DHAKA: Sri Lanka’s new government will seek to borrow more than US$4 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international lenders as it ‘restructures’ expensive Chinese debt. Sri Lanka finance minister Ravi Karunanayake said Thursday, reports The Straits

DHAKA: Paris airport workers were due to go on strike Thursday to protest a salary freeze, in a work stoppage that will lead to delays and flight disruption.The strike by employees of the Aeroports de Paris (ADP) group that manages three airports serving the French capital -

DHAKA: The leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine have agreed a deal to end fighting in eastern Ukraine.Participants at the summit talks said on Thursday, reports The Straits Times.The deal reached after all-night negotiations in the Belarussian capital Minsk included a ceasefire

DHAKA: Thailand’s junta chief Thursday said the military is keeping such a close eye on ousted prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra that she would be unable to eat a bowl of noodles without their permission.Prime Minister Prayut Chan-OCha, a former army general, was justifying the

DHAKA: Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has said Russian conditions in ongoing negotiations in Belarus over the conflict in Ukraine are ‘unacceptable’.He was speaking to reporters during a break in marathon talks involving Russian president Vladimir Putin.The four-way meeting,

DHAKA: Delhi chief minister-designate Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday met PM Narendra Modi and invited him for the swearing-in ceremony at the Ramlila Maidan on February 14.However, the prime minister expressed his inability as he would be out of the city on that day, reports The Times of

DHAKA: Myanmar’s government on Thursday held a sombre ceremony marking the nation’s symbolic unification after the colonial era, but a coveted ceasefire with ethnic rebel groups remained out of reach as conflict sweeps across northern borderlands.The quasi-civilian regime says peace

DHAKA: When the Barakat family were first told, late on Tuesday, that their son, Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife and her sister had been caught up in an incident on campus, Barakat’s mother believed nothing bad would happen to them.She had a good feeling in her heart, Barakat’s

DHAKA: At least 300 migrants are feared to have drowned after attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa this week in rough seas.The UN says, reports the BBC.UNHCR Europe director Vincent Cochetel said the incident was a ‘tragedy on an enormous scale’.Nine survivors

DHAKA: Yemenis in the central city of Taiz and the capital Sanaa held the largest protests yet against a takeover by a Shia Muslim militia group on Wednesday after the United States, Britain and France shut their embassies in Yemen over security fears.The Iranian-backed Houthi

DHAKA: At least 200 top Turkish civil servants, many from the intelligence, finance and transport sectors, have quit their posts to run in parliamentary elections later this year.The flurry of resignations came ahead of the deadline on Tuesday for government officials to step down if

DHAKA: Police have arrested a gunman in the killing of three people in the town of Chapel Hill in North Carolina.US news reports said, according to The Straits Times.The shooter, identified as Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, was being held in Durham County Jail on three counts of first-degree

DHAKA: Over 20 people have died in violence in eastern Ukraine as the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany prepare for peace talks.Nineteen Ukrainian soldiers were killed, many in a town that pro-Russian rebels say they have surrounded.Five people were reported killed by

DHAKA: At least two people have been killed in a pile-up involving about 100 cars on a bridge near South Korea’s Incheon International Airport on Wednesday.Another 42 people were injured in the incident, eight of them in critical condition, the BBC reports.The cause is not clear, but

DHAKA: More than 200 migrants are dead after the motorboats they were travelling on sank in the Mediterranean Sea.The UN’s refugee agency says, reports the BBC.‘Nine were saved after four days at sea. The other 203 were swallowed by the waves,’ UNHCR’s spokeswoman in Italy,

DHAKA: More than 200 migrants are missing after their boats sank in the Mediterranean Sea, according to survivors of the latest tragedy in the area.International agencies said Wednesday, reports The Straits Times.Nine survivors landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Wednesday, out

DHAKA: The leader of an anti-corruption party who won a stunning victory in the Delhi state elections will be sworn in as the capital’s chief minister on Saturday.Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), or Common Man’s party, won 67 of the 70 assembly seats.Kejriwal himself won

DHAKA: Kejriwal has sought an appointment with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where he is expected to extend the invitation.The meeting is likely to take place at 10:30am on Thursday, sources said.Senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia said today that all union cabinet ministers, the

DHAKA: British diplomatic staff in Yemen have been withdrawn and the embassy closed due the security situation in the country.The Foreign Office has said, reports the BBC.Embassy staff and its premises are at ‘increased risk’ and all Britons who remain in Yemen should leave

DHAKA: An American woman held hostage by Islamic State was reported dead on Tuesday as US president Barack Obama vowed to ‘find and bring to justice’ the militants who captured her.Carl and Marsha Mueller, the parents of Kayla Jean Mueller, released a statement on Tuesday saying they