THE HAGUE: A Dutch former far-right MP and right-hand man of anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders has set tongues wagging in the Netherlands after revealing he has converted to Islam, news reports said Tuesday.

Washington: Two leading Indian-American women have led the Democratic party's move to oppose the nomination of fellow community legal luminary Neomi Rao for the prestigious and powerful US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, citing her "excuses" for sexual assault and "hostility" to the civil and human rights as reasons.

Paris: Seven people died and another was seriously injured in a building fire in a wealthy Paris neighbourhood on Monday night, the fire service said.

Washington: All 130 foreign students, including 129 Indians who were detained for enrolling in a fake university, were aware that they were committing a crime to fraudulently remain in the US, the State Department has said, days after India issued a demarche to the American Embassy in New Delhi.

British investigators said Monday they had spotted a body in the wreckage of a plane that disappeared in the Channel two weeks ago carrying Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala and his pilot.

New Delhi: A French frigate, which docked at a military port in Mumbai last week, intercepted 670 kg of heroin in the Indian Ocean subsequently, the French envoy here has said.

Pope Francis heads to the UAE Sunday for the first ever papal visit to the Arabian Peninsula, birthplace of Islam, where he will hold an open-air mass for tens of thousands of Catholics.

China's corruption watchdog on Saturday said it had disciplined more than 80 officials linked to a vaccine scandal last year that inflamed public fears over the safety of domestically produced drugs.