DHAKA: China has reprimanded 15 Xinjiang officials for violations that include adhering to religious faith, state media said on Tuesday, amid a crackdown on what the government calls illegal religious activities in the unruly western region.One official in the southern city of

DHAKA: Taking a step further towards scrapping the Planning Commission, prime minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday invited ideas from the people on the new institution to replace the plan body.The government also announced creation of a special open forum on the website mygov.nic.in for

DHAKA: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) top leadership on Tuesday refused to meet and hold talks with government negotiators, saying that it was too late to negotiate now.Credible government sources told Dawn that after the PTI leadership’s refusal to talk to government

DHAKA: Central banks purchased 118 tones in net gold in Q2 2014, representing a 28% year-over-year increase, according to the World Gold Council. In May 2014, the European Central Bank and other European central banks signed the fourth Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA). The agreement

DHAKA: Pakistan Army has put its troops in Islamabad on ‘high alert’ in case of any untoward incident takes place as Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf enters red zone are after the expiry of their deadline. The troops were deployed in the federal capital under Article 245 of the Constitution,

DHAKA: Sri Lanka will not grant visas to United Nations investigators probing war crimes allegedly committed during the island’s decades-long separatist conflict. President Mahinda Rajapakse said on Tuesday, reports The Straits Times. ‘We will not allow them into the country,’

DHAKA: Israel has been preventing Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) workers from entering Gaza to investigate allegations of war crimes and human rights violations, claims a media report backed by group members’ statements.Both human rights organizations have been

DHAKA: 20 people died in flood-related incidents in Uttar Pradesh on Monday with several rivers flowing above the danger mark and posing a threat to more than 1,000 villages in the affected districts in India.  So far, 48 people have died from flood-related incidents in the state.

DHAKA: Twenty people, including eight children, were killed on Monday night when a speeding train rammed into a packed autorickshaw at a railway crossing between Semra and Sugauli stations in Bihar's East Champaran district in India.  The mishap took place at a manned railway crossing

DHAKA: The Gaza ceasefire has been extended for a further 24 hours after talks in Cairo, BBC reports.  The previous ceasefire came into effect last Wednesday, but was due to expire at midnight (21:00 GMT) on Monday. Officials say that 2,016 Palestinians and 66 Israelis have died since

DHAKA: Unidentified war planes may have carried out overnight air strikes on the Libyan capital Tripoli. Local media say, reports the BBC. Residents reported seeing jets fly over the city and hearing explosions. The government said it did not have any ‘convincing indications to

DHAKA: Many people died when rockets and mortars hit vehicles moving refugees from the Luhansk area of eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military says, reports the BBC. Ukraine has blamed pro-Russian rebels but they have denied carrying out the attack, near the village of Novosvitlivka. A

DHAKA: The Pakistani cleric leading thousands of protesters occupying parts of the capital Islamabad has firmly rejected allegations he is linked with the army. Tahirul Qadri told the BBC he has never been in contact with the military. Qadri has been seen as close to the army, with this

DHAKA: An airport is also a beautiful place, surely you will think, if you follow the mantra of Jeffrey Milstein, a pilot who has spent days hovering over airports for his epic photo series, "Flying."The aerial photographer has a friend take the controls in planes or helicopters when

DHAKA: Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan on Monday declared a ‘civil disobedience movement’ against the Nawaz Sharif-led government, saying ‘the country’s future is bleak under the rule of businessmen’, as cleric Tahirul Qadri gave a 48-hour ultimatum to

DHAKA: The US state of Missouri is sending the National Guard to the town of Ferguson as protests escalate over the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager. Governor Jay Nixon signed an order to ‘help restore peace and order and to protect the citizens of Ferguson’, reports the

DHAKA: Kiev on Monday accused pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine of killing ‘many’ civilians trying to leave a conflict-torn area by shelling them with equipment provided by Moscow.‘Militants shot at a convoy of civilians trying to flee the conflict area not far from

DHAKA: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said he would leave London’s Ecuadorean embassy “soon” after two years, reports BBC.He did not clarify when he would depart but said it was “probably not” for the reasons reported by the UK press.Stories had suggested he was suffering

DHAKA: Eleven members of a single family have died in a road crash on the way to Qassim, orphaning a 10-year-old girl who had opted to stay back with her grandmother in Shuqairy, Jazan, where the family had spent Eid. Their vehicle had crashed into a tanker on the Shaqra-Qassim road in

DHAKA: Kurdish Peshmerga fighters backed by United States warplanes pressed a counter-offensive against jihadists on Monday after retaking Iraq’s largest dam alongside federal forces, as the United States and Britain stepped up their military involvement. The recapture of Mosul dam