DHAKA: A Tibetan monk set himself on fire in northwest China on Thursday, state media said, in what Tibetan media described as a suicide in protest against Chinese policies.The monk, 43, ‘committed self-immolation’, in Gansu province, which has a heavy ethnic Tibetan population,

DHAKA: A Saudi court has jailed a man for 15 years after convicting him of recruiting 14 nationals to join Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in neighbouring Yemen.Al-Hayat newspaper reported on Thursday, says The Straits Times.A Riyadh court specialised in security cases convicted the unnamed Saudi

DHAKA: Tokyo’s governor, one of the main faces of the mega-city’s successful bid to host the 2020 Olympics, resigned December 19 after admitting he was naive for accepting an undeclared $500,000 from a hospital tycoon.Naoki Inose, who was elected head of one of the world’s biggest

DHAKA: China is to send a military ship to help protect a specially adapted US vessel that will destroy Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.China foreign ministry said on Thursday, reports The Jerusalem Post.Syria is due to hand over deadly toxins which can be used to make sarin, VX gas

DHAKA: The sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial, who claimed schizophrenia after being accused of being an arm-flapping fraud, has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital.South African media reported on Thursday, says Times of India.Thamsanqa Jantjie sparked outrage

DHAKA: Iran can resume 20 percent uranium enrichment in less than 24 hours, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said a day before the resumption of talks in Vienna on how to implement an interim nuclear deal aimed at temporarily freezing Iran’s nuclear programme.Zarif told

DHAKA: Europe is about to launch the Gaia satellite - one of the most ambitious space missions in history.The 740m-euro (£620m) observatory is going to map the precise positions and distances to more than a billion stars, reports BBC.This should give us the first realistic picture of how

DHAKA:  Nearly 1,000 men were killed over a two-day period this month in the Central African Republic, according to Amnesty International.The human rights group said Wednesday that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed in that country, reports CNN."Crimes that have

DHAKA: The US Federal Reserve has announced a slowdown in its effort to boost the US economy.The central bank said it planned to scale back its $85bn (£51.8bn) a month bond buying programme by $10bn a month, reports BBC.Stimulus of this kind is designed to lower interest rates and boost

DHAKA: US Secretary of State John Kerry has called a top Indian official to express his regret over the treatment of an Indian diplomat arrested in New York on suspicion of visa fraud.Deputy consul general Devyani Khobragade was handcuffed and strip-searched last week.Mr Kerry spoke to

DHAKA: Egypt’s deposed president Mohamed Mursi will be tried on charges of ‘espionage’ that aided acts of ‘terrorism’.Egypt state media reported on Wednesday, reports The Straits Times.Mursi, an Islamist who the military toppled in July after a single year of turbulent rule, is

DHAKA: An Iraqi policeman sacrificed himself on Wednesday as he tried to protect Shia pilgrims, embracing a suicide bomber just moments before the man exploded.Iraq officials said, reports The Straits Times.The bomber struck in the Khales area northeast of Baghdad, killing five people and

DHAKA: Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovich faced calls to resign on Wednesday, one day after securing $15 billion in loans from Russia and a major discount on natural gas prices in a move that has infuriated demonstrators.Ukraine’s capital Kiev has been gripped by mass protests over

DHAKA: Iran says it will resume technical talks with six world powers in Geneva on Thursday and Friday, a vital step in implementing a deal signed last month which suspends key elements of Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for limited relief from sanctions.The talks between expert

DHAKA: A leading advocacy organisation representing over three million Indian-Americans in the US has strongly condemned the arrest procedures of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade.The US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) said it found the comments of state department spokeswoman

DHAKA: A video of a group of migrants being washed down in a centre on the Italian island of Lampedusa has caused a wave of outrage in Rome and Brussels, less than three months after a shipwreck in which hundreds died.The male migrants, some of them naked, are shown queuing up to be

DHAKA: Russian lawmakers on Wednesday approved a Kremlin-backed amnesty bill that is set to free the two jailed members of the punk band Pussy Riot while also ending the prosecution of 30 Greenpeace crew members.Russia’s Duma lower house of parliament voted 446 in favour to none against

DHAKA: The Syrian government has told the family of UK doctor Abbas Khan it can send a team to Damascus to investigate his death.Syrian authorities have said their post-mortem examination showed he killed himself while in detention, reports the BBC.But his family has said this is not

DHAKA: Turkish police chiefs who oversaw a wave of high-profile arrests for bribery have been sacked from their posts in Istanbul.Turkish media say, reports the BBC.Five police chiefs are said to have been fired in Istanbul a day after at least 52 people were picked up, including sons of

DHAKA: Just when it seemed the scandal over the bogus sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial had run its course, a cousin and three friends say he was part of a mob that accosted two men found with a stolen television and burned them to death by setting fire to tires