Dubai, (IANS) The UAE emirate of Dubai plans to build its own Taj Mahal at a cost of $1 billion. Taj Arabia will be about four times the size of the original monument in India, the Gulf News quoted the developers as saying last week. The billion dollar project, which is expected to be ready [...]

Washington, (IANS) The morning after the high stakes debate between US Vice President Joe Biden and Republican Paul Ryan, there was no consensus on who emerged the winner, but it did set the tone for their principals’ second encounter. Reports agreed that the sole vice presidential debate of the 2012 campaign in Danville, Kentucky, was [...]

Cairo, (IANS) Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has ousted Prosecutor General Abdel-Maguid Mahmoud, the state TV reported Thursday. Ahmed Abdel Atty, chief of the presidential office, said Morsi’s decision to sack the general prosecutor was taken in the interest of the country, although the prosecutor did not participate in the investigations into the “camel battle” case, [...]

Islamabad, (IANS) Child peace campaigner Malala Yousufzai, who was shot at by the Taliban, will not be sent abroad for treatment, said Interior Minister Rehman Malik. He added that her attackers have been identified. Malik said he was satisfied with her treatment by Pakistani doctors, reported Geo News from Peshawar. The interior minister said Malala’s [...]

Moscow, (IANS/RIA Novosti) Russia has warned over the use of force against Tehran which could spell the end of the negotiating process on Iranian nuclear programme. “Time and again we hear threats that if there is no progress on Iran’s nuclear programme only one option will remain – the use of force. We hope that [...]

Moscow, (IANS/RIA Novosti) Table-waiting has joined the list of potentially fatal jobs in Russia after a drunken cafe patron in Moscow region killed a steward with a single blow by his beer mug, police reported. The waiter, a Bosnia and Herzegovina citizen whose name was withheld, remained hospitalised for six days before dying of his [...]

Mexico City, (IANS/EFE) Mexican archaeologists discovered the tomb of a person who may have led a region in what is now the southern state of Oaxaca approximately 1,300 years ago, said authorities. In the Copalita main temple site, experts detected a tomb made of stone blocks and measuring 1.8 meters tall and one meter wide [...]

Moscow, (IANS/RIA Novosti) A mushroom picker in Russia’s Sverdlovsk region made a hazardous haul when he scooped up 17 hand grenades in a nearby forest. The man found the grenades in a plastic bag near the Gorbunovo village. He “carefully hid them so no one, particularly children, could find them. Then he brought the arsenal [...]

Islamabad, (IANS) A bullet that pierced the head of child peace campaigner Malala Yousufzai, who was shot at by the Taliban, was removed in the early hours of Wednesday, a media report said. The bullet was taken out by the doctors in Peshawar Wednesday morning, but she was still unconscious, Geo New reported. Mumtaz, surgeon [...]

New Delhi, (IANS) In a triumph of soft power over the vagaries of diplomacy, around 100 young Bangladeshis are currently visiting India to build bridges of understanding between the two neighbours, whose ties have been dramatically transformed over the last two years, but still remain mired in perception-deficit. It’s a motley lot: young entrepreneurs, doctors, [...]