DHAKA: Amid a slowing economy, China has raised its defense budget by 10.1 percent to 887 billion yuan this year, keeping its nearly two-decade run of double-digit increases in military spending unbroken.The figure, released at the opening session of the National People’s Congress (NPC)

DHAKA: The US ambassador to South Korea, Mark Lippert, has been injured by a knife-wielding attacker in Seoul Wednesday. Lippert, 42, was attending a breakfast meeting when he was slashed on his face and left hand.  He was taken to hospital but his injuries are not life-threatening.

DHAKA: Palestinian activists in the West Bank have started confiscating goods and urging people to boycott Israeli products. The confiscation began after activists from the Fatah political movement, whose leader is President Mahmoud Abbas, dumped a truckload of Israeli milk and yoghurt

DHAKA : About 45,000 people have fled their homes in the impoverished southern Philippines as the military hunts Islamic militants, including a top terror suspect wanted by the United States.   Authorities said Wednesday, reports The Straits Times.   Soldiers have killed dozens of

DHAKA: Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh has promised an inquiry into how a TV crew gained permission to interview one of the Delhi gang rapists on death row. He criticized the film in parliament, saying it should not be shown in India. A Delhi court has already blocked the film, made

DHAKA: At least 32 miners have been killed in a blast at a coal mine in a rebel-held area of east Ukraine.The president of Ukraine’s parliament said Wednesday, reports The Straits Times.‘A terrible tragedy took place this morning at Zasyadko. There are victims, currently numbering

DHAKA: A man who jumped off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to try to take his own life and was kept afloat by a sea lion said Wednesday suicide prevention was now his life’s work.Kevin Hines, in Australia to speak at several conferences, was a teenager struggling with mental

DHAKA: More than 450 people were killed in China’s restive mainly Muslim Xinjiang region last year, a rights group said - with three times as many deaths among members of the Uighur minority than ethnic Han Chinese.Xinjiang has seen a wave of unrest, labeled by the authorities as

DHAKA: Six decades after the first conquest of the world’s highest peak, tons of rubbish and human waste abandoned by hundreds of Mount Everest climbers is starting to raise a stink.Nepal is cracking down on the mountaineers who seek to emulate the 1953 feat of Sir Edmund Hillary and

DHAKA: US president Barack Obama has reacted scathingly to a speech by the Israeli prime minister that castigated his policy towards Iran.In a speech to the US Congress, Benjamin Netanyahu warned that a deal under discussion on Iran’s nuclear program could ‘pave Iran’s path to the

DHAKA: The London graduate believed to be Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria executioner ‘Jihadi John’ once denounced the 9/11 attacks and the 2005 bombings in the British capital, according to an audio recording released Tuesday.Kuwait-born Mohammed Emwazi was identified by media

DHAKA: An earthquake measuring 6.4 magnitude struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Tuesday.The US Geological Survey said, reports The Straits Times.There was no immediate word on damage or casualties.The quake was 23 miles deep and centered 114 miles west of the town of

DHAKA: Moscow and Kiev agreed a gas delivery deal until the end of March after EU-brokered talks in Brussels, securing supplies to Europe after a row over supplies to rebel-held eastern Ukraine.The EU said, france24.com reports.‘I am satisfied that we managed to safeguard the full

DHAKA: The Venezuelan government says the United States has two weeks to dramatically reduce the number of diplomats it has in the country.Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said the US could decide which of its 100 diplomats should be sent home.She said the goal was to bring the balance

DHAKA: A solar-powered plane made a third successful test flight in the United Arab Emirates on Monday ahead of a planned round-the-world tour to promote alternative energy.Organisers hope that Solar Impulse 2 may head off around the globe as early as Saturday but caution that the

DHAKA: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he received donations from firms that got government subsidies, the first time he himself has faced questions about potentially improper donations, after having lost three cabinet members to scandals.Abe returned for a rare second term in

DHAKA: USA President Barack Obama said Iran should agree to at least a decade-long freeze on its nuclear activity if a landmark deal is to be finally reached, reports BBC.BBC adds, Obama, in an interview with Reuters, also said the odds were still against such an agreement

DHAKA: Police in northwest Pakistan have arrested more than 450 parents for refusing to vaccinate their children against polio.Officials said on Monday, reports The Straits Times.Riaz Khan Mehsud, deputy commissioner of Peshawar, the main town of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province,

DHAKA: Iraq has launched a military operation to recapture Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit from Islamic State (IS).Troops and militia were said to be attacking on different fronts, backed by airstrikes from Iraqi fighter jets, reports the BBC.The government says that its forces are

DHAKA: North Korea fired two missiles into the sea and vowed ‘merciless’ retaliation on Monday as the US and South Korea kicked off joint military drills denounced by Pyongyang as recklessly confrontational.The annual exercises always trigger a surge in military tensions and