News brief: Big stories of the day
India-Pak
Prime Minister Imran Khan told theNational Assembly today that the Pakistan governmentwould be releasing the captured pilot tomorrow. The development comes aftera media report said foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was willing to consider returning the Indian pilot ifit ledto "de-escalation".
The Pakistani Army Thursday heavily shelled forward posts along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch and Rajouri districts, committing repeated ceasefire violations but drawing "strong" retaliation from the Indian Army, an official said.
In the backdrop of Pakistan’s intrusion intothe Indian air space on Wednesday, the Indian Army has decided to shift the headquarters of Mountain Strike Corps from Ranchi to Panagarh in West Bengal to keep a close watch on China.
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hadfailed to reach an agreementdue to North Korean demands to lift punishing US-led sanctions.
A mass grave containing the bodies of dozens of people who may be Yazidis enslaved by Islamic State has been found in territory recently seized by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an SDF official said on Thursday.