KABUL, Thu Aug 14, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Foreign humanitarian agencies in Afghanistan have restricted staff movements and said on Thursday they are considering suspending operations in some areas after suspected Taliban insurgents killed three women aid workers.

Thu Aug 14,(bdnews24.com/reuters) Trading will never be the same.KATHMANDU Nepali police detained 760 Tibetan exiles in renewed crackdowns against protests outside the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu on Thursday, police and witnesses said.

CALABAR, Nigeria, Thu Aug 14, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Nigeria relinquished control of the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to its neighbor Cameroon on Thursday despite fears the handover will provoke attacks from local armed groups who oppose it.

HARARE,Thu Aug 14, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Thursday power-sharing talks with President Robert Mugabe's government will resume.

NOUAKCHOTT, Thu Aug 14, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Mauritania's new ruling military junta named Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf, a former ambassador to Belgium, as prime minister on Thursday, state news agency AMI said.

TBILISI, Thu Aug 14, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Georgia's parliament voted on Thursday to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a Russian-led grouping of ex-Soviet states, after accusing Moscow of starting a war over separatist South Ossetia. 

HARARE, Thu Aug 14, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Zimbabwe authorities confiscated the passports of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and other MDC officials at Harare airport, the party said on Thursday.

DAMASCUS, Thu Aug 14, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Syria and Lebanon agreed on Thursday to resume work towards formally demarcating their borders but Damascus said the boundaries of the disputed Shebaa Farms would not be drawn until Israel withdrew from them.

NEW DELHI,Thu Aug 14,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - A land row in Kashmir may have achieved what years of militant violence largely failed to do -- fuse Muslim separatist sentiment into mass protests that seriously challenge Indian rule and South Asia's stability.

SRINAGAR, India, Thu Aug 14,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Protesters shouting "we want freedom" took to the streets of Kashmir on Thursday as a land dispute between Muslims and Hindus boiled into a litmus test of New Delhi's hold on the troubled Himalayan region.

VIENNA, Thu Aug 14, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The United States has proposed to waive restrictions on critical nuclear trade with India in a draft circulated among member nations of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and published by an arms control advocacy group.

BEIJING, Aug 14 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Asia's greatest swimmer Kosuke Kitajima stole the spotlight from Michael Phelps on Thursday with an unprecedented double-double in the Olympics breaststroke.

BEIJING, Aug 14 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Gymnast Yang Wei wiped away eight years of frustration to become only the second Chinese man to capture the all-around title at the Olympics on Thursday.

BEIJING, Aug 14 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Frenchman Alain Bernard completed his remarkable rise from obscurity when he took the Beijing Olympics 100 metres freestyle gold medal on Thursday, overcoming nerves that left his legs shaking on the starting blocks.

BEIJING, Aug 14 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - World 10,000-metre champion Tirunesh Dibaba says she expects to run both the 10,000 and 5,000m events in Beijing, hoping to become the first woman to scoop the Olympic distance double.

BEIJING, Aug 14 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Veronique Girardet of France overcame more than rain in Thursday's Olympic skeet shooting.

BEIJING, Aug 14 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - United States prodigy Freddy Adu, a player forced to live with the huge expectations created for him in his early teens, sparkled for two soccer games at the Olympics but left before he could make a real impact

Fallout of crop losses

Staff Correspondent

The trade deficit almost doubled to over $6 billion last fiscal year from $3.45 billion in the fiscal year 2006-07 on rising food imports driven by crop losses, according to Bangladesh Bank.

Ill-gotten wealth

Staff Correspondent

Former ministers Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, Chittagong mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury and AL leader Obaidul Quader secured bail from the High Court on Thursday.

Illegal VoIP business

Staff Correspondent

BTRC has fined Grameenphone Tk 250 crore for illegal VoIP business, the second time the country's largest mobile phone operator has been penalised for such rogue activities, the telecom regulators announced Thursday.