACAS, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's foreign ministry rejected on Monday several European countries' decision to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president.

Those countries "are officially adopting the strategy of the U.S. administration to overthrow the legitimate government of President Nicolas Maduro," the Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

Such a decision "is in open violation of the principles and practices that govern diplomatic ties, setting a dangerous precedent for peaceful coexistence between nations," said the ministry.

TEHRAN, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian judiciary chief said on Monday that his country would never accept the "humiliating conditions" in the EU's payment channel for trade with Iran, Tasnim news agency reported.

"After nine months of procrastination and negotiation, Europeans have created a mechanism with limited capacity, not for exchanging money but for food and medicine," said Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani.

ANKARA; 05 Feb 2019; AA: The era of Turkey taking out loans from the IMF is long since gone, said the Turkish president on Tuesday.

"Turkey closed its IMF chapter in May 2013 and, God willing, it will not be re-opened," Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the parliamentary group of his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party.