Indo-Oman trade rises to $4.5 billion: Anand Sharma

Muscat: The bilateral trade between India and Oman has risen to $4.5 billion, said Commerce & Industry Minister Anand Sharma here.

The 6th Indo-Oman Joint Commission Meeting held in Muscat on Sunday has reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral economic relati

Earthquake hit Christchurch city in New Zealand, no death

The New Zealand government declared a state of emergency after an earthquake hit the country’s second biggest city, Christchurch, on Saturday, snapping power and water lines and damaging roads and buildings.

There has been no report of any immediate casualt

Australia confirm swimming squad for Commonwealth Games

Australia Friday confirmed a strong 52-member swimming squad for the Oct 3-14 Commonwealth Games.

Swimming Australia had earlier announced a 45-member squad for the Oct 3-14 Games but have added seven more to the final list after the country’s good show at

ISS austronauts contacted from ancient Incan city

The ancient Incan civilisation city of Machu Picchu in Peru made history Thursday when a radio contact was established from there with the Intetrnational Space Station (ISS).

The Russian and Peruvian delegations talked with the ISS crew for 10 minutes Thurs

Woman attacked in Australia, cops look for Indian-like men

Police in this Australian city were looking for two men of “Indian or sub-continental appearance” after a woman was molested and assaulted.

The victim, 29, went Aug 21 to the Spencer Hotel in West Melbourne. There she met two men, who the police described a

Jimmy Carter leaves North Korea with freed US man(Aijalon Mahli Gomes)

Former US president Jimmy Carter left North Korea Friday after achieving the release of a US man who had been imprisoned there, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

Carter flew to Pyongyang Wednesday to lobby for the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes

Australian swimmer Ryan Napoleon banned from Commonwealth Games

Australian swimmer Ryan Napoleon was banned from taking part in the Oct 3-14 Commonwealth Games Thursday after he failed a dope test.

World swimming body FINA imposed a three-month ban on Napoleon for unknowingly taking a banned substance called formoterol

Australians vote in cliff-hanger election

Voting began Saturday in a parliamentary election that Australians expect will be decided by a handful of votes in a few marginal seats because the rival parties are evenly split.

Opinion polls give Tony Abbott’s conservatives the chance of an upset victory

60 whales die in New Zealand

About 60 pilot whales died after 73 of them got stranded on a beach in New Zealand Friday.

Fifteen whales were still alive but were in a fairly poor condition, Xinhua said. A spokesman said the Department of Conservation was working out a strategy to save t

Morocco to close 1,250 mosques

The Moroccan government will close 1,256 mosques found to be “unsafe” to avoid the repeat of a minaret collapse that killed 41 people in February this year.

Mohammed VI, the king of Morocco, ordered all the country’s mosques to be examined after a centuries

Quit-smoking drug linked to suicides

Many smokers who take pills to quit the habit have developed suicidal tendency and at least 15 have committed suicide while on medication since 2008, Australian drug-control authority has said.

Hundreds of people have considered killing themselve

Somali pirates pirates hijack ship with Indian crew

Somali pirates have hijacked a Panama-flagged ship in the Gulf of Aden with 23 crew members, including Indians, on board, the European Union naval force said Monday.

The MV Suez, which was travelling in the Internationally Recommended Transit Cor

18 killed in South African retirement home inferno

Johannesburg, Aug 2 (DPA) Eighteen people were killed and 84 left homeless when a fire gutted a retirement home in South Africa, emergency services officials said Monday.

The fire at the home in Nigel, around 50 km east of Johannesburg, broke out

Woman who killed sister over hair straightener found dead

A woman who was jailed after she stabbed her younger sister to death following an argument over a hair straightener and internet access was found dead in her prison cell in this Australian city.

Kathleen Worrall, 22, was found dead at Dillwynia W

South African rhino’s horns to be poisoned to stop poaching

A South African wildlife sanctuary plans to inject the horns of its rhinos with poison to prevent poachers from hunting the animal.

Ed Hern, owner of the Rhino and Lion Reserve near Johannesburg, hopes the measure will deter poachers who have kil

Australian kids are taught humans, dinosaurs coexisted

Primary school students in Australia are being taught that humans and dinosaurs lived together and that there is fossil evidence to prove this, even as experts term the lessons a creation of Christian fundamentalists.

Critics are calling for the

Australian teacher avoids jail due to cancer

A teacher at a school for deaf in Melbourne who allegedly made students expose themselves in class has avoided prison because he has cancer.

The unnamed man, 55, asked students to expose their genitalia in class in the 1970s, the Victorian county

Woman charged with sending daughter to work in brothel

A woman has been charged with sending her 16-year-old daughter to work as a prostitute at a brothel in this Australian city. The school-going teenager ended up providing services to over 18 clients in 13 hours.

The teenager was taken by her mothe

Australian couple found guilty of child cruelty

An Australian couple who left their three children in soiled nappies and raised them in a filthy house have been found guilty of child cruelty.

The man, 25, and the woman, 23, both unnamed, avoided a conviction with the court which gave them an 1

Nuclear energy training for UAE students

Abu Dhabi, July 26 (IANS/WAM) Seeking to help them qualify for joining nuclear plants that will start operating in the Gulf by 2017, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has sent a group of students on a trip to South Korea to undergo training on nuclear energy. Read Full Story