DHAKA: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to "further intensify attacks on Hamas" in the Gaza Strip, following talks with his defence chiefs. He said the Palestinian militants would "pay a heavy price" for their rocket attacks on Israel. Israel's military said Hamas had

DHAKA: Twenty members of the Islamic State (IS) were killed in Syrian air force raids on Wednesday against the jihadists’ bastion in Raqa.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, reports The Straits Times.The report comes after Syrian rebels killed at least 14 people overnight,

DHAKA: Fifteen women and children were among 22 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza Wednesday, hiking the overall death toll to 43 in two days. The emergency services said, reports The Straits Times. More than 370 people have been wounded. Among the dead was at least one

DHAKA: Palestine president Mahmoud Abbas contacted Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi earlier on Wednesday and briefed the Middle East leader on Israel’s ongoing operation in Gaza. ‘Sisi stressed Egypt was interested in the safety of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and

DHAKA: Dubai continues to climb the ranks in the world’s top 10 destinations and recently became the fifth most favourite hotspot for travelers, ahead of New York and other popular cities in Europe. A new MasterCard study revealed on Wednesday, reports gulfnews.com. Dubai is the only

DHAKA: US whistleblower Edward Snowden has officially asked to extend his stay in Russia after his visa expires. His lawyer has told the BBC. Anatoly Kucherena confirmed that paperwork has been submitted to Russia’s Federal Migration Service. The current document granting him

DHAKA: Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Wednesday the Kurdish-controlled city of Arbil was becoming an operations base for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group that seized swathes of northern and western Iraq last month. Maliki is under pressure as Sunni

DHAKA: Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe visited the resources-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia on Wednesday, in a recognition of the key role its minerals have played in his country’s economic growth. Abe travelled with Australian prime minister Tony Abbott to Rio Tinto’s

DHAKA: Confrontation with the US would be a ‘disaster’, Chinese president Xi Jinping has said as he called for mutual respect between the two nations.Xi’s comments came at an annual China-US dialogue held in Beijing.Diplomats are expected to discuss China’s currency, North

DHAKA: Amit Shah, a close associate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is the new BJP president, outgoing chief Rajnath Singh announced today. Rajnath, with PM Modi by his side, said he had resigned today as he is now a Union Home Minister in BJP-led NDA Cabinet. He said Amit Shah's

DHAKA: Palestinian militants have fired more rockets at Israeli cities and Israel carried out dozens of air raids on Gaza overnight, as hostilities intensified. Israel said four rockets hit southern Israel overnight and a number were shot down over Tel Aviv on Wednesday. The Israeli

DHAKA: Voters in Indonesia have cast ballots to choose their next president, in a very tight race between two candidates. They were deciding between Joko Widodo, the governor of Jakarta, and Prabowo Subianto, an ex-army general, reports BBC. Mr Widodo, known as Jokowi, led early on in

DHAKA: North Korea fired two short-range missiles off the coast of the Korean Peninsula early Wednesday, a South Korean Defense Ministry official said. North Korea did not declare a no-fly zone prior to the launch, the official said. No damage or injures were reported. The projectiles,

DHAKA: An attack in eastern Afghanistan killed four NATO service members and several others Tuesday. The soldiers were patrolling an area in Bagram when a suicide bomber on a bicycle detonated his explosives vest, said Wahid Sediqi, a spokesman for the governor of Parwan province. In

DHAKA: A strong 6.9-magnitude earthquake rocked southern Mexico and Guatemala on Monday killing at least three people including a newborn baby at a hospital and injuring dozens. The quake, initially measured at a magnitude of 7.1, struck the Pacific coast of Mexico’s Chiapas state at

DHAKA: Pakistan military's operation to dismantle terrorist safe havens in North Waziristan has displaced around half-a-million people from their homes in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan, reports Times of India.  An estimated 70% of them are women and children, whose future

DHAKA: Israel has carried out more air strikes on the Gaza Strip, following a volley of rockets fired by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. Nine Palestinians, including a woman and two children, were reportedly hurt in the strikes. Hamas earlier said its members fired rockets to

DHAKA: Former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani is leading the race to replace Hamid Karzai as president. The BBC reports this according to preliminary results. Ghani won 56.44 percent of votes in the 14 June run-off, election officials said. His rival Abdullah Abdullah had 43.56

DHAKA: The Fourth of July holiday weekend brought an explosion of gunfire to Chicago, with more than 50 people shot and nine killed. The violence was widespread in the nation’s third-largest city from Thursday evening through Sunday midnight, police said. There were 50 separate

DHAKA: More than 60 Nigerian girls and women abducted by Islamic extremists two weeks ago have managed to escape. Nigerian security forces and federal government officials had denied reports of the mass abduction from three villages in the northeast state of Borno on June 22. The