DHAKA: An Egyptian criminal court on Wednesday sentenced 26 militants to death for founding a ‘terror group’ that aimed to target ships in the Suez canal.Egypt judicial sources said, reports The Straits Times.Prosecutors also accused the defendants of making rockets and explosives

DHAKA: Turkey’s president Abdullah Gul on Wednesday signed into law a contested bill tightening the government’s grip on the judiciary as it grapples to contain the fallout from a major corruption probe.The new law, which sparked fistfights among lawmakers debating it in parliament,

DHAKA: The makeup of Ukraine’s new government will be announced on Wednesday on Kiev’s Independence Square, the scene of three months of at times deadly protests.A lawmaker said, reports The Straits Times.‘At 7:00 pm we will take to the stage to present the new government to the

DHAKA: Pakistan on Wednesday unveiled its first ever counter-terrorism policy after battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency for more than a decade, announcing that every act of militant violence would be met with retaliation on their bases.Interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan

DHAKA: The Italian navy said on Wednesday it had rescued nearly 600 migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Africa over the past 24 hours in an operation launched after two shipwrecks in which hundreds drowned.‘The Navy has rescued 596 migrants on six vessels,’ including three rubber

DHAKA: Ukraine’s acting interior minister has said the elite Berkut police unit, blamed for the deaths of protesters, has been disbanded.It is unclear what will happen to Berkut officers but Arsen Avakov said more details would be given in a briefing on Wednesday.The unit had

DHAKA: British foreign secretary William Hague has called for an end to rape as a weapon of war.Speaking in Washington, where he received an award from Hillary Clinton for promoting women’s rights, Hague said the issue ‘should shame all men’.These acts be removed ‘from the

DHAKA: New York prosecutors Tuesday announced the indictments of an additional 32 people in a multimillion-dollar Social Security fraud scheme that involved retired cops and firefighters who falsely claimed to have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after the 9/11 terrorist

DHAKA: Italy`s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has won a vote of confidence in the lower house of parliament, backing his government`s programme of rapid economic and institutional reform.Renzi, 39, won a comfortable margin in the Chamber of Deputies, with 378 MPs voting in favour to 220

DHAKA: President Barack Obama has warned his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai that the US may pull all of its troops out of his country by the year`s end.Obama conveyed the message in a phone call to Karzai, who has refused to sign a security agreement, reports BBC.The US insists this

DHAKA: Egypt’s president has asked outgoing housing minister Ibrahim Mahlab to form a new government, state media report, a day after the interim cabinet quit.Interim Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi did not give a clear reason for his government’s resignation on Monday.The surprise

DHAKA: Islamic militants from the Boko Haram group in north-eastern Nigeria have attacked a school and shot some students.The military has said, reports the BBC.The BBC’s Will Ross, in Nigeria, says it is not clear how many pupils were killed. But Reuters news agency says that as many

DHAKA: At least 11 workers died and 18 others were injured when a large concrete beam collapsed on Tuesday at a construction site just outside Bangkok.Police said, reports The Straits Times.Two of the injured were in a critical condition in hospital, said Apiwat Kasorn of the Bang Phli

DHAKA: Israeli police early Tuesday entered the sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem`s Old City to disperse stone-throwing Palestinian protesters.A police spokesman said, reports The Straits Times.Police used stun grenades to disperse the Palestinians, Micky Rosenfeld told

DHAKA: Pakistani military officials said the air force has bombarded the suspected hideouts of Taliban militants in tribal areas near the Afghan border, killing at least 27 militants.Officials said on Tuesday the early-morning attack targeted areas of North and South Waziristan, in the

DHAKA: South Korean president Park Geun Hye announced on Tuesday the creation of a committee under her direct control to work out ‘systematic and constructive’ plans for reunification of the divided Korean peninsula.The presidential committee will include experts from every sector of

DHAKA: Ukraine’s interim president Olexander Turchynov is due to form a unity government, days after the ousting of president Viktor Yanukovych.The US has yet to endorse the new leader, but says ‘Mr Yanukovych is no longer actively leading the country’.Meanwhile, UK foreign

DHAKA: Thailand’s army chief warned on Monday the country risks ‘collapse’ unless it pulls back from escalating violence after attacks in recent days left three children dead in the kingdom`s worst political unrest since 2010.Twenty-one people have now been killed and more than 700

DHAKA: A top Pakistani minister on Monday offered to hold a cricket match with the Taliban as a way of reviving stalled talks on ending the militants’ bloody seven-year insurgency.Pakistan’s government entered into a formal dialogue with the Taliban earlier this month, but the process

DHAKA: A court in Russia has sentenced eight protesters for rioting and attacking police at a demonstration against Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for a third presidential term in 2012.Seven of the ‘Bolotnaya’ activists received prison terms of up to four years. An eighth, the only