DHAKA: Rebels fighting president Bashar al-Assad’s government in southern Syria declared Wednesday that the main opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) had ‘failed’ and that they would no longer recognise the Western-backed group.The video statement signed by nearly 70 groups

DHAKA: What many commuters choking on smog have long suspected has finally been scientifically validated: air pollution causes lung cancer.The International Agency for Research on Cancer declared on Thursday that air pollution is a carcinogen, alongside known dangers such as asbestos,

DHAKA: A team of reporters from Sky News Arabia has gone missing in the contested city of Aleppo in northern Syria.The Abu Dhabi-based channel said on Thursday, reports gulfnews.com.Since Syria’s uprising erupted in March 2011, the country has become the most dangerous in the world for

DHAKA: Syrian deputy prime minister Qadri Jamil said on Thursday that a long-delayed international conference aimed to bring the Syrian government and opposition together to seek an end to the country’s civil war is scheduled to be held Nov. 23-24.Jamil named the dates when he was asked

DHAKA: Rescue workers were forced on Thursday onto boats and helicopters to help thousands of isolated survivors of a powerful earthquake in the Philippines, as the death toll climbed to 158.Road access to the worst-hit towns on the central island of Bohol remained cut, two days after the

DHAKA: The groom is 103 years old. The bride is 99. And after 80 years together, this Paraguayan couple has finally tied the knot in the eyes of the church.From his wheelchair, Jose Manuel Riella married Martina Lopez Saturday in the backyard of their home, some 320km north of the

DHAKA: A plane carrying 49 passengers and crew that crashed in southern Laos hit bad weather as it came into land..Officials in the South East Asian nation said, reports the BBC.The Laos Airlines plane, flying from the capital Vientiane, crashed into the Mekong river on Wednesday near its

DHAKA: The head of the International Monetary Fund welcomed a last-ditch vote Wednesday in the US Congress to end a government shutdown and raise the government`s debt ceiling.IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde described the decision as "important and necessary" but did not directly

DHAKA: The US Congress has passed a bill to reopen the government and raise the federal debt limit, with hours to spare before the nation risked default.The Democratic-controlled Senate`s bipartisan compromise won approval by 81 votes to 18.The bill was then passed by 285-144 in the House

DHAKA: Iran and six world powers began a second day of talks on Wednesday aimed at ending a decade-old standoff over Tehran’s disputed nuclear activities, diplomats said.The negotiations between senior officials from the Islamic state and the United States, Russia, China, France,

DHAKA: A provincial law minister and at least seven other people have been killed in a bombing in north-west Pakistan during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.Israrullah Gandapur was greeting locals at his residence in Kullachi village when a suicide bomber struck, witnesses said,

DHAKA: Thailand’s foreign ministry says an internal flight in neighbouring Laos has killed all 44 people aboard.Foreign ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee says the Thai Embassy in the Lao capital of Vientiane reported that a Lao Airlines flight from Vientiane to Pakse in southern Laos

DHAKA: A suicide bomb attack in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday killed at least five people and wounded 30 others including a provincial minister who is in critical condition.Pakistan officials said, reports The Straits Times.The bomber struck as Israr Ullah Gandapur, law minister for the

DHAKA: The world’s chemical weapons watchdog said on Wednesday its inspectors have conducted verifications at 11 sites identified by Damascus as it worked to eliminate Syria’s banned weapons.The Straits Times reports.‘The OPCW mission has now conducted verification activities at a

DHAKA: The EU’s executive on Wednesday urged the bloc’s governments to reopen stalled membership talks with Turkey despite this year’s crackdown on protesters as well as open the door to Albania.Releasing its much-awaited yearly enlargement report, the European Commission rebuked

DHAKA: An aircraft crashed into the Mekong river in Laos on Wednesday and 39 people were killed.A Lao Airlines plane on an internal flight from the capital, Vientiane, to the south of the country, crashed into the Mekong in the late afternoon.China’s Xinhua state news agency said,

DHAKA: For the first time in Myanmar’s history, its defence ministry is inviting women to join the army.An advertisement in the Myanmar Ahlin newspaper says the new cadets must be single, at least 160cm tall, between 25 and 30 years of age, and weigh no more than 59kg, reports The

DHAKA: Britain’s national security was damaged by the Guardian newspaper’s publication of intelligence documents supplied by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.UK prime minister David Cameron said on Wednesday, reports The Voice of Russia.‘The plain fact is that what has happened has

DHAKA: Russia’s foreign ministry has expressed regret after a Dutch diplomat was beaten up in Moscow.The Dutch foreign ministry has summoned Russia`s ambassador to explain, after the diplomat was attacked in his flat.The incident comes amid rising tensions between the two countries,

DHAKA: Relations between the United States and Egypt are now in turmoil and the entire Middle East could suffer, the Egyptian foreign minister said in remarks made a week after Washington moved to curtail military aid to Cairo.Nabil Fahmy told state-run Al-Ahram newspaper that Egypt had