DHAKA: The Queen’s representative in Australia has reportedly become the first serving governor-general to publicly back the country becoming a republic.Quentin Bryce, 70, made the comments during a speech in Sydney in which she outlined a future vision for Australia.‘Perhaps one day,

DHAKA: Egypt has detained 39 people, including a US citizen, accused of torching a tram during a protest against the overthrow of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.Egypt’s judicial sources said on Saturday, reports gulfnews.com.The accused, who were placed in 15-day preventive

DHAKA: Air strikes around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo killed at least 40 people on Saturday, most of them civilians.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, reports The Jerusalem Post.The pro-opposition monitoring group said there were at least six strikes on the outskirts of

DHAKA: Talks to lay the foundations for a new UN climate pact due in 2015 were deadlocked as they ran into overtime on Saturday, with nations at odds over stepping up finance for developing countries to ease the impact of global warming.The Warsaw meeting, which had been due to end on

DHAKA: Thousands of demonstrators protesting US drone strikes on Saturday blocked a main road in Peshawar used to truck Nato troop supplies and equipment in and out of Afghanistan.The protest was led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and his party, the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf

DHAKA: Turkey declared Egypt’s ambassador ‘persona non grata’ and downgraded diplomatic relations to the level of charge d’affaires on Saturday, in a tit-for-tat move after Cairo expelled its envoy.Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement, reports The Straits Times.The

DHAKA: Syrian activists say two government airstrikes have killed at least 29 people in the north.Rami Abdurrahman, the director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says military warplanes targeted rebel positions in an opposition-held district of Aleppo city midday

DHAKA: Several people have received injuries after an unknown man randomly fired an air handgun at shoppers in a crowded supermarket in northeastern Moscow.Ambulances have been rushed to the scene.Police are investigating the incident, reports The Voice of Russia.BDST: 1908 HRS, NOV 23,

DHAKA: Turkey vowed to retaliate after Cairo decided Saturday to expel Ankara’s ambassador over Turkish criticism of the Egyptian regime’s crackdown on Islamists.‘We will take steps in reciprocity after comprehensive consultations with the Turkish ambassador,’ Turkey’s foreign

DHAKA: A Syrian government minister survived an attack on his car on Saturday but his driver was killed, state media said.El Ikhbariya television said the car of Ali Haidar, national reconciliation affairs minister, was targeted while driving on a highway in Tartous province, a stronghold

DHAKA: British foreign secretary William Hague said on Saturday that remaining gaps in talks between Iran and six powers on Tehran’s nuclear programme were narrow but important.He was speaking to reporters after arriving in Geneva to join the talks along with foreign ministers from the

DHAKA: Seven people died after being hit by an avalanche on Saturday on a mountain in Japan`s central Toyama prefecture, local police said.The seven, four men and three women, were climbing or skiing when the avalanche, an estimated 30m wide and 600m long, hit on a western slope of the

DHAKA: Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai will advise delaying a security pact with the United States until after an April election when he gives a closing speech to a grand assembly that will decide on the deal.Karzai’s his spokesman said on Saturday, reports The Jerusalem Post.The

DHAKA: Talks in Geneva on Iran’s nuclear programme ‘have reached the final moment’.China’s state-run Xinhua news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei as saying on Saturday, reports The Jerusalem Post.Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi left Beijing early on Saturday for

DHAKA: Egypt has told the Turkish ambassador to leave the country and downgraded relations between the two countries.Egypt’s foreign ministry blamed Turkey’s continued ‘interference’ in its country’s internal affairs, reports the BBC.Turkey’s diplomatic representation has been

KABUL (REUTERS) - Militants kidnapped 11 Pakistani teachers involved in a polio vaccination campaign for school children on Saturday, officials said, the latest in a string of attacks on health workers trying to eradicate the deadly disease.The teachers were taken from the private Hira

DHAKA: Syrian rebels, including from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front, have seized a key eastern oil field.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday, reports The Straits Times.‘Fighters from Al-Nusra and other groups have taken the Omar oil field in Deir Ezzor

DHAKA: The Pakistan Repatriation Council (PRC) has called on the government of Pakistan to repatriate the quarter of a million Pakistanis stranded in Bangladesh.At a meeting with the visiting Pakistani senator, Raja Zafarul Haq, PRC convener Syed Ehsanul Haq said the current Pakistan

 DHAKA: At least 11,000 people have been evacuated as a severe cyclone slammed into the north-eastern coast of Andhra Pradesh, packing strong winds and torrential rain and killing at least two people, according to officials.Heavy rain lashed the region and knocked out power to hundreds

DHAKA: Tehelka founder and editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal, accused of sexually assaulting a junior colleague in a five-star hotel earlier this month, was Friday booked for rape by Goa Police as the Union home ministry swung into action and sought details of the incident. The famed