DHAKA: Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, one of the world’s most aggressive investors, is hiring senior bankers and industry executives to lessen the fund`s reliance on Europe and diversify its investment portfolio.Sources familiar with the plan said, reports The Straits Times.Under

DHAKA: New murder charges have been registered against Pakistan’s former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, officials say.Musharraf, who is currently under house arrest, already faces murder charges over the deaths of Benazir Bhutto and a Baloch tribal leader.He also faces charges over

DHAKA: India’s government denied on Monday it was considering shutting filling stations at night to reduce oil imports, a widely ridiculed measure reportedly under discussion to tackle a deepening economic crisis.Oil Minister Veerappa Moily sparked the speculation on Sunday when he told

DHAKA: The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier is moving westward toward the Red Sea, although it has not yet received orders to support a potential US strike on Syria.ABC News reported Monday, says TDS.The Nimitz carrier strike group, which includes a guided missile cruiser and four destroyers,

DHAKA: The authorities in Malaysia have detained 2,500 migrants in a campaign to deport some half a million illegal immigrants.Tens of thousands of police, soldiers and local enforcement personnel are taking part in Malaysia’s largest round-up of foreign workers.Many of the workers come

DHAKA: French PM Jean-Marc Ayrault will present France’s evidence that chemical weapons were used in Syria, when he meets parliamentary leaders on Monday.The dossier is said to show that Syria has stockpiled more than 1,000 tonnes of chemical agents, including sarin, reports the

DHAKA: An Egyptian judicial panel advised a court to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood as a legally registered non-governmental organisation on Monday, judicial sources said, presenting a legal challenge to the group as the army-backed government presses a crackdown.The court could rule as

DHAKA: NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Monday he had seen evidence about an August 21 attack in Syria that had convinced him that the Syrian authorities were responsible for a chemical weapons strike.‘I have been presented with concrete information and, without going into

DHAKA: Germany put a 92-year-old former member of the Nazi Waffen SS on trial on Monday on charges that he executed a Dutch resistance fighter in 1944.Dutch-born Siert Bruins, who is now German, volunteered for the SS after the Nazis conquered the Netherlands in 1941.Bruins served as a

DHAKA: Russia is sending a reconnaissance ship to the eastern Mediterranean, Interfax news agency reported on Monday, as the United States prepares for a possible military strike in Syria.The reconnaissance ship Priazovye left Russia’s naval base in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of

DHAKA: Nelson Mandela has spent his first night in almost three months at his home in Johannesburg after being discharged from hospital in Pretoria.The former South African president, 95, was admitted in early June for a recurring lung infection.Family members have spoken of their

DHAKA: France’s government will not cede to calls from opposition figures to have lawmakers vote on whether to take military action in Syria.The head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee Elisabeth Guigou said on Monday, reports The Jerusalem Post.French president Francois

DHAKA: Japan vowed quick, decisive action, including the use of public funds, to tackle the worsening problem of contaminated water pouring from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, as the authorities step in to help the facility’s embattled operator.Japan prime minister Shinzo Abe said

DHAKA: Palestine president Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday night vowed to put to a referendum any agreement he reaches with Israel.Abbas, who was speaking at the opening of a meeting of the Fatah Revolutionary Council in Ramallah, said that Palestinians everywhere would be asked to approve an

DHAKA: The threat that climate change poses to Pacific Island nations shows that international action on the issue is overdue.European Union Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said on Monday, reprots The Straits Times.On the eve of this week’s Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in the

DHAKA: Philippine divers have recovered more dead bodies from a ferry that sank after colliding with a cargo ship, raising the death toll from the incident to 108.The Coast Guard said on Monday, reports The Straits Times.Twenty-nine more passengers are still unaccounted for, more than two

DHAKA: Syed Wali desperately wants to immunise his three young children against polio but fears the Islamic militants who banned the vaccine from this remote area in northwest Pakistan will catch him if he tries to smuggle it in.‘I can afford to bring the vaccine for my children, but

DHAKA: China said on Monday it was seriously concerned about any unilateral military action against Syria after US president Barack Obama delayed a military response to last month`s chemical weapons attack near Damascus until after a congressional vote.The United States has explained to

DHAKA: Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov says the information the US showed Moscow trying to prove that Syrian regime was behind an alleged chemical weapons attack is ‘absolutely unconvincing’.Lavrov said Monday ‘there was nothing specific’ in the evidence presented by

DHAKA: Egypt`s state prosecutor says he has referred ousted President Mohammed Morsi for trial on charges of inciting the murder of protesters.The accusations relate to violence outside the presidential palace in Cairo last December when at least seven people were killed in