DHAKA: All 46 Indian nurses held captive by Sunni insurgents in Iraq have been freed and will return to India on Saturday. The nurses are with Indian officials and are being taken to Erbil airport, from where they will return to Kerala on a special flight. Kerala chief minister Oommen

DHAKA: Hamas has offered to halt its rocket attacks if Israel stops its air raids on the Gaza Strip. A source with the Palestinian militant group said Egyptian intelligence officials had brokered a potential ceasefire, after escalating clashes. Israel says sporadic shelling from Gaza

DHAKA: At least 17 suspected militants were killed Thursday in security raids in Rafah city of Egypt’s North Sinai province.A security source confirmed the matter, reports the New Indian Express.Egyptian troops killed 12 militants, who are believed to be members of Al Qaeda-inspired

DHAKA: An Indian passenger train set a new speed record of 160 kilometres an hour (100 miles an hour) on Thursday during a test between Indian capital city of New Delhi and Agra, reports Times of India. Thursday's test, part of Indian government's plans to upgrade the ageing rail

DHAKA: The UK drew up plans to train and equip a 100,000-strong Syrian rebel army to defeat President Bashar al-Assad, BBC Newsnight can reveal. The secret initiative, put forward two years ago, was the brainchild of the then most senior UK military officer, General Sir David Richards.

DHAKA: Hurricane Arthur, packing winds of 100mph, has made landfall in the US state of North Carolina, as thousands abandon their 4 July holiday plans. The first hurricane of the season, now a Category 2 storm, reached land between Cape Lookout and Beaufort at 23:15 local time (03:15

DHAKA: The extremist Sunni militant group that recently declared a caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq wrested control of a major Syrian oil field in a sweeping land grab Thursday. A string of villages and towns along the Euphrates River fell like dominoes to the Islamic State in Iraq

DHAKA: Saudi Arabia has sent 30,000 soldiers to its border with Iraq after Iraqi soldiers withdrew from the area, media reports. The country aims to guard its 800km border with Iraq, where Islamic State fighters and other Sunni Muslim rebel groups seized towns and cities in a lightning

DHAKA: Amnesty International has warned of a catastrophic decline in human rights in Egypt, a year after the military ousted president Mohammed Mursi.The campaign group says at least 16,000 people have been detained in the last year alone as part of the government's bid to silence

DHAKA: A key suspect has accused Spanish King Felipe VI’s brother-in-law Inaki Urdangarin of embezzling public funds, according to written testimony submitted by the prosecutor Thursday.Accountant Marco-Antonio Tejeiro, a fellow suspect in the fraud case facing Urdangarin, offered

DHAKA: New Ukrainian defence minister Valeriy Heletey has vowed to hold ‘a victory parade’ in Crimea, restoring the country’s territorial integrity.Addressing parliament in Kiev, he said, ‘Believe me, there will be a victory parade, there will be for sure, in Ukraine’s

DHAKA: China and South Korea have reaffirmed their opposition to North Korean nuclear tests during a visit by Chinese president Xi Jinping which is being seen as a snub to the North.It is the first time a Chinese leader has visited Seoul before Pyongyang.South Korean president Park

DHAKA: China’s president Xi Jinping arrived in Seoul Thursday for a state visit seen as a snub to Beijing’s traditional ally North Korea, whose nuclear weapons ambitions will dominate talks with South Korean leader Park Geun Hye. It was Xi Jinping’s first trip as head of state to

DHAKA: Saudi Arabia has deployed 30,000 soldiers to its border with Iraq after Iraqi soldiers withdrew from the area. The Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television reported on Thursday, says The Straits Times. The Dubai-based satellite channel said it had obtained a video showing some 2,500

DHAKA: Some four million people in South Sudan are likely to face critical food shortages next month, British aid agencies have warned. But the Disasters Emergency Committee says the cost of mounting an appeal to pay for aid might outweigh donations. South Sudan’s president has

DHAKA: Dozens of people have been injured in the largest clashes in occupied East Jerusalem in years, as Palestinians fought with police after the mutilated body of a boy was found dumped in a forest outside the city. The body may belong to Mohammed Abu Khdair, a 17-year-old from the

DHAKA: Two people were killed during Buddhist-Muslim violence in Myanmar’s second-largest city. Police said Thursday after security forces fired rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of rioters. Myanmar has been shaken by several waves of sectarian conflict in recent years that have

DHAKA: The Obama administration is stepping up security for some flights headed to the United States from Europe and the Middle East, reflecting heightened concern that terrorists are developing more sophisticated bombs designed to avoid airport screening. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh

DHAKA: The US special envoy for Afghanistan is stepping down, Secretary of State John Kerry announced Wednesday in a move which comes at a key juncture in troubled US-Afghan ties. James Dobbins, a veteran diplomat with deep ties to Afghanistan, is retiring after just over a year in

DHAKA: Iran has supplied Iraq with attack jets to help it counter an offensive by Sunni rebels led by the Islamist group Isis, strong evidence suggests. Russia supplied an initial delivery of the aircraft just a few days ago. But analysts at the International Institute for Strategic