DHAKA: Iraqi president Fuad Masum has asked the deputy speaker of parliament, Haider al-Abadi, to form a new government.Abadi has been nominated prime minister by Shia parties, instead of the incumbent Nouri Maliki, reports the BBC.But Maliki has made it clear he wants to stand for a

DHAKA: India police have registered a case against TRS MP and daughter of Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhara Rao, K Kavitha, for her alleged comments on Jammu and Kashmir and Telangana.The case was registered two days back under Sections 124-A (sedition) and 505 (statements

DHAKA: Over 100 inmates broke out of jail when shells rained down on a high-security prison in the besieged rebel stronghold of Donetsk in east Ukraine, killing one.Local authorities said Monday, reports daily Hurriyet.Mortar blasts rocked the correctional facility in a western

DHAKA: Islamic State militants captured the town of Jalawla northeast of Baghdad at dawn on Monday after weeks of clashes with Kurdish fighters. Police said, IS has extended dramatic gains that have alarmed Iraq’s Western allies, reports The Straits Times. The seizure of Jalawla,

DHAKA: The executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) and another senior staff member have been denied entry to Egypt.Kenneth Roth and Sarah Leah Whitson were in Cairo to launch a report by the group on mass killings last year.Hundreds of people were killed on 14 August 2013 after

DHAKA: Iraqi state TV says a top court has ruled that PM Nouri Maliki’s bloc is the largest in parliament, in a boost to his bid to stay on for a third term.The decision would mean the president, who Maliki criticised for not intervening when parliament failed to appoint him,

DHAKA: Israeli negotiators were due in Cairo on Monday for talks on ending a month-old Gaza war with Palestinian militants.An Israeli government official said, after a new 72-hour truce brokered by Egypt appeared to be holding, reports The Straits Times.The Israeli military said one

KUALA LUMPUR: The expatriate Bangladeshis are now in fear of abduction in Malaysia. It is learnt that the abductors have an attachment with local and influential foreign syndicates.The expatriates are not free from anxious even complaining to embassy. The abductors are carrying on

DHAKA: South Korea on Monday proposed a fresh round of high-level talks with North Korea to discuss another possible reunion for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. The first round held in February had marked the highest-level official contact between the two Koreas for seven

DHAKA: China will launch its first recoverable moon orbiter later this year, the government announced in the latest step in its ambitious space programme.The mission will be launched before the end of the year and will travel to the moon before returning to earth, the State

DHAKA: As many as 10 people died and dozens were injured when Typhoon Halong slammed into the Japanese archipelago over the weekend, reports said on Monday, with heavy rain still lashing the country’s north.The storm was moving over the Sea of Japan (East Sea), after making landfall

DHAKA: US secretary of state John Kerry arrived in Sydney on Monday for annual talks with close ally Australia, which an official said will range from the crisis in Iraq to security issues in Asia. The centrepiece of the Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) on

DHAKA: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, has won the country's first direct presidential election in the first round after taking more that 50 percent of the vote, according to Turkey's election board.Sunday's victory will extend Erdogan's more than 10-year rule over the

DHAKA: A three-day truce has come into effect between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, after a day of intense diplomacy. It is hoped the latest truce, which came into effect at 21:00 GMT, will help negotiators agree a longer peace. Egypt brokered a similar truce last week, but

DHAKA: Security forces loyal to Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki have appeared in force in the capital Baghdad after he went on state TV to criticize the president.Maliki is seeking a third term but has faced calls to step down amid the jihadist insurgency in the north, reports the BBC.The US,

DHAKA: French forces have bombed Islamist militant positions in northern Mali. Four or five bombs were dropped in the Esssakane region, west of the city of Timbuktu on Sunday morning. The BBC, in Mali, reports. The UN has said al-Qaeda militants were active in the area. Last month

DHAKA: Ukraine’s military has pounded the main pro-Russian rebel stronghold of Donetsk with artillery fire, causing massive damage throughout the city. A military spokesman said the rebels were in ‘panic and chaos’ and had begun to desert en masse, reports the BBC. Ukraine is

DHAKA: Pope Francis said that violence and destruction in Iraq offends God and humanity and he held a silent prayer for victims of the conflict during his weekly address in Rome on Sunday. ‘We are left incredulous and dismayed by the news coming from Iraq,’ the Argentine-born Pontiff

DHAKA: The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which now refer to themselves as the Islamic State (IS), has threatened to ‘liberate’ Istanbul, while accusing Turkey of cutting off the flow of the Euphrates River, drying up northern Syria, including Raqqa, ‘the capital of the

DHAKA: Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian boy during a confrontation with rock-throwing protesters in the occupied West Bank on Sunday. A relative who witnessed the incident said, reports The Straits Times. Youssef al-Anati said his 11-year-old nephew, Khalil, was shot dead even