DHAKA: Demonstrators torched vehicles and fought police in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka after a court Wednesday denied bail to 33 opposition figures over charges stemming from an anti-government protest last month. The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) called a nationwide general strike for Thursday, saying the court decision was “politically motivated” aimed at crushing [...]
WASHINGTON: Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, is expected to leave his post early next year and take over the U.S. European Command, US media reported on Tuesday. According to ‘Washington Post’ Allen has spent much of his tumultuous year in Afghanistan helping to negotiate a long-term security agreement with the [...]
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani embassy in Beijing accorded warm welcome and full protocol to former President Pervez Musharraf. The ambassador Masood Khan also hosted lunch in his honour. Reliable sources told Media that although the Interior Minister Rehman Malik has announced to contact Interpol for Musharraf arrest in the Benazir Bhutto’s murder case but he was [...]
KABUL: The United States has for several years been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups, a bold effort to quell violence but one that U.S. officials acknowledge poses substantial risks. As the United States has unsuccessfully pursued a peace deal with the Taliban, the [...]
KABUL: Taliban bombers attacked a heavily fortified guesthouse used by Westerners in Kabul on Wednesday and announced the start of their annual ‘spring offensive’, defying calls from visiting US President Barack Obama about ending the war. “Al-Farouq spring offensive will be launched on May 3 all over Afghanistan,” the militant group said.Seven people were killed [...]
DHAKA: Bangladesh police said Tuesday they had arrested a top politician and raided the houses of several others as the government launched a crackdown on the opposition amid a deepening political crisis. Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, deputy secretary general of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was arrested Monday night over charges of blasts at a [...]
Speaking at the Lok Sabha on the April 8 daylong visit of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to India during which he met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over lunch, he said Pak-Indian secretary level talks are set in May in Islamabad, where liberalized visa policy will be given a go-ahead. “The two leaders (Manmohan Singh [...]
BEIJING: China’s top military newspaper warned the United States on Saturday that U.S.-Philippine military exercises have fanned risks of armed confrontation over the disputed South China Sea. The commentary in China’s Liberation Army Daily falls short of a formal government statement, but marks the harshest high-level warning yet from Beijing about tensions with the Philippines [...]
KABUL: Afghan president Hamid Karzai said on Monday that a coordinated Taliban attack showed a “failure” by Afghan intelligence and especially by Nato, as heavy street fighting between insurgents and security forces came to an end after 18 hours. Battles which broke out at midday on Sunday gripped the city’s central districts through the night, [...]
Taliban insurgents launch multiple attacks on Afghan cities. Ben Farmer reports from the ground in Kabul on a day of turmoil for the war-wrecked nation. When Mohammad Zakir saw several Kalashnikov-toting men leap from an expensive-looking car in Kabul’s diplomatic enclave, he assumed it was just another Afghan powerbroker’s retinue of bodyguards.Seconds later the car [...]
