DHAKA: A mortar round hit the Vatican embassy in Damascus on Tuesday morning, damaging the building but causing no casualties.A diplomatic source said, reports The Voice of Russia.‘A mortar round fell this morning at 6:30am (0430 GMT) on the embassy rooftop, causing only material

DHAKA: Russia insisted on Tuesday that Iran must be invited to peace negotiations on Syria that world powers hope to hold in Geneva later this month.‘All those who affect the situation must be invited to the conference,’ Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters, says

DHAKA: Heavy shooting from guns and anti-aircraft weapons erupted early on Tuesday in the Libyan capital Tripoli.The fighting occurred between militias in the eastern Suq al-Juma area, said a militia source with government ties, adding that he had no further information.Media reporters in

DHAKA: China says its top nuclear envoy is in North Korea to discuss stalled six-nation talks aimed at ending that country’s nuclear programme.China foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Tuesday that Wu Dawei arrived in North Korea a day earlier for a ‘work discussion’.He says

DHAKA: India launched its first rocket to Mars on Tuesday, aiming to put a satellite in orbit around the red planet at a lower cost than previous missions and potentially positioning the emerging Asian nation as a budget player in the global space race.The Mars Orbiter Mission blasted off

DHAKA: Three people were killed on Monday when a man armed with a knife hijacked a bus in western Norway, police said.The suspected hijacker, a man in his 50s of foreign origin, has been arrested, police officer Joern Lasse Foerde Refsnes told the TV2 Nyhetskanalen news channel.‘For

DHAKA: India is preparing to launch a robotic spacecraft towards the Red Planet, a first for the South Asian country.The head of India’s space agency told the BBC the mission would demonstrate the technological capability to reach Mars orbit and carry out experiments.The Mars Orbiter

DHAKA: When Vernon Maynard’s friends asked him what he wished he had done in his 100 years of life, the Southern California man said he had always wanted to jump from a plane with a parachute.The retired car dealer got the chance to mark his centenarian birthday on Monday by doing just

DHAKA: Some 1,500 secret files, dating back to the years of military rule in Argentina, have been discovered in Buenos Aires.They were found in an abandoned wing of the Air Force headquarters.The files contain the transcripts of all meetings held by the military junta, which ruled the

DHAKA: A shopping centre in the US state of New Jersey has been evacuated after multiple shots were heard, with some people locked down inside stores.Some witnesses said the shooting happened in front of the Garden State Plaza in the northern New Jersey town of Paramus around closing time

DHAKA: A cache of 1,500 works of art -- including masterpieces by Picasso, Matisse and Chagall -- confiscated by the Nazis and missing for more than 70 years has been found in Germany.The huge haul of paintings, estimated to be worth more than $1 billion, was discovered in an apartment in

DHAKA: Some 9.3 million people in Syria - or about 40% of the population - now need outside assistance, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos has said.This figure has risen by 2.5m from the 6.8m total the UN gave in September.The Syria crisis "continues to deteriorate rapidly and

DHAKA: Six people were killed on Sunday when residents of a township on the outskirts of Johannesburg attacked a group of suspected gang members, South African police said.Some of the victims were burned alive and two were stoned to death by groups of vigilantes who struck after 400 men

DHAKA: A media rights group on Monday expressed fears for the safety of journalists in Sri Lanka after Colombo grilled two Australian activists and seized computer data before kicking them out.The Free Media Movement (FMM) said it expected a crackdown by the authorities following last

DHAKA: Hamas have appointed their first ever female spokesperson.Israel’s Army Radio reported on Monday morning, says The Jerusalem Post.23-year-old Isra Allemdalel, a journalist and documentary film maker, will handle Hamas’ dealings with foreign media.When called by Army Radio for a

DHAKA: A senior Indian minister on Monday urged prime minister Manmohan Singh to boycott a Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka over human rights abuses, joining opposition in government ranks to the trip.India’s environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan said she wanted Singh to consider the

DHAKA: Overnight shelling has taken the death toll from fighting between rival Shia and Sunni Muslim groups in a northern town in Yemen to at least 100 people.A spokesman for one of the groups said on Monday, reports The Jerusalem Post.Sectarian fighting in the town of Damaj has cast a

DHAKA: Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said reports that the US government spied on the internet giant’s data centres were ‘outrageous’ and potentially illegal if proved true, in an interview on Monday.Speaking to the Wall Street Journal during a visit to Hong Kong, the

DHAKA: Flamboyant former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos is in ‘stable condition’ and set to be discharged soon after being hospitalised for severe fatigue.An Imelda aide said on Monday, reports gulfnews.com.The 84-year-old, who gained worldwide fame for her massive shoe

DHAKA: Iranian hardliners demonstrated to mark the anniversary on Monday of the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, a sign of the considerable obstacles to president Hassan Rouhani’s diplomatic initiative to ease tension with Washington.Large crowds gathered early on Monday