DHAKA: US state secretary John Kerry asserted on Sunday that the United States now has evidence of sarin gas use in Syria and said ‘the case gets stronger by the day’ for a military attack.A day after president Barack Obama stepped back from his threat to launch an attack, Kerry said

DHAKA: A Saudi newspaper is reporting that Russian resident Vladmir Putin suggested to his Syrian counterpart and ally Bashar Assad that he give up the presidency and leave the country.Israel Radio said Sunday, reports The Jerusalem Post.According to the radio, the newspaper claims

DHAKA: Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said the Syrian government, a strong ally of Tehran, had carried out chemical weapons attacks against its own people.The semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency reported on Sunday, says The Jerusalem Post.‘The people have been

DHAKA: Probable presidential candidate Omar Daudzai was appointed as Afghanistan’s acting interior minister on Sunday, putting him in a high-profile public role seven months before the country’s first democratic transfer of power.Daudzai will move back to Kabul from Islamabad, where

DHAKA: Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has said that his country is capable of confronting any external attack, a day after his US counterpart Barack Obama called for military action against him.‘Syria ... is capable of confronting any external aggression,’ state television quoted

DHAKA: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the Jewish State was prepared for ‘every possible scenario’ in neighbouring Syria after US president Barack Obama postponed a threatened missile strike.‘Israel is calm and sure of itself, the citizens of Israel

DHAKA: A powerful 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck off eastern Indonesia on Sunday, the United States Geological Survey said, but no tsunami warning was issued.The quake struck in waters near the Barat Daya islands in Maluku province, 411km east of Atambua and 425km south of Ambon.It was

DHAKA: More than 110,000 people have died in the conflict in Syria since March 2011, a rights watchdog said on Sunday.They said days after alleged gas attacks near Damascus shocked the world, reports The Straits Times.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the toll since the

DHAKA: US president Barack Obama’s decision to seek congressional authorisation for a military strike on Syria has sparked calls for the French Parliament to get the same privilege.The French Constitution does not require such a vote unless and until a French military intervention lasts

DHAKA: Analysis of samples taken by UN inspectors in Syria investigating an alleged use of chemical weapons could take ‘up to three weeks’.Ihe Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on Saturday, The Jerusalem Post publishes the report on Sunday.‘The

DHAKA: Pope Francis has called for a day of fasting and prayer around the world next Saturday for peace in Syria, which will include a vigil on St Peter’s Square.‘May the cry for peace enter the hearts of everyone so that they may all lay down their weapons,’ the Pope told tens of

DHAKA: The leader of Turkey’s Felicity Party (SP), Mustafa Kamalak, has suggested that Muslim countries unite to establish an ‘Islamic NATO’ in the wake of recent atrocities in the Middle Eastern region.Lending support to deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi, Kamalak said, ‘We

DHAKA: A provincial governor says a vehicle carrying employees of a private mining company has struck a roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan, killing eight.Parwan province leader Abdul Basir Salangi says five people also were wounded Saturday in Bagram district, dawn.com publishes this

DHAKA: A Syrian state-run newspaper says that US president Barack Obama’s decision to seek congressional approval before taking military action against Syria marks ‘the start of the historic American retreat’.In a front-page editorial on Sunday, the Al-Thawra daily says Obama’s

DHAKA: Veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost has died at the age of 74 after a suspected heart attack.Sir David’s career spanned journalism, comedy writing and daytime television presenting, including The Frost Report and That Was The Week That Was.Internationally, he will be remembered

DHAKA: The commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has said that the response to a possible military intervention in Syria by the United States will go beyond the Syrian borders.Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari made the remarks on the sidelines of a meeting of

DHAKA: North Korea said late on Saturday it withdrew an invitation for a US envoy to visit the country to discuss the fate of a jailed American citizen because US military drills on the peninsula made humanitarian dialogue impossible.Robert King, special envoy for North Korean human

DHAKA: Anti-apartheid leader and former South African president Nelson Mandela was discharged from hospital and returned home on Sunday after being treated for a recurring lung infection, the government said in a statement.‘Madiba’s condition remains critical and is at times

DHAKA: Twenty-four vigilantes in northeast Nigeria were killed in an ambush during a botched attempt to arrest members of Islamist sect Boko Haram, one a member of their group and a security source said on Saturday.‘They were ambushed even before they got to the Boko Haram camps,’ one

DHAKA: US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Saturday that he would hold a vote on authorising US president Barack Obama to use limited military force against Syria no later than the week of September 9.Reid said the Senate would hold public hearings on the issue next week with