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Pressure on Assad as envoy defects, West eyes sanctions

Pressure mounted on the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, on Thursday after a senior diplomat defected and Western powers drew up a 10-day sanctions ultimatum. Syria’s ambassador to Iraq, Nawaf Fares... Full story

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50,000 flee as record rain in Japan kills 10

At least 10 people died, 20 were missing and 50,000 were ordered to evacuate as the heaviest rainfall on record pounded the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu, officials and reports said Thursday. Emergency workers in Kumamoto prefecture... Full story

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ASEAN struggles for unity over South China Sea

ASEAN leaders struggled Thursday to hammer out a final communique at a gathering in Cambodia due to splits over their views on China, officials said, admitting that tempers had at times flared. Full story

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Sri Lanka to regulate news web sites amid crackdown

Sri Lanka on Thursday announced new regulations to control websites, defying international criticism of a recent crackdown on opposition news portals. Media minister Keheliya Rambukwella said the government was amending the 1973 Press... Full story

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World’s largest refugee camp in Kenya faces funding crisis

Aid agencies warned Thursday that a critical shortage of funds was threatening lives in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp complex, the world’s largest, risking worsening an already volatile security situation. Full story

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Israel poisoned Arafat with polonium: nephew

Israel poisoned the late Yasser Arafat with the lethal radioactive substance polonium, a nephew of the veteran Palestinian leader alleged on Thursday. But Israel denied the accusation, saying it was... Full story

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‘Pak willing to resolve bilateral disputes with India’

Pakistan on Thursday said it is willing to go by the agreement that it had in the past with India to resolve some of the disputes like Sir Creek and Siachen. ‘If you look at may be some of the disputes that we have. Full story

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Nine cops killed in Lahore

Gunmen Thursday shot dead nine Pakistani police prison staff as they slept, the second attack on security forces in the country’s political heartland since Islamabad reopened a NATO supply corridor. Full story

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Abductors kill 7 coal miners in Pakistan

The police on Thursday found the bodies of seven coal miners who were kidnapped last week in Pakistan’s insurgency-torn southwestern province of Baluchistan, officials said. Full story

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Chinese media slams Hillary’s democracy comments

China’s top newspaper slammed the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, on Thursday for comments she made lauding democracy and implicitly criticising restrictions in China, saying those Asian countries that... Full story

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Myanmar moots camps or deportation for Rohingyas

Myanmar’s president Thursday told the UN that refugee camps or deportation was the ‘solution’ for nearly a million Rohingya Muslims in the wake of communal unrest in the west of the country. Full story

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Myanmar moots camps or deportation for Rohingyas

Myanmar’s president Thursday told the UN that refugee camps or deportation was the ‘solution’ for nearly a million Rohingya Muslims in the wake of communal unrest in the west of the country. Full story

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BBC World Service bids farewell to Bush House

The BBC World Service transmitted its final bulletin from Bush House in London on Thursday, ending 71 years of radio broadcasts from the building that kept millions informed across the globe. Full story

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Romney, Obama clash over Chavez threat

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday clashed with the president, Barack Obama, over how serious a security threat Iranian ally Venezuela poses to the United States. Full story

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West ‘vaccinated‘ Iran against sanctions: Khamenei

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday dismissed harsher sanctions imposed on Iran this month over its disputed nuclear activity, saying the country was ‘100 times stronger’ than before. Full story

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Ukraine postpones Tymoshenko appeal

Ukraine’s high court on Wednesday postponed the appeal of jailed ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko against her seven-year sentence for abuse of power for a third time on request of the prosecution. Full story

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Nine dead after Alps avalanche sweeps over foreigners

An avalanche swept over a group of foreign climbers in the French Alps on Thursday, killing at least nine people in the deadliest such disaster in the region in a decade. Most of the dead found after the early morning avalanche... Full story

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Astronomers spot first evidence of dark galaxies

Astronomers in Chile using a powerful telescope have observed what appears to be evidence of the existence of dark galaxies, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced Wednesday. Full story

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