WELLINGTON: A New Zealand man has good reason to question whether his dog is truly his best friend after his family pet shot him in the backside in a potentially fatal accident.The 40-year-old man was sitting in the backseat of his car when the dog stepped on the trigger of a loaded .22

JAKARTA: A moderate 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck the Indonesian province of Papua on Wednesday, seismologists said, but no tsunami warning was immediately issued.The quake struck at 8:56 am (2356 GMT Tuesday), 231 kilometres (144 miles) west of Jayapura at a depth of 15 kilometres, the

JERUSALEM: Israeli warships warily shadowed a Libyan aid ship on Tuesday even as officials said the vessel was diverting its course from Gaza and heading for a nearby Egyptian port.The standoff comes amid high tensions just six weeks after Israeli commandos launched a pre-dawn operation

WASHINGTON: The United States has expelled a man who was reported to be a 12th Russian agent in the espionage ring that end last week with a Cold War-style spy swap, a US official said Tuesday.Alexey Karetnikov was "ordered removed from the United States by an immigration judge," said

KAMPALA: Ugandan police pinned their hopes on an unexploded suicide vest Wednesday to help them track down suspects in the double bombings that killed at least 76 people watching the World Cup final.The blasts that ripped through a crowded bar and a restaurant in Kampala on Sunday have

NEW ORLEANS, July 14, 2010 (AFP) - BP may be on the verge of capping the well which has been gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, but the cleanup is far from over and the damage to the region`s environment and economy could last decades. An estimated two to four million barrels of oil

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama said Tuesday after the Uganda bombings that groups like Shebab and Al-Qaeda did not value African life and saw the continent as a place to kill innocents.In an interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation to be broadcast early Wednesday,

QUETTA: Gunmen assassinated a nationalist leader in Pakistan`s insurgency-torn province of Baluchistan on Wednesday as he left his home on the outskirts of Quetta, police and relatives said.Habib Jalib was secretary general of the opposition faction of Baluchistan National Party, which

MUMBAI: At least 60 people were taken to hospital on Wednesday after a leak of chlorine gas in a sprawling industrial district of the Indian city of Mumbai, emergency services said.Mumbai Fire Brigade chief fire officer Uday Tatkare said the leak happened in the Sewri area of the city

KOLKATA: In view of strengthening relationship with India, Bangladesh will set up “Rabindra Gallery” at Jorasanko Thakhurbari here, the ancestral home of Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore marking 150th anniversary of birth of the great poet. Masud Mahmood Khandaker, the

TEHRAN: Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who claims he was kidnapped by US spies, surfaced at Tehran`s interest section in Washington on Tuesday to declare Americans "losers" in the long-running saga. Iranian state television`s website said Amiri had taken refuge at the interest

  NEW DELHI: Heavy rains in New Delhi killed 11 people and flooded construction sites for the Commonwealth Games as the Indian capital races to be ready for the October event, officials said on Tuesday. An intense monsoon storm dumped 51 millimetres (two inches) of rain on the city in

MUMBAI - They have been credited with supernatural or paranormal properties since the days of ancient Egypt. Now the putative power of pyramids is to be harnessed by Indian police to cut road accidents. Traffic officers in Nagpur, 540 miles (870 kilometres) west of Mumbai, have agreed to

  BEIJING: Seventeen people were confirmed dead and 44 others were missing after torrential rains triggered landslides in southwest China on Tuesday, a local official and state media said. In Yunnan province, four people were killed and 42 others went missing when a mountain side came

HAVANA: Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro appeared on state-run television for the first time in nearly a year on Monday, looking alert and healthy but with a wavering voice that betrayed his advanced age.Castro, 83, appeared animated as he discussed for an hour his views on the Middle

SUVA: Fiji expelled Australia`s top diplomat Tuesday as Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama accused Australia and New Zealand of plotting to embarrass the Pacific island nation.The expulsion came hours after the five-member Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) cancelled this month`s summit in

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama will Tuesday declare that America`s battle against AIDS is at a "crossroads" and roll out a plan to cut new infections and improve care for those who have the disease.Thirty years after the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) burst to global attention,

KAMPALA: Somalia`s Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab rebels have claimed responsibility for bombings in Uganda that killed 74 people as they watched the World Cup final, in the region`s worst attacks in 12 years.The twin bombings in the Ugandan capital dampened Africa`s World Cup euphoria and drew

ISLAMABAD: The foreign ministers of nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India will Thursday hold wide-ranging talks aimed at building trust and resuming frozen peace talks.The two nations are unlikely to make headway over long-standing border disputes or Pakistani militant activities that

HAVANA: Six political prisoners released by Cuba traveled to Spain late Monday along with their close relatives, the first of 52 authorized to leave the country, an official at the Spanish embassy in Havana told AFP.Their release will be the culmination of a surprise deal between the