DHAKA: Hours after the White House publicly confirmed that President Obama will be the chief guest at India's Republic Day, the US president phoned Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to tell him that Washington values its ties with Islamabad. The mollifying phone call made from Air

DHAKA: Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena of Sri Lanka has announced to stand as the main opposition’s candidate against President Mahinda Rajapaksa in upcoming elections.“I thank the United National Party (UNP) for choosing me as the common opposition candidate,” said the

DHAKA: Thailand’s martial law will not be lifted for the foreseeable future despite an earlier pledge to lift the law in some provinces to help the tourism industry which has struggled since a military coup in May.The justice minister General Paiboon Koomchaya of Thailand said this on

DHAKA: Myanmar’s army has admitted a heavy weapons strike in strife-torn northern Kachin state that rebels say killed over 20 people.The government-backed media said Friday, as escalation of the fighting cast doubt over faltering peace talks.The military said its artillery hit a

DHAKA: At least eight militants have been killed in a US drone strike on a compound in Pakistan’s restive tribal region near the Afghan border.The CIA operated drone fired two missiles at the compound in Datta Khel area of North Waziristan Agency on Thursday killing eight terrorists,

DHAKA: Riot police forcibly cleared protesters from Mexico City’s main square late Thursday as outrage mounted over the case of dozens of missing students.A few minor scuffles broke out as police swept through the square, but the demonstrators left largely without incident.A short

DHAKA: Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has dissolved parliament, paving the way for a snap election.Abe is seeking a new mandate for economic reforms and is delaying an unpopular increase in sales tax, reports the BBC.But opinion polls conducted by local media indicate low support for

DHAKA: US President Barack Obama unveiled his highly anticipated immigration plan, saying lifting the threat of expulsion from 5 million undocumented migrants would make the system "more fair and just."And, while he stressed migrants will not get "a free pass to American citizenship"

DHAKA: An envelope mailed to the Czech Republic’s interior minister from abroad contained poison.Radek Pokornik, a spokesman for the National Institute for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection of the country that conducted tests on the suspicious envelope said Thursday it

DHAKA: A leader of the Islamic State (IS) has been killed in an air strike in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Residents and a local medical source said on Thursday, reports The Straits Times. They said Radwan Taleb al-Hamdouni, who they described as the radical militant group’s

DHAKA: Russia is key to ensuring European security, German chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday as she marked a quarter century of reconciliation with neighbouring Poland. ‘We are aware that Europe’s security can only be ensured, in the medium and long term, with Russia,’ Merkel

DHAKA: The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which mans Indian airports, was on Thursday asked to tighten vigil at Kolkata’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport after the Intelligence Bureau issued an alert regarding a possible attack on the airbase. Major airports

DHAKA: A horrified France was grappling with a new reality on Thursday in which hundreds of its citizens are openly joining extremist groups and directly calling for attacks on their homeland. A new video from the Islamic State (IS) group released on extremist forums and Twitter on

DHAKA: A convoy of international monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was shot at by ‘uniformed personnel’ in east Ukraine. The organisation said Thursday, reports The Straits Times. The OSCE said that a uniformed man on the back of flat-bed

DHAKA: A convoy of international monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was shot at by ‘uniformed personnel’ in east Ukraine. The organisation said Thursday, reports The Straits Times. The OSCE said that a uniformed man on the back of flat-bed

DHAKA: North Korea has threatened to conduct a nuclear test in response to a United Nations move towards a probe into the country’s human rights violations.Its foreign ministry on Thursday accused the United States of orchestrating a recent UN resolution calling for the

DHAKA: A man armed with a knife has killed seven people at a hospital in north-eastern China, state media report.The attack took place on Thursday in the popular resort town of Beidaihe, state broadcaster CCTV news said, reports the BBC.The 27-year-old suspect was believed to be

DHAKA: French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Wednesday that ‘close to 50’ French citizens have been killed fighting alongside jihadists in Syria. A government source told the media the precise number, as of Monday, was estimated at 49, reports The Straits Times. ‘We know the

DHAKA: A ferocious storm dumped massive piles of snow on parts of upstate New York, trapping residents in their homes and stranding motorists on roadways, as temperatures in all 50 US states fell to freezing or below. The storm was blamed for at least six deaths in New York, New

DHAKA: French lawmakers now have the power to launch a US-style impeachment of their president under a new law passed on Wednesday. Heads of state in France have until now enjoyed some of the strongest legal protections in the West - only removable in cases of high treason. But the law