WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama will Friday join an evening meal to break the daily fast observed by Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan, the White House said.The hosting of Iftar will be held in a dining room at the White House, his spokesman said.Obama participated in a

BEIJING: Torrential rains on Friday battered several parts of western China, killing at least 19 people and heightening fears of a disease outbreak in a mudslide-ravaged town where more than 1,100 have died. Health authorities said survivors of the deadly floods and landslides in Zhouqu,

TOKYO: Nearly 200 Japanese centenarians are missing, officials said Thursday, with the total likely to rise amid a nationwide search after the discovery of the 30-year-old corpse of a man registered as aged 111.In the western city of Kobe alone, the whereabouts of 105 out of 847

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan police arrested three Iranian men and seized a haul of methamphetamine with an estimated street value of tens of millions of dollars, a spokesman said Thursday.Two men travelling from Qatar were arrested Wednesday when customs officers at the island`s international

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Wednesday offered best wishes to Muslims in the United States and around the world as they observe the holy fasting month of Ramadan. "All of us must remember that the world we want to build -- and the changes that we want to make -- must begin

COLOMBO: A government-appointed panel tasked with investigating the final years of Sri Lanka`s civil war opened on Wednesday in Colombo. The eight-member panel will hear testimony on five separate days in the capital and two days in Vavuniya, near the former war zone, an official

BAQUBA: Isurgents early Wednesday lured Iraqi troops into a booby-trapped house in Diyala province which then exploded killing eight soldiers, an army officer told AFP. Three other bodies were found under the rubble, but it was not immediately clear if they were of insurgents or

TAIPEI: A Taiwanese man out of luck in earthly love has married a goddess after she ordered him to do so in a dream, a report said Wednesday. The man, identified by his family name Lin, claimed the Lotus Fairy, a Taoist deity, started coming to him in his sleep after he went to her

KATHMANDU: A court in Nepal was Wednesday due to give its verdict in the case of 36 villagers charged with a series of gruesome murders in a battle over a highly prized plant dubbed the "Himalayan Viagra." The defendants make up nearly all the male population of the tiny village of Nar,

SYDNEY: Australia`s Prime Minister Julia Gillard is lagging behind the opposition in key states, putting August 21 elections on a knife-edge, fresh opinion poll analysis showed on Wednesday. The latest Newspoll assessment gave Gillard`s Labor Party a narrowed 51-49 percent lead over the

New York: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Tuesday expressed sadness that the severe flooding in China had caused the loss of life and resulted in devastation. "He extends his deepest condolences to the families of those who have died or been injured or lost their homes and possessions,"

LIMA: At least 22 people were killed and another 27 were injured early Tuesday when a bus overturned on a road in northern Peru and rolled into a 200-meter (yard) deep ravine, an official said. The bus, which belonged to the Karungo bus company, was carrying more than 50 passengers from

WASHINGTON: Legendary former US Senator Ted Stevens was among five fatalities after a small plane carrying nine people slammed into a remote Alaska mountainside, officials said Tuesday. Stevens, 86, the longest-serving Republican in Senate history before being voted out of office in

WASHINGTON: A US lawyer who has successfully sued the US Roman Catholic church over the long-running child sex abuse scandal on Tuesday said cases against the Vatican are crumbling and he is throwing in the towel. "You have to have an impossible alignment of planets and moons to win any

Jerusalem: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told a government-appointed panel Tuesday that he took responsibility for the May 31 army raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that left nine activists dead. "I carry overall responsibility for everything that took place in the systems under my

SEOUL: Torrential rain brought by the approach of Typhoon Dianmu has left three people dead and grounded dozens of flights in South Korea, the disaster control agency said Wednesday. Two hikers drowned as they crossed a swollen stream in northwestern Seoul where 120 millimetres (five

SANTA MARTA: The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela agreed to restore severed diplomatic ties on Tuesday, appearing to iron out many of the bitter disagreements that have separated the two countries in recent years. Conservative Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, in office for a

SEOUL: South Korea Wednesday sent North Korea a message urging it to free the seven crewmen on a South Korean fishing boat seized last weekend, Seoul`s unification ministry said. The South, in a faxed message through a military hotline, called on the North to release the boat and its

BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Tuesday demanded Cambodian citizens leave a disputed border area that has been the focus of deadly clashes in recent years. The two countries have stepped up a war of words over the spat, with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen warning it

TOKYO: A 5.8-magnitude earthquake hit northern Japan Tuesday, but there was no tsunami warning and no immediate reports of damage, US and Japanese seismologists said.The underwater quake occurred at 2:50 pm (0550 GMT) off Iwate prefecture in the Pacific, 515 kilometres (320 miles) north