At least seven people were killed and thousands left homeless as two fires struck the Philippine capital on Christmas Day, sparking riots as a slum went up in flames, Manila’s fire marshal said today.

Psy hailed his ascent to “Billion Style” on Saturday, after the South Korean rapper’s viral hit became the first video to break a billion views on YouTube, marking a historic milestone on the Internet

Hugh Grant has accepted a “substantial sum” from Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloid publisher over phone-hacking by the News of the World, the British actor’s lawyer said on Friday.

Playboy unveiled a new-look bunny costume on Wednesday for its upcoming Indian club launch, opting for a more demure take on the waitress outfits but keeping the ears, bow-ties and fluffy tails.

Well-armed pirates who stormed and ransacked an oil tanker off Nigeria have kidnapped five Indian crew members, said a statement on Wednesday from the ship’s operators.

At the end of a research trip to an oil field in east Iraq, Ruba Husari took a detour to visit a site she had wanted to see for some time.

Kabul has laid out an ambitious and conten-tious five-step plan that could bring hardline Taliban Islamists into government as efforts to broker peace accelerate ahead of the withdrawal of Western troops.

Washington, Dec. 18: Christians are the world’s biggest religious group, numbering some 2.2 billion people, according to a study released on Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Twelve girls, eight boys. One celebrated her seventh birthday just four days before her death. Dressed in “cute kid stuff”, all 20 died when heavily-armed Adam Lanza, 20, forced his way into their school, Sandy Hook Elem-entary, and shot them and six women in one of the worst US shooting massacres.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is recovering at home after suffering a concussion and plans to stay off work for the next week, a spokesman said Saturday.