1.Germany’s Merkel to press Saudi Arabia on refugees, rights :-
German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived on Sunday in Saudi Arabia, where she is expected to press royals on a number of sensitive issues, including taking in refugees, while also boosting important business ties in her first visit to the country in seven years.
Ms. Merkel met King Salman in the Red Sea city of Jiddah and is scheduled to visit the United Arab Emirates on Monday. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are Germany’s largest trading partners in the Middle East.
2.Visiting Turkey President: Erdogan calls for multilateral dialogue on Kashmir, cites ‘long talks’ with Pakistan :-
Ahead of arriving in Delhi on Sunday for a two-day visit, Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan advocated “multilateral dialogue” to settle the Kashmir question — a stand which flies in the face of New Delhi’s position that the dispute should be resolved bilaterally. He also said he had been discussing the issue “at length” with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
3.‘U.S. has committed to payment for THAAD’ :-
South Korea said the U.S. had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the THAAD anti-missile system, days after President Donald Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1-billion battery designed to defend against North Korea.
4.An Aleppo find, a team of rejects take a club to I-League dream win :-
A team of rejects and unknowns, managed by a coach who was sacked for under-performing last year, scripted one of the biggest underdog stories in Indian sport on Sunday. Aizawl FC won their maiden I-League title following a dramatic season finale, which saw them going toe-to-toe with Kolkata giants Mohun Bagan. On the final day of the season, Aizawl, who had 36 points from 17 matches, needed only a draw to be crowned champions ahead of Bagan, who trailed them by three points.
5.Hacker claims release of stolen copies of Netflix series :-
A hacker claims to have followed through on a threat to release several episodes from the upcoming season of Netflix’s hit series “Orange Is The New Black.”
The hacker, who goes by the name The Dark Overlord, announced the move on Twitter early Saturday. The post included a link to an illegal file-sharing service where purportedly 10 episodes from the series’ upcoming fifth season were available for download. The Associated Press could not legally confirm the authenticity of the uploaded files.
6.Mann ki Baat: PM Modi slams red beacon, says replace VIP with EPI – every person is important :-
A day before red beacons go off the streets, Prime Minister Narendrs Modi on Sunday flagged people’s “disdain” for the “lal batti” culture and said the concept of VIP should be replaced by “EPI”, meaning “Every Person is Important”.
7.‘Mosul re-capture will be complete in 3 weeks’ :-
An Iraqi commander expects to dislodge Islamic State (IS) from Mosul in May despite resistance from militants in the densely populated Old City district.
The battle should be completed “in a maximum of three weeks”, the Iraqi Army’s chief of staff, Lieutenant General Othman al-Ghanmi, was quoted as saying by state-run newspaper al-Sabah on Sunday.
8.Indian American comedian roasts Trump at media dinner :-
The President and journalists exchange banter at the annual White House correspondents dinner traditionally, but the jokes at this year’s gathering on Saturday night had a grave undertone too as Donald Trump became the first commander-in-chief to skip it in 36 years.
9.Donald Trump advisor to leave the White House :-
An advisor to President Donald Trump will be leaving the White House. A senior administration official says Sebastian Gorka, a former counterterrorism analyst for Fox News who joined the administration as a counterterrorism adviser, will be leaving the White House in the coming days.
The official says that Gorka had initially been hired to play a key role on the Strategic Initiatives Group, an advisory panel created by Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon to run parallel to the National Security Council.
10.India ranks as second-largest market for LinkedIn :-
The professional social network, LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft, said India ranked as the second largest market for the company in terms of the active users after the U.S.
The company which achieved a milestone of 500 million member mark across 200 countries has about 42 million active users in India.
