Browsing: World News

Bangladesh votes Sunday in a violence-plagued election that will end in certain victory for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after the opposition boycotted the “farcical” contest. Around 150 people have been killed since the opposition launched a campaign…

Enlarge Indian tech workers stroll through the Infosys compound in Bangalore. Indian outsourcing firms are the biggest recipients of the US government’s H1-B visas, initially intended for highly skilled workers, but increasingly used to hire lower-cost…

A New Zealand woman found murdered with a British companion in Libya was a mother of two visiting her boyfriend, according to media reports Sunday. The New Zealand foreign ministry confirmed the woman’s name as Lynn Howie and said her family had requested…

New York is planning to loosen its marijuana laws to allow limited use of the drug by people suffering serious illness, the New York Times reported Saturday, citing state officials. The newspaper reported on its website that Democratic Governor Andrew…

US Secretary of State John Kerry is to fly to Jordan and Saudi Arabia Sunday seeking backing for his plans for Middle East peace, after insisting he has made progress. After a second meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank, Kerry…

United States authorities warned residents to stay indoors and stock up on food after a fierce winter storm killed at least 11 people, with forecasters saying Saturday that the Arctic blast could hit record lows. A state of emergency was declared in…

Pope Francis has called for a rethink in the way the Catholic Church deals with the children of gay couples and divorced parents, warning against “administering a vaccine against faith”. “On an educational level, gay unions raise challenges for us today…

A bomb exploded in central Kabul on Saturday evening in a district housing several embassies and NATO’s military headquarters, but no casualties were immediately reported, officials said. The apparent insurgent strike was the second of the day in Afghanistan…

Iraq has lost Fallujah to Al-Qaeda-linked fighters, a senior security official said Saturday, putting militants back in control of the city in Anbar province where American forces repeatedly battled insurgents. And fighting in Anbar killed 65 people…

The five Doctors Without Borders (MSF) staffers seized by an unknown group in northern Syria this week are Belgian, Danish, Peruvian, Swedish and Swiss nationals, the humanitarian organisation said Saturday. “We can confirm that our personnel who have…

The United States on Saturday said it was closely watching developments in Iraq’s Anbar province, where militants have taken control of Fallujah, condemning Al-Qaeda-linked fighters for committing “barbarism.” Iraq has been fiercely battling the Islamic…

Dozens of journalists protested Saturday in Malaysia against the suspension of a weekly magazine, urging the Southeast Asian nation to allow greater press freedom. The Heat stopped publication last month after the Home Ministry suspended it, saying…

Hundreds of Lebanese took to the streets of the northern city of Tripoli on Saturday to protest the torching of a decades-old library owned by a Greek Orthodox priest. The demonstrators held up banners that read “Tripoli, peaceful town” and “This is…

Former first lady Barbara Bush went home Saturday after six days in hospital for pneumonia, a statement from the office of her husband, former president George H.W. Bush, said. The 88-year-old thanked the doctors and nurses at the Texas hospital where…

A blast that killed the Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic this week “was not an accident,” despite an official theory to the contrary, the envoy’s daughter said Saturday. “What is certain is that it was not an accident,” Rana al-Jamal, who…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday reversed a blanket ban on protests at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, bowing to pressure from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Russia had initially banned any political protests in the Russian Black…

Americans rekindle their peculiar love affair with the post-Edwardian demise of English aristocracy on Sunday when season four of “Downton Abbey” premieres on US public television. The internationally-acclaimed period drama set in a grand old Yorkshire…

WASHINGTON — A recent political coup. Drug trafficking. One of the world’s highest murder rates. With attributes like those, Honduras may not sound like an easy sell for international investment. But that hasn’t dissuaded the World Bank, whose mission…

A newly formed Syrian rebel alliance has declared war on the powerful Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and joined other opposition groups in battling the extremists. “We, the Army of the Mujahideen, pledge to defend ourselves…

Six Taliban suicide attackers launched an assault on a joint Afghan-NATO base in the east of Afghanistan on Saturday, killing one NATO soldier during a prolonged firefight, officials said. One attacker in an explosives-packed vehicle blew himself up…