DHAKA: Half of Beijing’s private cars have been ordered off the streets and many construction sites and schools closed after the government raised the alert on pollution in the Chinese capital to the highest level, red.A grey haze descended on Tuesday on the city of around 21.5 million

DHAKA: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for a halt to Muslims entering the US, in the wake of the deadly California shootings.In a campaign statement, he said a ‘total and complete’ shutdown should remain until the US authorities ‘can figure out’ Muslim

DHAKA: Ankara would never take any step that would damage Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said in a letter to his Iraqi counterpart, Haider al-Abadi, noting that Turkey would not deploy troops in the area until Baghdad’s

DHAKA: Flights have resumed in the southern Indian city of Chennai after a week of devastating floods.Operations were halted last week after heavy rains flooded the airport and damaged key equipment.A massive relief operation is continuing to get food and medicines to tens of thousands of

DHAKA: A magnitude 7.2 earthquake has hit Tajikistan, according to the US Geological Survey.It struck at 7.50am today with an epicentre in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, around 70 miles west of the city of Murghob, seismologists said.Tremors were felt in Delhi, as well as in

DHAKA: An air strike has killed four Syrian military personnel in Deir al-Zor province, news reports said on Monday.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike hit part of the Saeqa military camp near the town of Ayyash in Deir al Zor province, Al Jazeera reports.The air raid

DHAKA: NATO has ruled out sending ground troops to fight against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria, NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg told a Swiss newspaper, stressing the need to bolster local forces in the conflict.‘That is not on the agenda of the coalition and the NATO

DHAKA: Iraq has threatened to go to the UN if Turkey does not withdraw soldiers it sent to areas near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul within 48 hours.Baghdad said the deployment was done without consultation and was a violation of national sovereignty.Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet

DHAKA: India and Pakistan have held high-level talks, four months after an earlier postponement.Sunday’s meeting in the Thai capital, Bangkok, was described as ‘candid, cordial and constructive,’ the BBC publishes this report on Monday.Although Indian PM Narendra Modi invited his

DHAKA: US President Barack Obama has made a rare Oval Office address after the San Bernardino shootings that left 14 dead.He said the killings were "an act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people", reports the BB.But "freedom is more powerful than fear," said President Obama,

DHAKA: France's far-right National Front (FN) appears to have made big gains in the first round of regional elections, estimates show.They put the FN ahead in at least six of 13 regions in mainland France, reports the BBC.The elections are the first electoral test since last month's Paris

DHAKA: In an attempt to urge a congregation of Syrian Jews to empathize with the plight of Muslims refugees currently fleeing their common homeland.New York mayor Bill de Blasio on Saturday compared the flocks of Syrians currently leaving their embattled country with Jews escaping the

DHAKA: Militant group Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for an explosion which killed the governor of Yemen’s southern Aden province on Sunday.In a statement posted on a messaging service, the group said it detonated an explosives-laden car as Jaafar Mohammed Saad’s convoy was

DHAKA: A collision between a commuter train and a minibus on a level crossing in the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Sunday killed at least 14 people and injured several others, an official said."So far we heard the number of fatalities has reached 14 people," said a transport ministry

DHAKA: The governor of the southern Yemeni city of Aden has been killed in a large explosion, security sources say.A convoy carrying Jaafar Mohammed Saad was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in the Tawahi area of the port city.Media reports said, according to the BBC.Houthi rebels based

DHAKA: Three suicide attacks have hit an island on Lake Chad, killing at least 27 people.Security sources have said, reports the BBC.The blasts, on the island of Koulfoua on the Chadian side of the lake, struck a weekly market, the sources said.No group has said it was behind the attacks,

DHAKA: France is set to vote in the first round of regional elections, the first electoral challenge since the Paris attacks, which killed 130 people.The elections are viewed as a test of public support for the government's response to the attacks on 13 November, reports the BBC.The

DHAKA: The capital of India has been put on high alert after Delhi Police registered an FIR earlier this week regarding a possible "terror strike" by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group, a top police officer said in New Delhi Sunday.Quoting IANS, the NDTV.com reported the

DHAKA: A powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck in the southern Indian Ocean on Saturday (Dec 5), but there was a low likelihood of casualties and damage, US seismologists said.The shallow tremor struck at 6.24am (2224 GMT Friday), some 1,020km (634 miles) east-northeast of Heard Island

DHAKA: The Iraqi government has demanded that Turkey withdraw troops it sent to an area near the northern city of Mosul.The move was "serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty" Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said in a statement, reports the BBC.About 150 Turkish soldiers have been