DHAKA: Former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed has won a bitterly-contested presidential elections, but has failed to secure an outright majority to avoid a run-off, official results showed.Nasheed received 45.08 percent of the popular vote and is set for a run-off with Abdulla Yameen,

DHAKA: Sri Lanka has "serious questions" to answer about war crimes allegedly committed during its civil war, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.Mr Cameron`s comments came as he prepared to attend a Commonwealth summit on the island.The prime minister said he would urge President

DHAKA: Talks between world powers and Iran have failed to reach an agreement on Tehran`s nuclear programme.EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told a press conference that there had been a lot of "concrete progress but some differences remain".Baroness Ashton, who coordinated talks,

DHAKA: Police in the Philippines say they fear 10,000 people may have died in the devastation wreaked by Typhoon Haiyan.The Philippine government has so far only confirmed the death of several hundred people after the storm struck.But regional police chief Elmer Soria said he was told by

DHAKA: Syria’s fractured opposition began meeting Saturday in Istanbul to decide whether to attend a peace conference that world powers want to hold in Geneva.The talks involving the main umbrella opposition, the National Coalition, took place in a hotel here as the rebels retook a

DHAKA: The Taliban have ruled out talks with the Pakistan government, saying the chances of negotiations after the killing of their leader Hakimullah Mehsud in a US drone strike were ‘below zero’.Senior Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan leader Ihsanullah Ihsan, in an interview to Newsweek

DHAKA: British lawmakers will question the editor of the Guardian newspaper next month over publishing intelligence files from the United States spy agency contractor Edward Snowden after warnings from security chiefs that the leaks damaged UK national security.Alan Rusbridger will appear

DHAKA: The number of lung cancer cases in the Chinese capital Beijing has soared over the last decade.According to figures published by the state-run Xinhua news agency, they have increased by more than 50%, reports the BBC.Beijing health officials say smoking is still the number one

DHAKA: Iran and six world powers remain divided on the third day of negotiations on Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.A senior Iranian negotiator said on Saturday, according to Iranian media, reports The Jerusalem Post.‘There is greater agreement on some issues and less agreement on

DHAKA: The Philippine Red Cross estimated that more than 1,000 people were killed in the coastal city of Tacloban and at least 200 in hard-hit Samar province when one of the strongest typhoons ever to make landfall slammed into the country.Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the

DHAKA: Supporters of China’s disgraced senior politician Bo Xilai, who has been jailed for corruption, have set up a political party, two separate sources said, in a direct challenge to the ruling Communist Party’s de facto ban on new political groups.The Zhi Xian Party, literally

DHAKA: Saudi Arabia is preparing to spend millions of dollars to arm and train thousands of Syrian fighters in a new national rebel force to help defeat Bashar Al Assad and act as a counterweight to increasingly powerful jihadi organisations.Syrian, Arab and western sources say the

DHAKA: Islamist al Shabaab rebels claimed responsibility on Saturday for a bomb that killed six people outside a popular Mogadishu hotel the day before, and said they deliberately targeted government officials and security forces.Police suspected the militants were behind the blast, the

DHAKA: The US government is working hard to get Congress to restore its Unesco funding, Washington’s ambassador to the UN cultural arm said on Saturday, after its voting rights were suspended over failure to pay up.Unesco’s granting the Palestinians membership two years ago led to the

DHAKA: Britain said on Saturday important issues remain to be resolved at negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme and there was no certainty that a deal could be reached during this round of talks despite ‘very good progress’ so far.‘These negotiations have made very good

DHAKA: Syrian rebels have regained control of a strategic base near Aleppo international airport in fierce fighting that left more than 50 people dead.A monitoring group said on Saturday, reports The Straits Times.Troops backed by fighters from Lebanese Shia militant group Hizbollah had

DHAKA: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Geneva on Saturday to take part in the negotiations between the Sextet and Iran.The plane carrying the Russian minister has landed at the Geneva airport, an Interfax correspondent has reported, says The Voice of Russia.Thus, the

DHAKA: Thirteen people were killed Saturday when an Indonesian army helicopter carrying construction workers crashed in the jungles of Borneo as it came in to land.An Indonesian official said, reports The Straits Times.‘Thirteen people died in the crash while the rest suffered burn

DHAKA: More than 120 people have been reported killed by typhoon ‘Haiyan’ in the Philippines, after the massive storm swept through on Friday.Aviation officials said 100 bodies were lying in the streets of the city of Tacloban. Local journalists reported 20 bodies in a church in a

DHAKA: Jordan appears set to take the traditional Arab seat on the UN Security Council after Saudi Arabia rejected the position in protest at the body’s failure to end the Syria war and act on other Middle East issues.Western diplomats said on Friday, gulfnews.com publishes this report