Afghan security officials are increasingly employing torture to extract confessions from alleged insurgents, including children, according to a UN report issued yesterday that urged Kabul to bring more perpetrators to justice.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has underlined the need for building a combat-ready army and accelerate the building of the theatre joint combat command system, amidst the PLA flexing its muscles in the disputed South China Sea.

Less than two weeks after United Airlines prompted a public relations crisis for dragging a passenger from his seat on an overbooked flight, rival American Airlines is being buffeted by its own controversy.

Iran will air live debates on state television ahead of May's presidential election, the interior ministry said yesterday, reversing a decision to show recorded versions that had triggered an outcry.

Eight more people, including a third brother, succumbed to their injuries in the last 24 hours following a boiler explosion at a rice mill in Dinajpur sadar upazila on the night of April 19, bringing the death toll to 12.

Seven Yemeni soldiers were killed and 15 others wounded Sunday when a shipment of landmines accidentally exploded in the southern port city of Aden, emergency and health officials said.

A prominent Maldivian blogger, who was critical of Islamist extremism and government corruption, was stabbed to death yesterday, police said, and the main opposition party demanded an international probe into the killing.

The holy Shab-e-Meraj will be observed tonight across the country with due respect and religious fervour.

Reiterating Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment over Teesta water- sharing deal with Bangladesh, its Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday said the issue would be resolved very soon.

An unidentified man was beaten to death in a bar in the capital's Shahbagh in the early hours today.

Freedom fighter Mozaffar Ahmed, 63, from Fulunir Char village in Kauarkhop union of Ramu upazila in Cox's Bazar, who at the age of 16 took up arms to fight in the 1971 Liberation War, has since been engaged in a new battle.

A man in Pakistan's Punjab province has been surviving on fresh leaves and wood for the last 25 years and has never fallen ill.

Rangamati police yesterday started investigating the death of Romel Chakma, an indigenous college student who was picked up by the army on April 5.

French voters flocked to the polls under heavy security yesterday in the first round of a highly unpredictable presidential election seen as vital for the future of the ailing European Union.

North Korea said yesterday it was ready to sink a US aircraft carrier to demonstrate its military might, as two Japanese navy ships joined a US carrier group for exercises in the western Pacific.

Raudha Athif's father demands “logical and scientific explanation”forhis daughter's death as the Criminal Investigation Department is set to exhume her body for a second autopsy today, 27 days after she was found dead.

Police yesterday filed a case against 10 persons, two of whom have been named, on charge of setting up a militant den in Jhenidah's Porahati village, busted by law enforcers on Friday evening, and gathering explosives.

Death of an indigenous HSC student on Wednesday has caused confusion and sparked protests in the hill tracts and in the capital.

Anyone dealing with India's overburdened legal system knows that the wheels of justice move slowly.

Today is the 19th death anniversary of Shazneen Tasnim Rahman.