An Egyptian court sentenced 12 supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to 17 years in prison on Wednesday for taking part in a violent student-led protest, state media reported. The official MENA news agency reported that the protesters were convicted of attacking the headquart

HANOI (AFP): Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in Vietnam early Monday, meteorologists said, days after it left thousands feared dead and widespread devastation in the Philippines. The US Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) said in an update at 2100 GMT the storm "is currently making landfall" approxi

TACLOBAN, Philippines: One of the strongest typhoons ever to make landfall devastated the central Philippines, killing more than 1,000 people in one city alone and 200 in another province, the Red Cross estimated on Saturday, as reports of high casualties began to emerge.A day after Typhoon Haiyan

MANILA: One of the most intense typhoons ever recorded tore into the Philippines on Friday, triggering flash floods and ripping down buildings as millions of people huddled indoors. Super Typhoon Haiyan smashed into the central island of Samar, about 600 kilometres southeast of Manila, at 4.4

When an asteroid exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February, shattering windows for miles and injuring more than 1,000 people, experts said it was a rare event - of a magnitude that might occur only once every 100 to 200 years, on average. But now a team of scientists is sugges

Ankara (IINA) – Four female lawmakers from Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government attended a parliament session on Thursday wearing headscarves, for the first time in 14 years. In 1999, Turkish American lawmaker Merve Kavakci arrived in parliament wearing a headscarf for her swearing-in ceremony.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="360"] File photo of Edward Snowden at a press conference (NYT)[/caption] Berlin: Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who was granted asylum by Russia, has appealed to Washington to stop treating him like a traitor for revealing

PESHAWAR/KARACHI: Hakimullah Mehsud, the chief of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), was killed in a US drone strike in North Waziristan tribal agency on Friday, intelligence officials and Pakistani Taliban said. Intelligence officials said the Pakistani Taliban supremo was leaving from a m

Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif has told President Obama the US should halt drone strikes in Pakistan, a critical source of tension in the relationship. The two leaders held wide-ranging talks at the White House on Wednesday, pledging to strengthen the often-strained ties between the nations. The le

Cairo: At least 51 people were killed in clashes in Egyptian cities on Sunday, security sources said, after opponents and supporters of deposed president Mohamad Morsi took to the streets in one of the bloodiest days since the army seized power. In a sign of more possible violence to come, an

Washington: President Barack Obama on Wednesday scaled down a long-planned trip to Asia, as a US government shutdown entered a second day with no end in sight to the funding row in Congress that triggered it. Obama is expected to leave on Saturday for summit meetings in Indonesia and Brunei.

Singapore: Singapore, with a little less land mass than New York City, is running out of room for its 5.4 million people. The city-state has built upward - with apartment buildings reaching as high as 70 stories - reclaimed underused properties for housing and pushed out coastlines for more u

A major earthquake hit a remote part of western Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 45 people and prompting a new island to rise from the sea just off the country's southern coast. The earthquake was so powerful that it caused the seabed to rise and create a small, mountain-like island about 60

A U.N. report released Monday confirmed that a deadly chemical arms attack caused a mass killing in Syria last month and for the first time provided extensive forensic details of the weapons used, which strongly implicated the Syrian government. While the report's authors did not assign blame

Washington: NASA has joined the world of Instagram - and has already attracted an incredible 56,374 followers within hours of posting its first pictures on the social media site. The US space agency posted two images for its debut. One of the images was a detailed picture of the Moon and its

Moscow/ Washington: In a dramatic turn of events, Syria today agreed to a Russian proposal to surrender its chemical weapons to "uproot US aggression", hours after President Barack Obama said he would "absolutely" put on hold any military strike on the country if it does so. Pouncing on a cas

The Pentagon is readying more intense and longer attack on Syria than originally planned, set to last three days, the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday. War planners now aim to unleash a heavy barrage of missile strikes to be followed swiftly by additional attacks on targets that may have

JERUSALEM (AFP): Israel's housing minister has given final approval to construct more than 1,000 apartments in Jewish settlements, just three days before Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are to resume in Jerusalem. Sunday's announcement said the new homes would be built in settlements in the W