JERUSALEM - Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in Jerusalem on Sunday as a massive blaze tore through a forest near a hospital on the outskirts of the Holy City, police said.Scores of fire engines rushed to the scene of the blaze which broke out in woodlands near the

SYDNEY: Australia`s opposition leader Tony Abbott Sunday vowed to slash the nation`s migrant intake if elected prime minister, but said he wanted citizens to have more babies to boost the birth rate.Abbott, who is standing against the country`s first woman leader, Labor Prime Minister

JERUSALEM: Gaza-based militants fired four rockets into southern Israel over the weekend, a military spokesman said on Sunday.None of them caused any casualties or damage, the spokesman said, adding that since the start of the year around 90 rockets or mortar rounds had been fired into

BAGHDAD:  Authorities have arrested three suspected senior leaders of Al-Qaeda`s front group in Iraq, including its self-styled minister of defence, a spokesman said on Sunday.Also among the group detained were two brothers suspected of masterminding major attacks in the central Iraqi

MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin revealed he met and even sang patriotic Soviet songs with the group of Russian spies deported from the United States in the biggest espionage swap since the Cold War.Putin, who himself served as a KGB agent in the ex-East Germany in the dying years

PESHAWAR: Suspected Taliban in northwest Pakistan on Saturday shot dead the only son of a provincial minister well known for speaking out against the militants, police said.Mian Rashid Hussain, 28, was on his way home with a friend in Nowshera district, 25 kilometres (15 miles) east of

BRUSSELS: The European Union will hit Iran with tough sanctions against its vital oil and gas industry on Monday in a bid to lure Tehran back to the negotiating table over its disputed nuclear programme.EU foreign ministers will formally approve the sanctions following Iran`s repeated

WASHINGTON: With concern mounting about the direction of Afghanistan, the United States and its allies are stepping up efforts to lay the political groundwork to begin pulling out troops next year.In the past week, a major conference in Kabul endorsed a 2014 target for Afghans to take

SEOUL: The US and South Korea on Sunday began a major naval exercise in the Sea of Japan, a report said, a move which has sparked warnings of nuclear retaliation from North Korea.The drill is the first in a series intended "to send a clear message to North Korea that its aggressive

DUISBURG: Authorities were searching for clues Sunday as to what touched off a sudden stampede at the Love Parade dance party in Duisburg, western Germany that killed at least 18 people.Around 15 others were seriously hurt and dozens more sustained lighter injuries as a crush occurred in

KABUL - Afghan insurgents captured two U.S. soldiers and are holding them in southern Logar province, a Taliban official said on Saturday.The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had no official comment, but a Reuters correspondent in Logar heard local radio broadcast

MOSCOW - Russia`s top naval commander Saturday insisted its purchase of French warships would only go ahead if there were a transfer of technology, warning that otherwise there was "no point" in the deal.The comments by Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky come a day after French President Nicolas

KOLKATA - A farmer died and at least 12 other people were injured on Saturday when a Soviet-era MiG-27 Indian war plane crashed into a village in eastern India, police said.The pilot ejected before the crash in Moinagudi village, some 600 kilometres (370 miles) north of the West Bengal

SRINAGAR: At least 25 people were killed in Indian Kashmir when an overcrowded minibus skidded off a mountain road and plunged into a fast-flowing river, police said Saturday.The accident occurred late Friday in Kishtiwar district, south of the summer capital Srinagar."Twenty-five people

KABUL - Taliban-style bomb attacks killed five US soldiers in Afghanistan Saturday, NATO said, as the death toll of foreign soldiers in the nine-year Afghan war climbed towards the 2,000 mark.NATO`s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the five had died in two separate

PESHAWAR: A US drone Saturday fired four missiles into a compound used by Islamist fighters in Pakistan`s northwestern tribal belt, killing at least 11 militants, security officials said.The missiles targeted the compound in Dwasarak village, about 40 kilometres west of Wana, the main

NEW DELHI: Myanmar`s military ruler Than Shwe arrives in India Sunday for a state visit that underscores the growing strategic ties between the world`s largest democracy and one of its most repressive regimes.The red-carpet reception planned for Shwe, who rarely travels abroad, has been

WASHINGTON: The United States said Friday it has upgraded the protocol for the Palestinian mission in Washington in a symbolic show of confidence in president Mahmud Abbas.President Barack Obama`s administration will allow the mission to call itself the "General Delegation of the

MOSCOW: Two separate attacks left three Russian soldiers and a village official dead on Friday in the North Caucasus region of Dagestan, neighbouring Chechnya, the Interfax news agency reported.In the first incident, unknown gunmen opened fire on soldiers belonging to a motorcycle unit in

WASHINGTON: Two US lawmakers -- a Republican and a Democrat -- proposed a bill this week demanding the withdrawal of all US troops in Pakistan, where they are conducting covert operations against militants."We have known that US forces have been operating in secret inside the territories