Bangladesh’s finance minister has downplayed the impact of the factory-building collapse on his country’s garment industry, saying he didn’t think it was “really serious” hours after the 500th body was pulled from the debris.

More than 500 bodies have been recovered from the Bangladesh building that collapsed last week, authorities said today after an engineer was arrested in connection with the disaster.

A Bangladesh court has ordered the government to confiscate the property of the owner of the collapsed garment factory building in which nearly 400 people died.

Police have been given 15 days to interrogate the owner of a Bangladesh building that collapsed last week, killing at least 384 people.

Rescue workers in Bangladesh have given up hope of finding any more survivors in the rubble of a building that collapsed five days ago and began using heavy machinery to remove the rubble and look for bodies, an official said.

The fugitive owner of an illegally constructed building that collapsed in Bangladesh in a deadly heap last week was captured at a border crossing with India by members of a commando force.

Police in Bangladesh arrested two owners of a garment factory in a shoddily-constructed building that collapsed this week, killing at least 324 people, as protests spread to a second city today with hundreds of people throwing stones and setting fire to vehicles.

Survivors from a garment factory that collapsed in Bangladesh killing at least 260 people described a deafening bang and tremors before the eight-floor building crashed down under them.

Hours before Saddam Hussein’s execution, the ousted Iraqi leader asked his lawyers not to appeal for his life and accused the United States and Iran of collaborating to hang him, according to a copy of his will.

A court in Pakistan today decided to delay the implementation of an earlier ruling that ordered a 12-year-old Scottish girl at the centre of a custody battle be returned to her Scottish mother, lawyers for the girl’s estranged parents said.

A court in Pakistan today ordered the father of a British girl at the centre of a custody battle to surrender her passport.

Nepal’s royal government pledged today to hold municipal elections next month despite a boycott by major parties, disruptive demonstrations, the assassination of a candidate and rebel violence that left 26 dead over the weekend.

Indonesia has launched a massive vaccination campaign expected to reach more than five million children after detecting its first case of polio in a decade.

Nepal’s finance minister has said the suspension of foreign aid will fuel terrorism in the insurgency-wracked nation.

A SPECIAL fund to help some of the tens of thousands of children affected by the earthquake and tsunami was established in the North yesterday by the Honorary Indian Consul to the province.

A special fund to help some of the tens of thousands of children affected by the Asian earthquake and tsunami was established in Northern Ireland today by the Honorary Indian Consul.

The interrogation of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has stopped until he appoints lawyers, the director of the Iraqi Special Tribunal said.

Saddam Hussein’s eldest daughter wants to return home from her Jordanian exile, saying her life has been full of emotional suffering.

A letter from Saddam Hussein has been delivered to his daughters in Jordan after a US censor cleared it, the Red Cross said today.

SADDAM HUSSEIN’S family wants the former Iraqi leader to be tried by an international court instead of a special tribunal set up by the US-installed Iraqi Governing Council, one of his daughters said yesterday.

Saddam Hussein’s family wants the former Iraqi leader to be tried by an international court instead of a special tribunal set up by the US-installed Iraqi Governing Council, one of his daughters said today.

A glance at the life of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein:

While Saddam Hussein is spearheading what he dubs a holy war against occupying Anglo-American troops in Iraq, two of his daughters and their nine children are leading a low-profile, Western-style life under the protection of King Abdullah.

Saddam Hussein’s daughters have expressed deep affection for their father in interviews, but said they did not know where he was and that they last saw him a week before the Iraqi war started.

Saddam Hussein’s daughters applied for asylum in Germany and the United Arab Emirates as well as in Britain, it was claimed tonight.

Two of Saddam Hussein's daughters are reportedly planning to seek asylum in Britain.

Two of Saddam Hussein’s daughters are to seek asylum in Britain, a relative said in remarks published today.

A top Iraqi nuclear scientist recently spent time in Syria, and Saddam Hussein’s first wife may be there now, US intelligence officials said.

Indian police have arrested the man they say gunned down India's Bandit Queen.

Eyewitnesses of Crown Prince Dipendra’s massacre of his parents and seven other royals during a family dinner told government investigators in Nepal that the prince went on the rampage because of his parents’ opposition to his choice of bride.

Prince Gyanendra took the throne as Nepal’s new king today, hoping to rebuild a monarchy shattered by the massacre of the royal family.