DHAKA: Wicked wintry weather that pummeled the West Coast is now barreling across the country, threatening to wreck millions of holiday travel plans just before Thanksgiving.Scores of car crashes and 12 fatalities are blamed on the storm.Nearly 200 flights out of Dallas-Fort Worth

DHAKA: Mexican authorities have found 42 bodies buried in mass graves in western Mexico this month, the Attorney General`s Office said.Many of the bodies had bullet wounds and showed signs of torture, according to federal authorities at the crime scene.The bodies have not yet been

DHAKA: The Afghan president has refused to back down on his decision not to sign a key security deal in a meeting with the US national security adviser.The pact allows thousands of US troops to remain in Afghanistan after 2014.US envoy Susan Rice told President Hamid Karzai his proposal

DHAKA: France has agreed to send 800 extra troops to the Central African Republic (CAR), CAR Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye has said.He said the deployment to the conflict-torn nation would take place after a vote in the UN Security Council - expected next week.The UN deputy secretary

DHAKA: Egypt’s interim prime minister Hazem el-Beblawi said on Monday he expects a referendum on the constitution, currently being drafted, will take place in the second half of January.‘I believe that it will take place in the second half of January,’ Dr Beblawi told reporters,

DHAKA: Israeli authorities have green-lighted the construction of 800 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank.Israel’s defence ministry said on Monday it had approved a planning stage for the housing earlier this month, an initial step in a protracted bureaucratic process, with

DHAKA: Lawyers for seven Pakistanis accused of involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks said on Monday that the case against them ‘lacks evidence’, a day before the fifth anniversary of the assault that left 166 people dead.The three-day onslaught by 10 heavily-armed men on high-profile

DHAKA: The White House says National Security Adviser Susan Rice is in Afghanistan to meet with government officials, including president Hamid Karzai, and visit US troops for the American harvest holiday of Thanksgiving.The visit announced on Monday is Dr Rice’s first overseas trip as

DHAKA: Sri Lanka’s military on Monday announced a ban on any commemoration of the island’s defeated Tamil Tiger rebels following reports that sections of the ethnic Tamil minority were planning to hold events.The military said any event was banned because the Liberation Tigers of

DHAKA: A handwritten envelope sent by Communist China’s founder Mao Zedong to the father of fallen politician Bo Xilai and another military leader has fetched more than $1.35 million at a Beijing auction.The envelope, inscribed in black brushstrokes ‘To Mr Fu Yisheng and Mr Bo Yibo’

DHAKA: Syrian government and opposition negotiators will meet for the first time since start of the country’s 32 month-old war in Geneva from January 22.The United Nations announced on Monday, reports The Straits Times.UN leader Ban Ki Moon called the landmark conference ‘a mission of

DHAKA: Malaysia should reverse a ban on a Christian newspaper using the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God, a UN official said on Monday about a decision that fanned religious tension in the mainly Muslim country.Malaysia’s second highest court ruled in October that the Catholic

DHAKA: A group of young Saudi men have launched a smile campaign, saying that it is a revival of a tradition by Prophet Mohammad (SM).Carrying placards that said ‘Smile! It is a sunnah’, the young men used the Corniche in the Red Sea city of Jeddah to promote better feelings and

DHAKA: Afghan government officials have proposed reintroducing public stoning as a punishment for adultery, Human Rights Watch said, even though the practice has been denounced both inside and outside the country as one of the most repugnant symbols of the Taliban regime.The sentence for

DHAKA: France’s foreign minister said Monday the European Union would likely lift some sanctions on Iran in December, as part of a hard-won deal that curbs Tehran’s nuclear programme.Laurent Fabius also said Israel, which blasted Sunday’s agreement as a ‘historic mistake’, was

DHAKA: Fierce clashes broke out on Monday between army special forces and fighters from Libya’s top jihadist group in the eastern city of Benghazi, killing at least five soldiers, officials said.The army declared a ‘state of alert’ and ordered all soldiers to report for duty at

DHAKA: Washington’s point man on North Korea on Monday hinted at more sanctions against Pyongyang over its atomic weapons programme in the wake of Iran`s nuclear deal with world powers.Glyn Davies, the US special representative for North Korea policy, said he hoped quickening diplomacy

DHAKA: Rescuers on Monday searched for 25 sailors missing after two cargo ships sank off China’s east coast in separate incidents, killing at least one crew member.A ship with 14 crew members that was registered in the eastern port city of Tianjin sank early on Monday because of large

DHAKA: A quake with a magnitude of 6.6 struck the South Atlantic south-east of Britain`s Falkland Islands on Monday.The United States Geological Survey said, reports The Straits Times.The USGS put the epicentre of the quake 320km south-east of Stanley, the capital of the Falklands, which

DHAKA: An Australian family has reclaimed their Guinness World Record by stringing up more than half a million Christmas lights around their suburban home.Guinness World Records official Chris Sheedy confirmed on Monday that the Richards family of Canberra set the record for Christmas