ANKARA: The presidents of Turkey, Russia and Iran will meet for a three-way summit on Syria in Istanbul on April 4, the Turkish foreign ministry said yesterday, reports AFP. The meeting will be hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and will be the second such tripartite summit following one in November…

London: Rwanda has banned mosques in the capital, Kigali, from using loudspeakers during the call to prayer, reports BBC. They say the calls, made five times a day, have been disturbing residents of the Nyarugenge district, home to the capital’s biggest mosques. But an official from a Muslim association…

London: The leaders of France, Germany, the US and UK have issued a joint statement on the nerve agent attack in the UK, saying Russian responsibility was the “only plausible explanation”, reports BBC. It condemned the “first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second…

KABUL: An Afghan man taken hostage by the Taliban made a dramatic escape by stealing a gun while his captors were praying and shooting dead seven of them and wounding 18 others, officials said yesterday, reports AFP. Awal Khan and a local police officer were kidnapped Wednesday as they were driving…

BEIJING: Self-driving cars will hit the roads in China “within three to five years”, the founder of Chinese internet giant Baidu, one of the…

MANAMA: The Iranian military’s behaviour in the Gulf has changed “across the board” in recent months, the US Navy said yesterday, after…

JAKARTA: Indonesians could be jailed for criticising national politicians under a new law which came into force yesterday, in what critics slammed as a major step back for the world’s third-biggest democracy, reports AFP. The vaguely worded bill passed the 560-member house last month but has just…