DHAKA: US president Barack Obama has summoned Senate Democrats to the White House for a rare meeting on Wednesday as he seeks to head off a congressional rebellion that he fears could undermine his efforts at diplomacy with Iran.Just as US diplomats begin final-stage talks with Iran over

DHAKA: China has flight-tested a hypersonic missile delivery vehicle in a move that was scientific in nature and not targeted at any country.China defence ministry said on Wednesday, reports The Straits Times.A Chinese military build-up has raised regional jitters.Many countries in Asia

DHAKA: Western and Gulf Arab nations pledged $1.4 billion on Wednesday for United Nations aid efforts in Syria, where an almost three-year-old civil war has left millions of people hungry, ailing or displaced.The pledge arose from an appeal for $6.5 billion launched last month that is the

DHAKA: Piracy at sea is at its lowest level in six years, with 264 attacks recorded, a 40% drop since Somali piracy peaked in 2011, a maritime watchdog has said.There were only 15 incidents off Somalia last year, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said, reports the BBC.This is down

DHAKA: A military spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo says a drone has crashed at the airport in the eastern city of Goma.Lt. Col. Felix Prosper Basse said the drone crashed Wednesday while returning from a mission and that no casualties were reported, according

DHAKA: The trial of four men charged over the Westgate shopping centre siege in Kenya has started in the capital, Nairobi.The four suspected foreigners deny charges of aiding a ‘terrorist group’ and being in Kenya illegally.The court heard testimony from security guards who saw what

DHAKA: Syrian president Bashar al-Assad warned during a meeting in Damascus on Wednesday with Iran’s foreign minister that Saudi Arabia’s political and religious ideology is ‘a threat to the world’.Syria state television reported, says Turkish daily Hurriyet.He was referring to

DHAKA: At least 46 people have been killed in a series of bombings in central Iraq, police and medical officials say.Eighteen died in an attack on a funeral for a pro-government Sunni militiaman in a village south of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province.Seven car bombs meanwhile

DHAKA: Thailand’s prime minister urged anti-government protesters on Wednesday to vent their anger against her at the ballot box, insisting that elections were the best way to solve the country’s deepening political crisis.Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has faced weeks of mass

DHAKA: European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is coordinating talks between six world powers and Iran on its nuclear programme, said she would visit Tehran in the coming weeks.‘It is my intention to visit in the next weeks,’ Ashton told a news conference in Kuwait

DHAKA: UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon says that half of Syria’s population now ‘urgently need humanitarian aid’.He was speaking at a donor conference in Kuwait to raise funds for the worsening humanitarian crisis.The UN is asking for $6.5bn over the coming year for Syria, its

DHAKA: Australia said on Wednesday that no asylum-seekers’ boats have arrived for nearly a month, but the military leader leading border control said he was not yet ready to declare operations a success.The number of people brought to Australia on people-smuggling boats to seek asylum

DHAKA: Myanmar military has continued to use rape as a weapon of war even after a nominally civilian government was elected in 2010, a women’s group says.The Women’s League of Burma said it had documented more than 100 cases, some involving children as young as eight.Most rapes were

DHAKA: The US has returned to India three ancient sculptures that had been smuggled into the US by art dealers and accomplices.The move followed a month of tense ties after a row over an Indian diplomat who was arrested in the US, reports BBC.The row erupted after the diplomat, Devyani

DHAKA: South Korean activists have launched an anti-North Korea balloon campaign, sending packages containing leaflets, USB drives and money across the border, despite the North`s government threatening to target the "human scum" involved.The balloons started floating over the border on

DHAKA: Gunshots rang out in the heart of Thailand`s capital overnight in an apparent attack on anti-government protesters that wounded at least two people and ratcheted up tensions in Thailand`s deepening political crisis.The city`s emergency services office said one man was hit in the

DHAKA:  A 51-year-old Danish woman was allegedly beaten, robbed and gang-raped in Connaught Place or CP in the heart of New Delhi on Tuesday evening.A Danish national, who was traveling New Delhi, had gone to visit a museum and while returning back to hotel in Paharganj lost her way in

DHAKA: Egyptians have voted on a new constitution, in a ballot widely seen as a referendum on the army’s decision to overthrow former President Mohamed Morsi in July last year.The vote was largely peaceful, but at least 11 people were killed and 28 people wounded across the country

DHAKA: The United States has implanted devices in nearly 100,000 computers to spy on institutions such as the Chinese and Russian military, EU trade groups and agencies within Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan. The New York Times on Tuesday cited documents from the National Security

DHAKA: Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon has apologised for quotes that appeared in a newspaper that lambasted US Secretary of State John Kerry`s role in the Middle East peace process.Mr Yaalon was quoted as saying that Mr Kerry was acting out of "misplaced obsession and messianic