DHAKA; Four domestic Chinese flights were diverted on Thursday after bomb threats were received, state media reported, days after an attack rocked Tiananmen Square in the capital.The official Xinhua news agency reported that an unidentified suspect had been arrested in connection with the

DHAKA: Israel’s army arrested three senior members of the Islamist Hamas movement overnight, Palestinian security sources said on Thursday, in the second such arrest operation this week.The three men, Jamal Tawil, Hussein Abu Kwayk and Faraj Romana, were arrested in the West Bank city

DHAKA: A strong earthquake struck Taiwan on Thursday, shaking buildings in the capital Taipei and causing tremors across the island.The country’s Seismology Centre said the tremor, which struck shortly after 8pm local time, was measured at 6.3 magnitude with its epicentre in the

DHAKA: An Italian magazine said Thursday that a United States spy agency had eavesdropped on Vatican phone calls, possibly including when former Pope Benedict’s successor was under discussion, but the Holy See said it had no knowledge of any such activity.‘Panorama’ magazine said

DHAKA: United States Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said he expects deepening cooperation with Japan over the high-stakes cleaning up and decommissioning of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.The Fukushima plant has had a series of mishaps in recent months, including radioactive water

DHAKA: Former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden will not answer questions from foreign special services regarding the NSA’s secret surveillance of leaders of countries that are the US` allies.Snowden’s Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena says, reports The Voice

DHAKA: Typhoon ‘Krosa’ hit the northern end of the main Philippine island of Luzon on Thursday forcing around 60 families to flee.A Philippine civil defence official said, reports The Straits Times.The typhoon, packing maximum winds of 160 kilometres per hour, struck the coastal

DHAKA: A jury has been given an insight into the inner workings of tabloid phone hacking at the trial of two former editors of Rupert Murdoch`s defunct News of the World.Former editors Rebekah Brooks and Andrew Coulson are on trial, along with six others, on a range of charges related to

DHAKA: Syria has destroyed all its declared chemical weapons production and mixing facilities, meeting a major deadline in an ambitious disarmament programme, the international chemical weapons watchdog said in a document obtained by Reuters.The Organisation for the Prohibition of

DHAKA: The last county in China to be accessible by modern land transport was finally linked up to the rest of the country Thursday with a new road that has taken decades to build, state media said.The 19,000 people of deeply isolated Medog in southeastern Tibet, where the mighty

DHAKA: Construction is set to begin in India on Thursday for the world’s tallest statue, which will stand twice the size of the Statue of Liberty and be made out of melted-down metal and farming equipment.The tribute to Sadar Patel, the first home minister of independent India who was

DHAKA: Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) has signed an agreement with Lakthanavi Power Ltd, a Sri Lankan firm, to set up a 52 MW dual-fuel power plant in Jangalia under Comilla district within next 15 months.According to the agreement, the Sri Lankan firm will set up the power

DHAKA: Rescue workers in Niger say they have found the bodies of 87 people who died of thirst after their vehicles broke down as they tried to cross the Sahara.Rescue worker Almoustapha Alhacen said the corpses were in a severe state of decomposition and had been partly eaten, probably by

DHAKA: The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has said he is open to peace talks but insisted that they would not go ahead unless foreign nations stopped supporting rebel fighters.The comments came during a meeting on Wednesday with peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi in Damascus, reports Al

DHAKA: Workers across Indonesia have begun a two-day strike demanding higher salaries, the latest industrial action to hit the South East Asian economy.The workers say their cost of living has gone up amid rising inflation and a hike in fuel prices, reports the BBC.According to unions’

DHAKA: Former Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea has denied all charges against him on the last day of a trial for leaders of the Cambodian regime widely blamed for the deaths of some 1.7 million people.The ailing 87-year-old Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge’s chief ideologist, and 82-year-old

DHAKA: The political uproar over alleged US eavesdropping on close European allies has produced an unusual defence from the National Security Agency.NSA says it was the Europeans themselves who did the spying, and then handed data to the Americans, reports The Jerusalem Post.It is rare

DHAKA: UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon blasted an Israeli announcement made earlier in the day to advance settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.Ban condemned as ‘contrary to international law’ the move announced by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in

DHAKA: The New York City Council voted to raise the minimum age for buying tobacco to 21, the highest in the country, in hopes of reducing smoking among the city’s young adults.The council voted 35 to 10 on Wednesday to raise the age requirement from 18, The Straits Times publishes this

DHAKA: Three suspected militants have been killed in a US drone strike in Miramshah Bazaar of North Waziristan Agency in Pakistan on Wednesday night.Sources said that three people were also injured and that the number of casualties is likely to increase.This is the first drone strike