DHAKA: Iraq was massing forces Wednesday for an operation to break a two-month jihadist siege of the town of Amerli amid growing fears for residents short of food and water. Thousands of Shia militiamen from groups including Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Badr Organisation are gathering in the

DHAKA: Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday denied reports that the son of a top minister was involved in influence peddling, seeking to staunch the type of corruption allegations that sent the country's last government to election defeat. Modi’s office issued the rebuttal

DHAKA: An American man, believed to be fighting alongside Islamist militants in Syria, has been killed. The White House has confirmed. A cousin of Douglas McAuthur McCain told the BBC the US government had called his mother to confirm his death. McCain was found dead by Free Syrian

DHAKA: Pakistan’s embattled prime minister said Wednesday he would not cave in to protests demanding his resignation, striking a defiant note in his first major speech since the crisis erupted two weeks ago. Nawaz Sharif told parliament his government would not be thrown off course by

DHAKA: Islamic State militants have executed Syrian army soldiers and are holding a group of them hostage after capturing an air base in northeast Syria at the weekend. Pictures posted on the Internet and on Twitter by supporters showed on Wednesday, reports The Straits Times. Islamic

DHAKA: IMF head Christine Lagarde says she has been placed under formal investigation for negligence in French fraud case but has not been charged. She has been questioned several times about her role in a 400m euro compensation payout to businessman Bernard Tapie in 2008. Lagarde was

DHAKA: Israel has agreed to open its borders with Gaza to allow humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials into the Palestinian enclave.Egypt’s foreign ministry said in a statement, reports The Jerusalem Post.Indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians on other issues will

DHAKA: A UN cargo helicopter crashed on Tuesday in South Sudan’s warzone region of Unity state. The UN peacekeeping mission said, adding it was ‘deeply concerned’ about the fate of the crew, reports The Straits Times. The UN mission said it had ‘dispatched a search and rescue

DHAKA: The Palestinians have reached agreement with Israel on a ‘permanent’ ceasefire for the Gaza Strip. A senior Palestine official said on Tuesday, reports The Straits Times. ‘The contacts that have been going on have agreed a permanent ceasefire, a (deal to) end the blockade

DHAKA: The head of the US Agency for International Development said on Tuesday poor understanding of Ebola was undermining the fight against the epidemic, pointing out that the fever is harder to get than malaria. USAID director Jeremy Konyndyk, in Liberia to support the fight against an

DHAKA: US president Barack Obama has authorised surveillance flights over Syria in order to gain intelligence on the activities of Islamic State (IS).Correspondents say the move could mark the first step towards US air strikes inside Syria, where the jihadist group controls vast

DHAKA: Scotland’s pro-independence leader Alex Salmond easily won a final TV debate Monday night just over three weeks before a breakaway referendum, but it wasn’t clear if this would help him catch up in the polls. In a bruising debate before the September 18 referendum, Salmond

DHAKA: A senior Iranian official is in Saudi Arabia to try to repair strained relations between the regional rivals in the Gulf. Iranian media reported Tuesday, says TDS. Deputy foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian flew to the desert kingdom Monday to meet foreign minister Prince

DHAKA: At least 19 people were killed when two minibuses fell into a canal near Egypt’s tourist city of Luxor early on Tuesday. Egypt state-run newspaper Al Ahram reported, says The Straits Times. The accident came less than a week after at least 38 people were killed and dozens

DHAKA: A car bomb was detonated in a mainly Shia district of eastern Baghdad on Tuesday, killing eight people and wounding 20. Iraq police and medical sources said, reports The Jerusalem Post. The bombing in the New Baghdad neighborhood followed a series of blasts in the Iraqi capital

DHAKA: Four people died in a plane crash at the Cuyahoga County Airport of Ohio in United States, according to police.The crash happened near the intersection of Bishop Road and Curtiss Wright Parkway, near the Lake County-Cuyahoga County border.Police said that a light aircraft went down

DHAKA: At least five people were killed in flash floods in southern South Korea.One person was killed and four others are missing after a bus was swept away by floods near the southern city of Changwon, Yonhap news agency reported, the BBC says.In Busan, South Korea's second-largest

DHAKA: Three soldiers and five militants were killed in two separate encounters that were going on intermittently since Saturday in Kupwara district of north Kashmir in India. Army said that two soldiers and four militants were killed in an encounter in Kalaroos forest area -which has

DHAKA: Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko has dissolved parliament and called snap elections, as government forces continue to fight pro-Russian rebel forces in the east. Poroshenko said many current MPs were backers of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych and that the majority of

DHAKA: An active shooter has been reported at Fort Lee, Virginia, and the US Army installation has been locked down.The base said on its Facebook page on Monday, reports The Jerusalem Post.The incident was reported at the base's Combined Arms Support Command Headquarters, Building 5020,