DHAKA: Sri Lankans have started voting in a tightly fought presidential election in what is expected to be a fierce political battle for current President Mahinda Rajapaksa after a onetime ally suddenly defected from the ruling party to run against him.The November defection by former

DHAKA: The youngest of the three suspects in the deadly Paris attack Wednesday on the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo has surrendered to police in Charleville-Meziere, sources said.“Hamyd Mourad handed himself in to police… on Wednesday at 11:00 pm (2200 GMT) after

DHAKA: At least 12 people were killed when gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs and a rocket-launcher opened fire in the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday.Sources close to the investigation said, reports The Straits Times.Following the incident, the government

DHAKA: France raised its alert status for Paris to the highest level after gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs and a rocket-launcher opened fire in the offices of French satirical weekly ‘Charlie Hebdo’ on Wednesday, killing at least 12.The national security alert system was set to

DHAKA: Eleven people killed in attack at offices of satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, Paris prosecutors say.At least two gunmen have attacked the Paris office of French satirical magazine, French media report, says the BBC.Witnesses spoke of sustained gunfire at the office as the

DHAKA: For years, the Gates Foundation has been looking for a machine that could make contaminated water safe to drink. More than 2.5 billion people on earth have no reliable access to clean drinking water, so the humanitarian implications of such a machine would be immense. With the

DHAKA: A magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck off the west coast of Panama on Wednesday, about 261km south of the city of David.The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said, reports The Straits Times.No tsunami warning was issued for the area following the quake, which was initially

DHAKA: Dozens of people have been killed or injured in a blast outside a police college in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.Security sources say, reports the BBC.Reports said a car bomb had been detonated near a crowd of students, but this could not be confirmed.Witnesses said the blast was heard

DHAKA: The tail of crashed AirAsia flight QZ8501 has been found in the Java Sea, the head of Indonesia’s search and rescue has said.The tail is where the crucial black box voice and flight data recorders are located which would give investigators clues as to what caused the crash.The

DHAKA: Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to an $84m (£55m) settlement with residents of the Bodo community in the Niger Delta for two oil spills.Lawyers for 15,600 Nigerian fishermen say their clients will receive $3,300 each for losses caused by the spills, reports BBC.The

    DHAKA: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said Palestine will join the International Criminal Court (ICC) on April 1, a move that will enable the Palestinians to pursue war-crimes charges against Israel, an international news agency reports.The Palestinians submitted the

DHAKA: The United States and its allies condemned Wednesday’s deadly shooting attack on a French newspaper in the ‘strongest possible terms’.‘Everybody here at the White House are with the families of those who were killed or injured in this attack,’ White House spokesman

DHAKA: The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its fleet will be deployed to the Gulf to support operations against the Islamic State (IS) group.A military news site reported on Tuesday, reports The Straits Times.The deployment of the marine battle group is due to be

DHAKA: North Korean military’s ‘cyber army’ has boosted its numbers to 6,000 troops, the South Korean defence ministry said on Tuesday, double Seoul’s estimate for the force in 2013, and is working to cause ‘physical and psychological paralysis’ in the South.The new

DHAKA: About 51.2 million people have been displaced since World War II, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said on January 6, noting the current figures for displaced people are the highest they have ever been.Speaking at the 7th Ambassadors Conference, Guterres was

DHAKA: Pakistan Rangers continued mortar shelling and firing at Border Security Force (BSF) positions in Kathua and Samba districts throughout Monday night.A BSF jawan was killed and a woman critically injured on Monday in mortar shelling by Pakistan on the international border in

DHAKA: Afghan president Ashraf Ghani marked his first 100 days in power on Tuesday, still struggling to form a government as a new political stalemate threatens to fuel the Taliban insurgency.The deadlock over senior cabinet positions has underlined the challenges of running a

DHAKA: An Indonesian naval patrol vessel found what the captain said could be the tail of a missing Indonesia AirAsia plane, the section where the crucial black box voice and flight data recorders are located.‘We found what has a high probability of being the tail of the plane,’

KOLKATA: India’s West Bengal chief minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee has been invited to visit Bangladesh. Bangladesh deputy high commissioner in Kolkata, Zokey Ahad, on Monday, handed over the invitation letter sent by the country’s foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali, Sources told

DHAKA: Islamist gunmen killed at least seven Malian soldiers near the Mauritanian border, a local mayor said in Monday, in a dawn raid that illustrated continuing volatility two years after France helped take back territory seized by al-Qaida-linked militants. A spokesman for the Malian