DHAKA: Norwegian centre-right leader Erna Solberg is set to form a new government after Labour Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg admitted election defeat.Ms Solberg described her win as “a historic election victory for the right-wing parties”.Her Conservative Party is widely expected to

DHAKA: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Monday on the Syrian regime to hand over control of its chemical weapons arsenal to international supervision as a way of staving off the threat of military action.After talks with Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Muallem in Moscow,

DHAKA: Some blind people are granted gun permits in one US state, and law enforcement officials are debating the wisdom of it.The Des Moines Register reports that Iowa law does not allow sheriffs to deny a permit to carry a gun in public based on physical ability.Blind people can obtain

DHAKA: France on Monday unveiled a new charter designed to reinforce rules banning religion from schools which have been a recurring cause of tension with Muslims and other faiths.The ‘Charter for Secularity in School’ is to be displayed in poster form in every state-funded school in

DHAKA: Syrian government forces launched an offensive to wrest back control of an historic Christian town north of Damascus on Monday, activists said.In the past six days, the town of Maaloula has already changed hands three times between president Bashar Assad’s forces and rebel

DHAKA: India prime minister Manmohan Singh on Monday spoke to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on steps taken to restore peace in Muzaffarnagar after communal clashes in which 31 people have been killed since Saturday.Six politicians, including four from the BJP, have been

DHAKA: The American public strongly opposes a US military intervention in Syria, despite a majority believing that president Bashar al-Assad’s regime gassed its own people.A poll showed on Monday, reports The Straits Times.Almost six in 10 of the 1,022 adults questioned, 59 percent,

DHAKA: The UN human rights chief said on Monday there is little doubt that chemical weapons were used in Syria but she did not specify which of the combatants was suspected of using them.UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay spoke two days ahead of the expected update from a

DHAKA: Russia and Syria urged the United States on Monday to focus on efforts to convene a peace conference and not on military action.Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday after talks with Syria’s foreign minister, reports The Jerusalem Post.Lavrov said a US military

DHAKA: Four men rammed their car into an upmarket jewellery store in central Paris on Monday, smashing the shopwindow and making off with a two-million-euro booty.A police source said, reports The Straits Times.The heist near the upscale Place Vendome is the latest to hit France after a

DHAKA: An Italian war reporter and a Belgian writer who were kidnapped in Syria in April were freed on Sunday, the Italian government said.A few hours after the announcement, Domenico Quirico, a correspondent for the Turin daily La Stampa, stepped off a plane at a Rome airport and was

DHAKA: Former Egyptian prime minister Ahmed Shafiq says he will back army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for president in an election expected next year, adding to speculation that the man who led the overthrow of president Mohamed Mursi could become head of state.Shafiq, a former air

DHAKA: Iran’s entire Cabinet has opened Facebook pages in what is seen as a move toward greater openness, even though the social media site is blocked in the Islamic Republic.The Facebook pages of 15 ministers could be viewed in Tehran through a proxy server.Newspapers on Monday hinted

DHAKA: An explosion outside a school in southern China has killed at least two people and injured several others, state media say.At least 10 of the 17 people reported injured at the primary school in Guilin, Guangxi province, were school children, police say.Witnesses told Xinhua news

DHAKA: The UN nuclear agency chief told Iran on Monday it was ‘essential and urgent’ for it to engage with his inspectors on their concerns about suspected Iranian nuclear bomb research and to provide access to a key military site.Yukiya Amano was addressing a session of the

DHAKA: US state secretary John Kerry vowed Monday that the United States was not about to embark on a long-term military adventure in Syria, echoing US president Barack Obama’s pledge that any action would not be a repeat of the two controversial American wars of the past

DHAKA: Military strikes on Syria risk causing an ‘outburst of terrorism’ in the region and would spark a new wave of refugees.Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with his Syrian counterpart on Monday, reports The Straits Times.‘The possibility for a political

DHAKA: An al-Qaida affiliate has claimed responsibility for a series of car bombs that killed around 60 people in predominantly Shia districts of the Iraqi capital last week.The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which was formed earlier this year through a merger between al-Qaida’s

DHAKA: China urged the United States to proceed with extreme caution and return to the United Nations to discuss Syria after Washington said it was not seeking Security Council approval for action in response to a chemical weapons attack last month.Washington and Paris say forces loyal to

DHAKA: Turkey’s militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has halted its pullout from Turkey.The Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), the urban wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said in a statement that the withdrawal had been halted because the Turkish government had