Briefly World: Assad govt declares Damascus victory

Soft drink in Ramzan: Pak men assaulted

ISLAMABAD: Two men were assaulted by the police for having a soft drink during Ramzan. The two — Anwar Abbas and Malik Saeed — were detained while they were having a soft drink inside a car at Daman-e-Koh,near Islamabad,on Friday,the Dawn newspaper reported.

Iran slashing birth control programmes

TEHRAN: Authorities here are slashing birth-control programmes. The changes,announced last week,came after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described contraceptive services as “wrong.’’

US dad shoots daughter,kills self

MASSACHUSETTS: Daryl Benway,41,who recently split from his wife shot his two children,killing his 7-year-old daughter,before committing suicide,prosecutors said Sunday. His 9-year-old son was in serious condition.

Oxford to allow men to wear skirts

London: To please its transgender student community,Oxford University introduced a new dress code which allows men to wear skirts or stockings on formal occasions while women can wear suits. The university dropped a distinction between the sexes by deleting references to men and women.

Romney backs Israel strike on Iran

US presidential candidate Mitt Romney,who arrived in Israel on Sunday,said he would “respect’’ a unilateral Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear programme.

on Jerusalem: He declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state.

100 days left: With a 100 days to go to the US elections,polls show a deelpy divisive battle. “I think this is going to be a very close race,” Robert Gibbs,top Obama Campaign adviser,told the ABC news.

US,Pak officials spar over terror havens

NEW YORK: Two top officials from US and Pakistan were involved in a war of words on Sunday and accused each other of not doing enough to combat Taliban terror sanctuaries in the Af-Pak region,The New York Times reported. During a conference in Colorado,Pakistan’s ambassador to the US,Sherry Rehman said Pakistani Taliban fighters,who had taken refuge in Afghanistan,were carrying out raids against her country. US President Barack Obama’s top adviser on the Af-Pak region Douglas Lute retorted,“There’s no comparison of the Pakistani Taliban’s recent,small-in-scale presence in Afghanistan to the decades-long experience between elements of the Pakistani government and Afghan Taliban.”