DHAKA: Iraqi security forces have retaken most of the town of Jurf al-Sakhar near Baghdad from Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (IS) militants, the biggest gains in months of fighting for the strategic area.Senior local officials said on Saturday, reports The Straits Times.Full control

DHAKA: Rock star Elton John teamed up with the Obama administration to launch a new US$7 million fund to provide access to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) services in South Africa.The fund will be established for men who have sex with men and transgender people in the nation, the

DHAKA: Sixteen workers were killed after a coal mine collapsed in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday, highlighting the poor safety standards in the world's biggest coal producing country.The accident occurred in the regional

DHAKA: US president Barack Obama commended New Yorkers for their calm reaction to the city’s first case of Ebola and told Americans in his weekly address that the response to domestic cases of the deadly disease needs to be based on ‘facts, not fear’.It was the second week in a

DHAKA: Myanmar’s press council on Saturday said the army had admitted to shooting dead a man in its custody who activists claim was a reporter detained after covering clashes near the conflict-hit eastern border.Aung Naing was gunned down as he tried to flee detention in Kyaikmaraw

DHAKA: Iran has executed a woman Reyhaneh Jabbari who killed a man she said was trying to sexually abuse her. Jabbari’s mother says, reports the BBC. Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, was hanged in a Tehran prison despite an international campaign urging a reprieve. Jabbari was arrested in 2007

DHAKA: A senior Google vice president, Alan Eustace, has broken the world altitude record for a parachute jump set in 2012 by Austrian Felix Baumgartner. Eustace was carried by a large helium balloon from New Mexico to over 40km (25 miles) above the earth. The 57-year-old leapt out in a

DHAKA: Egypt has declared a three-month state of emergency in parts of the Sinai Peninsula after at least 31 soldiers were killed in two attacks there. President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has declared three days of mourning in the wake of the suspected jihadist attacks. Egypt's Rafah

DHAKA: At least 10 soldiers were killed and 27 injured in a car bomb in al-Kharouba area northwest of al-Arish in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Friday.The security sources said the bomb was blasted targeting two armored vehicles stopped at a checkpoint, reports the Jerusalem

DHAKA: Britain's Queen Elizabeth-II sent her first ever tweet during a visit to a museum Friday, signing it "Elizabeth R" - and even removing a glove to post it.The 88-year-old's Twitter debut came during a visit to London's Science Museum as she opened a new gallery dedicated to the

DHAKA: One million doses of an Ebola vaccine will be produced by the end of 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced.It said ‘several hundred thousand’ would be produced in the first half of the year, reports the BBC.And vaccines could be offered to health workers on

DHAKA: Nine people were killed and dozens of people injured as a bus crowded with people has veered off a mountain highway near Katmandu in Nepal on Friday.Police said they were heading home for a festival, reports the NDTV.com.Police are trying to identify the bodies and believe one

DHAKA: France’s military chief says an overnight air raid has destroyed an arms depot for the Islamic State group in Iraq.General Pierre de Villiers told Europe 1 radio that two French fighter jets dropped a total of 70 bombs, destroying a dozen buildings used for arms production and

DHAKA: The World Health Organization (WHO) is sending additional medical experts to Mali to help the West African country prevent the spread of Ebola after its first confirmed case.A spokesman said this on Friday, reports the CNN.A 2-year-old girl was diagnosed with the disease

DHAKA: There is no evidence so far that a gunman who attacked Canada’s capital had links to Middle Eastern Islamist extremists.The government said that reports the BBC on Friday.Foreign Minister John Baird told that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was ‘certainly radicalized’ but not on a

DHAKA: China launched an experimental spacecraft early Friday that is scheduled to orbit the moon before returning to Earth, a first for the country's ambitious space program and considered a precursor to a planned mission to the moon.The unmanned spacecraft was launched by a Long

DHAKA: A New York doctor who recently returned from Ebola-hit Guinea in West Africa has tested positive for the disease.Dr Craig Spencer, who treated Ebola patients while working for the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), came down with a fever on Thursday, days after his return,

DHAKA: Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper said on Thursday the government will expedite plans to give more powers of detention and surveillance to security agencies in the wake of an attack on Parliament. ‘They need to be much strengthened, and I assure you, Mr Speaker, that work

DHAKA: The Zimbabwe students’ union on Thursday made war not love over a new code of conduct banning students from kissing on campus at the country’s top university. In a circular displayed at halls of residence, authorities at the University of Zimbabwe said students ‘caught in

DHAKA: US-led air strikes in Syria were reported to have killed more than 500 militants in a month, as fighting raged in the embattled border town of Kobane. The air strikes have killed 553 people since their launch, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, including 464 IS fighters