DHAKA: Former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani is leading the race to replace Hamid Karzai as president. The BBC reports this according to preliminary results. Ghani won 56.44 percent of votes in the 14 June run-off, election officials said. His rival Abdullah Abdullah had 43.56

DHAKA: The Fourth of July holiday weekend brought an explosion of gunfire to Chicago, with more than 50 people shot and nine killed. The violence was widespread in the nation’s third-largest city from Thursday evening through Sunday midnight, police said. There were 50 separate

DHAKA: More than 60 Nigerian girls and women abducted by Islamic extremists two weeks ago have managed to escape. Nigerian security forces and federal government officials had denied reports of the mass abduction from three villages in the northeast state of Borno on June 22. The

DHAKA: Shelling in west of Baghdad killed the commander of the Iraqi army’s 6th division on Monday. Prime Minister of Irak Nuri al-Maliki’s security spokesman said this, reports the NDTV. Major General Najm Abdullah Sudan ‘was killed by hostile shelling in Ibrahim bin Ali,’ said

DHAKA: Senior Hamas leaders have threatened revenge against Israel after air raids in the Gaza Strip killed nine people, the single highest death toll since the 2012 cross-border war. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, on Monday accused Israel of a ‘grave escalation’ in violence and

DHAKA: The Australian government’s attempt to return 153 asylum seekers to Sri Lanka has been blocked by the high court. The move comes after Australia confirmed on Monday it had returned 41 people to Sri Lanka after screening their asylum claims at sea on Sunday. Politicians and

DHAKA: An earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale has hit in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas and neighboring Guatemala. The US Geological Survey says the perceived shaking of the quake is ‘very strong.’ The earthquake struck 14km offshore from the city of Mazatan in

DHAKA: Sixty-three women and girls kidnapped by Boko Haram last month in Nigeria escaped from their captors and have returned to their burnt village, CNN reports. The hostages were seized from the Kummabza village in northern Borno state on June 18 after a four-day invasion of the

DHAKA: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday commemorated the 77th anniversary of the official start of war with Japan, condemning those who "ignore the iron facts of history" in an oblique jab at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.   Xi and a cast of hundreds of soldiers and schoolchildren

DHAKA: Seventeen coal miners have died after being trapped by a weekend gas explosion in northwestern China, an official news agency reported Monday. The miners were trapped Saturday by the explosion at a mine 120 kilometers (70 miles) from Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, the

DHAKA: A doctor says 16 Vietnamese military personnel have been killed in a helicopter crash close to Hanoi, the capital. The official Vietnam News Agency says the Russian-made chopper crashed Monday about 15 minutes after takeoff on a parachute training exercise. A doctor at a military

DHAKA: Kelly Parker was thrilled when she landed her dream job in 2012 providing tech support for Harley-Davidson's Tomahawk, Wisconsin, plants. The divorced mother of three hoped it was the beginning of a new career with the motorcycle company. The dream didn't last long. Parker claims

DHAKA: An Israeli air strike killed six Hamas militants on Monday, the Hamas armed wing said, in what would be the biggest single hit against the Islamist group since an eight-day war in 2012. The IDF had no immediate comment on the reported attack which came after at least a dozen

DHAKA: Russian president Vladimir Putin ‘can be dangerous’ and will always push other political leaders as far as he can, former United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton told a German newspaper on Sunday. ‘A man like Putin always goes to the limits. He always tries to find

DHAKA: The Dalai Lama on Sunday reiterated his plea to Buddhists in Myanmar and Sri Lanka to halt violence against Muslims, in a speech to tens of thousands of devotees to mark his 79th birthday. In front of the massive crowd that included Hollywood film star Richard Gere in northern

DHAKA: Israeli police have arrested a group of Jewish extremists in connection with the kidnap and murder of a Palestinian teenager who was burned to death in a suspected revenge killing. The brutal killing on July 2 has triggered four days of violent clashes which began in east

DHAKA: The Afghan government on Sunday rejected a proposal to ban Facebook during an ongoing deadlock over the presidential election, despite fears that social media postings have fanned ethnic hatred. The dispute between candidates Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah over alleged fraud

DHAKA: Malaysia will send more equipment to the southern Indian Ocean to join the search for Flight MH370 which went missing four months ago. A minister said on Sunday, reports The Straits Times. Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said a Malaysian navy ship equipped with a multi-beam

DHAKA: Israeli aircraft attacked 10 sites used by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Sunday in response to persistent rocket strikes from the enclave. The Israeli military said, reports The Straits Times. Rocket launchers and a weapons manufacturing facility were among the

DHAKA: Pakistan’s new chief justice was sworn in on Sunday after signalling an end to years of judicial activism which have seen various Supreme Court decisions on political issues. Nasir-ul-Mulk, 63, the supreme court’s most senior judge, took over as chief justice after his