NICOSIA: Cyprus police have launched an intensive hunt across the Mediterranean island for a key suspect in the Russia-US spy scandal after the alleged Kremlin paymaster jumped bail, a spokesman said Thursday. US ambassador to Cyprus Frank Urbancic, meanwhile, was meeting President

KABUL: NATO forces in Afghanistan said Thursday they had killed at least 31 Taliban fighters and captured a rebel chieftain after a raid on an insurgent hideout in the southern province of Helmand. Troops called in air support during running gunbattles in the province`s troubled Baghran

TEHRAN: Iran has written to the 15 members of the UN Security Council insisting that new sanctions slapped on the Islamic republic will not affect its nuclear programme, the state news agency said on Thursday. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in the letters Iran "considers that

NARATHIWAT - An 18-year-old Indonesian religious student was stabbed to death at a mosque in the restive Thai south on Thursday, police said.The victim was knifed seven times while he slept in the mosque in Sungai Kolok, a border town in Narathiwat province. Six other students were

SEOUL - A South Korean court on Thursday passed 10-year prison sentences on two North Korean agents who posed as fugitives from the communist state in a bid to assassinate a top-ranking defector."The defendants admit all the charges, and testimony from other defectors and former agents

SYDNEY - An Indian-born surgeon dubbed "Doctor Death" was jailed for seven years in Australia on Thursday for the manslaughter of three patients and for injuring another with needless and botched operations.Jayant Patel, 60, was facing a maximum life sentence after a Supreme Court jury

ANKARA - Turkey`s Foreign Minister and an Israeli cabinet minister met secretly in Brussels to discuss ways of overcoming the deep crisis in bilateral ties, a Turkish official said Thursday. The meeting between Ahmet Davutoglu and Israeli Trade Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer "took place

KOLKATA : Suchitra Sen, the super heroin of the Bengali filmdom, has been admitted to the Bellevue Hospital in a critical condition. Clinic sources said the legendary film star, whose films ran through 1960s and 1970s, was admitted to the hospital eight days ago with critical lungs

SYDNEY - An Australian fisherman got the fright of his life when a three-metre (10-foot) saltwater crocodile jumped from the water and locked its jaws on his net.Joel Pezzutti was casting for bait in a tidal drain in the northern city of Cairns when the croc leapt for his net and

HONG KONG: Hong Kong researchers have discovered a new way to treat patients suffering from swine flu, a report said Thursday, after the deadly virus killed more than 18,000 people worldwide in the past year.A joint study by the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Red Cross and the city`s

MIAMI: Hurricane Alex, the first of the 2010 Atlantic season, roared ashore in northeastern Mexico late Wednesday south of the US border, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.The large cyclone gained strength throughout the day as it churned across the Gulf of Mexico, where oil

FOSHAN: Kuang Xiaohua, 21, quit her job on the assembly line for Taiwanese high-tech giant Foxconn to give birth to her daughter. Six months on, she and her family are struggling to make ends meet.Her husband, who also works at Foxconn`s facility in the southern city of Foshan, makes just

WASHINGTON– General David Petraeus, who saved a failing US mission in Iraq, now will try to rescue the faltering war in Afghanistan, after the US Senate confirmed him as the new commander of the allied war effort there.Senate approval Wednesday came just one week after President Barack

ABU DHABI - An Abu Dhabi court on Wednesday sentenced two Chinese Uighurs to 10 years in prison after they were convicted of plotting to attack a Dubai-based Chinese shopping mall` a local newspaper reported."The two Chinese Uighurs accused of plotting to attack the Dragon Mart in Dubai

MOSCOW - Russia`s foreign ministry said Wednesday it expected that a scandal sparked by the arrest of suspected spies would not hurt improving US-Russia ties, a day after slamming the allegations as "groundless.""We expect that the incident connected to the arrest in the United States of

MOSCOW: A major fire broke out Wednesday in Moscow at a building belonging to Russian missile manufacturer Almaz, the maker of air defence weapons including the S-300 missile system, officials said. The fire at the company`s design bureau had spread over an area measuring 800 square

SINGAPORE - Social media such as Facecbook and Twitter or blogging sites have become powerful tools that influence what people buy, online researcher Nielsen said Wednesday, urging business to embrace the trend.Nearly three in four people worldwide who use the Internet have visited a

KOLKATA:  At least 26 CRPF troops were killed and 15 wounded in an attack by Maoists in Chhattisgarh state of India Wednesday--one of the deadliest strikes by the communist rebels in recent times.   Administration officials said a squad of Maoist guerrillas ambushed 70 CRPF troops in

KOLKATA: CPM leader and a former lawmaker of Rajya Sabha Ananda Das was shot dead allegedly by Trinamool activists at Bolpur Block in Birbhum district of West Bengal on Tuesday night, stoking up tensions between the state’s ruling party and its inveterate opposition rival. To protest

MEXICO CITY - A strong magnitude 6.5 quake centered in the southern state of Oaxaca shook Mexico early Wednesday, the US earthquake monitoring service and Mexican seismologists reported. The quake, which struck at 2:22 am (0722 GMT), was powerful enough to shake buildings in Mexico City,