DHAKA: Muslim militants traded gunfire with Philippine troops Tuesday and were using almost 200 villagers as human shields, officials said, in a stand-off after a deadly attack on a southern city.Gunshots rang out on the coastal outskirts of Zamboanga city on the second day of a

DHAKA: A Syrian caricature shows US president Barack Obama smile and pluck the petals of a daisy, as he wonders, ‘Should I bomb? Or shouldn`t I bomb?’Syrians on both sides of their civil war are resorting to black humour, sharing jokes and cartoons via mobile phone and the

DHAKA: Syria has signed ‘major contracts’ with Iran that would cover its needs for food, medical and other supplies.Syria state television said on Tuesday, reports The Jerusalem Post.A protracted civil war has left Syria divided and displaced millions of people.The country has

DHAKA: Egyptian authorities will bar 55,000 unlicensed clerics from preaching in mosques in the latest move against sympathizers of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi.Egypt’s minister of religious endowments said on Tuesday, reports The Jerusalem Post.Egyptian authorities have

DHAKA: Women make up only one per cent of Afghanistan’s police force and as a result women are reluctant to seek justice for rising levels of violence.International aid agency Oxfam said on Tuesday, reports The Straits Times.There is an average of one female police officer for every

DHAKA: Pakistan has agreed to release its most senior Afghan Taliban prisoner, former deputy leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, a senior government official said on Tuesday.The Afghan government has long demanded that Islamabad free Baradar, whose arrest in 2010 saw Pakistan accused of

DHAKA: Amnesty International called on Tuesday for an independent investigation into killings by Egyptian security forces as well as torture and violations of the rights to free speech and assembly.The military’s overthrow of president Mohamed Mursi in July after mass protests against

DHAKA: Syria said on Tuesday it has accepted Russia’s proposal to place its chemical weapons under international control for subsequent dismantling.Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem said on Tuesday after meeting with Russian parliament speaker that his government quickly

DHAKA: Almost a quarter of men surveyed in a UN report looking at violence against women in parts of Asia have admitted to committing at least one rape.Rape was particularly common within relationships. However, one in 10 men admitted raping a woman who was not their partner.Ten thousand

DHAKA: A French draft resolution to be introduced at the UN Security Council demands that Syria comply with a Russian proposal to put its chemical weapons under international control and then dismantle them or face ‘serious consequences’, said French foreign minister Laurent

DHAKA: The four men accused of the gang rape of a young woman were found guilty on Tuesday by a fast-track court in a case that triggered a national outcry over the safety of women in the country.Mukesh Singh, 26, Pawan Gupta, 19, Vinay Sharma, 20, and Akshay Thakur, 28, were convicted of

DHAKA: A Jordanian member of parliament has reportedly opened fire inside one of the halls of the parliament building in Amman, releasing a single shot from his weapon.There were no injuries reported in the incident in which MP Talal Al Sharif allegedly fired his automatic weapon at MP

DHAKA: Iran plans to send the domestically designed ‘Sharifsat’ satellite into orbit in the near future, the chancellor of Sharif University of Technology has said.More than 100 students, alumni, and academics of the university have worked to design and manufacture the Sharifsat

DHAKA: Syria’s main opposition group denounced as a ‘political manoeuvre’ a Russian plan to head off threatened punitive US airstrikes on Syria by destroying the regime’s chemical weapons.Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov suggested on Monday that Damascus hand its chemical

DHAKA: France will put a resolution to the UN Security Council to place Syria’s chemical weapons under international control so they can be destroyed.French foreign minister Laurent Fabius says, reports the BBC.He said it would threaten ‘extremely serious’ consequences if Syria

DHAKA: Afghan police have arrested two militants over the murder of an Indian writer whose book about her dramatic escape from the Taliban was made into a Bollywood film, an official said on Tuesday.Sushmita Banerjee, 49, was dragged out of her husband’s house by masked gunmen in

DHAKA: Iran’s newly installed president, Hassan Rohani, vowed that Tehran ‘will not give up one iota’ of its nuclear rights.Iran’s Mehr news agency reported, says The Jerusalem Post.Rohani reportedly made the remarks to a group of clerics in Iran.‘Our government will not give up

DHAKA: US president Barack Obama is eager to ‘turn a new page’ in his government’s relations with Iran and its newly installed president, Hassan Rohani.It was revealed on Tuesday, reports The Jerusalem Post.According to the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, Obama communicated

DHAKA: Egypt has tightened control of crossings from the Sinai peninsula and continued assaults on militants after an Islamist group based there said it tried to kill the interior minister in Cairo last week.The state news agency reported on Monday, reports The Jerusalem Post.The group

DHAKA: China said on Tuesday that it welcomes and supports Russia’s proposal that Syria hand over its chemical weapons for destruction, which could avert planned US military strikes.China foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei made the comments at a regular news briefing, adding that a