DHAKA: Saudi Arabia’s Gulf Arab allies and Egypt have applauded its decision to reject a UN Security Council seat in protest at the world body’s failure to act on Syria, whose leader is backed by Russia and Shia Iran.Saudi Arabia turned down a coveted two-year term on the council on

DHAKA: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday urged European Union and world leaders to pile pressure on her country`s government to complete its reform process.The Nobel peace laureate told a small group of journalists that the country’s democratic future as well as an

DHAKA: An explosion has ripped through a bus in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, killing at least four people and injuring seven.The cause of the blast is not yet known, Russian officials say, reports the BBC.Cities further south, in Russia’s North Caucasus, have seen attacks by

DHAKA: Saudi Arabia’s rights record came under fire at the United Nations on Monday, with critics accusing the kingdom of jailing activists without due process and abusing the basic rights of Saudi women and foreign workers.At the UN Human Rights Council, Britain called for abolition of

DHAKA: The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey has exceeded 600,000 and more than 400,000 of them are living outside the refugee camps set up mainly in Turkish border cities.Turkey’s disaster management agency said on Monday, reports Today’s Zaman.‘We conducted a study before the

DHAKA: UN-Arab League special envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi is scheduled to pay a visit to Tehran in the coming days.An Iranian deputy foreign minister announced on Sunday, Tehran Times prints this report on Monday.Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the deputy foreign minister for Arab and

DHAKA: Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh met Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday amid signs that the two giants had failed to reach a breakthrough on a long-delayed nuclear power deal.Singh is using one of his last major foreign trips as prime minister before 2014 general

DHAKA: Saudi Arabia has an average of three cases of divorce every hour, official figures indicate.The total divorce cases recorded in 2012 were more than 30,000, an average of 82 a day and 3.4 an hour, according to a study published in local daily Al Eqtisadiya on Monday, reports

DHAKA: Radiation cleanup in some of the most contaminated towns around Fukushima’s nuclear power plant is far behind schedule, so residents will have to wait a few more years before returning.Japan environment ministry officials said they are revising the cleanup schedule for six of 11

DHAKA: A Chinese court will rule on Friday on the appeal of the once-powerful politician Bo Xilai, it announced on Monday, another step towards closing a scandal that has rocked the ruling party.Bo was sentenced to life in prison in September by the Intermediate People’s Court in Jinan,

DHAKA: The 16-year-old Pakistani teen targeted for a Taliban assassination because she championed education for girls has inspired the development of a school curriculum encouraging advocacy.George Washington University announced on Monday that faculty members are creating multimedia

DHAKA: French foreign minister Laurent Fabius has summoned the US ambassador over newspaper claims that the US spied on millions of phone calls in France.France has labelled such activity between allies as ‘unacceptable’, reports the BBC.Le Monde says the data, based on leaks from

DHAKA: At least 55 people have been killed in a series of suicide explosions in Iraqi cities, with the highest death toll reported at a cafe in a Shia Baghdad neighbourhood.Sunday`s cafe attack killed at least 36 people and wounded 45 others.Police officials said they saw a suicide bomber

DHAKA: An explosion struck a Quetta-bound Jaffar Express on Monday killing four persons and injuring 16 others in Pakistan.The train which departed from Rawalpindi was passing through Dera Murad Jamali district of the restive Balochistan province when the blast occurred causing damage to

DHAKA: Highly radioactive water overflowed barriers into Japan`s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station after its operator Tepco underestimated how much rain would fall and failed to pump it out quickly enough.Tepco has been battling to contain radioactive water at the nuclear complex,

DHAKA: The government is set to give the go-ahead for the UK`s first new nuclear station in a generation.France`s EDF Energy will lead a consortium that includes Chinese investors, to build the Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset.Ministers say the deal will help take the UK towards

DHAKA: Three people, including a girl aged eight, died when gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a wedding party outside a Coptic Christian church in Cairo.At least nine others were wounded in the attack in Giza, officials said.There was no immediate claim of responsibility.Egypt`s Coptic

DHAKA: The armed men reportedly stopped motorists on the road and ordered them out of their cars before shooting them or hacking them to death.Witnesses told the BBC the men were from Boko Haram, though the Islamist militant group has not yet commented.North-eastern Nigeria is under a

DHAKA: US president Barack Obama is frustrated by the problems in the rollout of his signature health care reform, and the administration intends to fix them, but the programme’s real test will not come until early next year.US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Sunday, reports The

DHAKA: Egyptian security forces fired bird shot and tear gas to prevent supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi from marching on Sunday to the site of a protest camp that was destroyed two months ago.The crowd of about 500 people were students from Al-Azhar University, the