Asia

Grenades at Afghan mosque, bicycle bomb injure 23 

Afghan locals inspect the site of an bomb explosion in Herat on August 15, 2012.

KABUL: Nearly two dozen Afghan civilians were wounded on Wednesday when two grenades exploded inside a mosque compound and a bicycle bomb blew up in a city market, officials said...Read Remaining News... 

Deadly twin earthquakes strike Iran, kill 180 and injure 1,500 

Two Earthquakes in Iran

(Reuters) - Two powerful earthquakes killed 180 people and injured about 1,500 in northwest Iran where rescuers frantically combed the rubble of dozens of villages through the night into Sunday...Read Remaining News...

Electricity grids fail across half of India

An Indian barber holding a candle, has a haircut for a customer at his shop in Kolkata, India, Tuesday, July 31, 2012.

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Electric crematoria were snuffed out with bodies inside, New Delhi's Metro shut down and hundreds of coal miners were trapped underground after three Indian electric grids collapsed in a cascade Tuesday, cutting power to 620 million people in the world's biggest blackout...Read Remaining News...

Japan pro-bomb voices grow louder amid nuclear debate 

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 1945 file photo released by the U.S. Army, a mushroom cloud billows about one hour after a nuclear bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, Japan.

TOKYO (AP) -- A contentious debate over nuclear power in Japan is also bringing another question out of the shadows: Should Japan keep open the possibility of making nuclear weapons - even if only as an option...Read Remaining News...

Japan floods: 250,000 people ordered to leave homes

TV footage showed water sweeping through streets after rivers burst their banks 

About 250,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes to avoid floods caused by torrential rainfall in south-west Japan, officials say...Read Remaining News...

First NATO trucks cross Pakistan border 

A driver washes his face near a truck carrying NATO supplies at the Pakistani-Afghan border, in Chaman, Pakistan, Thursday, July 5, 2012

CHAMAN, Pakistan (AP) -- The first trucks carrying supplies to American and NATO troops in Afghanistan crossed the Pakistani border Thursday after a seven-month closure of the supply routes ended earlier this week...Read Remaining News...

Hong Kong marks 15 years since Chinese handover 

Hu Jintao offered greetings to the people of Hong Kong

Hong Kong has begun marking the 15th anniversary since its handover from UK to Chinese control...Read Remaining News...
 

Twenty dead in Taliban siege of Afghan hotel 

An Afghan policeman walks at the Spozhmai hotel on the outskirts of Kabul

(Reuters) - Elite Afghan police backed by NATO forces ended a 12-hour siege on Friday at a popular lakeside hotel outside Kabul, leaving at least 20 dead after Taliban gunmen stormed the lakeside building, bursting into a party and seizing dozens of hostages...Read Remaining News...

China sends first woman into space

Shenzhou 9 spacecraft rocket launches from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China, Saturday, June 16, 2012.

JIUQUAN, China (AP) -- China launched its most ambitious space mission yet on Saturday, carrying its first female astronaut and two male colleagues in an attempt to dock with an orbiting module and work on board for more than a week...Read Remaining News...

Saudi News: Crown Prince Nayef has died

Saudi Arabia said Saturday, June 16, 2012 that Crown Prince Nayef has died.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Crown Prince Nayef, the hard-line interior minister who spearheaded Saudi Arabia's fierce crackdown crushing al-Qaida's branch in the country after the 9/11 attacks in the United States and then rose to become next in line to the throne, has died. He was in his late 70s...Read Remaining news...

Doctors twice use defibrillator on Egypt's Mubarak

In this Saturday, June 2, 2012 file photo, Egypt's ex-President Hosni Mubarak lays on a gurney inside a barred cage in the police academy courthouse in Cairo, Egypt.

CAIRO (AP) -- Doctors used a defibrillator twice on Hosni Mubarak when they could not find a pulse Monday, the latest health crisis for the ousted Egyptian president since he was sentenced to life and moved to a prison hospital nine days ago, security officials said...Read Remaining News...

Pakistan: Al-Qaida No. 2 at house hit by US drone

A CIA drone strike Monday, June 4, 2012, targeted al-Qaida's second in command, Abu Yahia al-Libi, in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan has evidence that al-Qaida's second-in-command was in a house destroyed by a U.S. drone strike in the country's northwest tribal region, but it is unclear whether he was killed, intelligence officials said Tuesday...Read Remaining News...

11-year-old played dead to survive Syria massacre

11-year-old Ali el-Sayed, a survivor of the Houla massacre that began Friday and left 108 people dead, many of them children and women.

BEIRUT (AP) -- When the gunmen began to slaughter his family, 11-year-old Ali el-Sayed says he fell to the floor of his home, soaking his clothes with his brother's blood to fool the killers into thinking he was already dead...Read Remaining News...

Iran, other Mideast states hit by computer virus

Muslim women at computer lab

LONDON (AP) -- Iran and other Middle East countries have been hit with a cunning computer virus that can eavesdrop on computer users and their co-workers and filch information from nearby cellphones, cybersecurity experts said Tuesday. And suspicion immediately fell on Israel as the culprit...Read Remaining News...

A smoke-free country? New Zealand taxes aim for it

In this Jan. 18, 2012 photo, a smoker puffs on a cigarette in the central business district in Auckland, New Zealand. New Zealand's government on Thursday, May 24, 2012, squeezed smokers more than ever by announcing a 40 percent hike in tobacco taxes over the next four years.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- There are smoke-free bars, smoke-free parks, even smoke-free college campuses. But a smoke-free country?...Read Remaining News...

Syria attack: Dozens of innocent children killed

Covered body of killed children

BEIRUT (AP) -- Gruesome video Saturday showed rows of dead Syrian children lying in a mosque in bloody shorts and T-shirts with gaping head wounds, haunting images of what activists called one of the deadliest regime attacks yet in Syria's 14-month-old uprising...Read Remaining News...

North Korea upgrading rocket launch site

This April 29, 2012 satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe shows what appears to be the initial stages of construction of a rocket assembly building at Musudan-ri in northeastern North Korea.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Satellite imagery shows North Korea is upgrading its old launch site in the secretive country's northeast to handle larger rockets, like space launch vehicles and intercontinental missiles, a U.S. institute claimed Tuesday...Read Remaining News...

Pakistan blocks Twitter over contentious tweets

 Pakistan blocks Twitter

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Pakistan blocked the social networking website Twitter for several hours because it refused to remove tweets considered offensive to Islam, said one of the country's top telecommunications officials...Read Remaining News...

'Black box' found of Russia jet in Indonesia crash

Rescuers prepare a body bag containing the remains of a victim of the crash of Sukhoi Superjet-100 on the peak of Mount Salak, West Java, Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Indonesian special forces have found the voice-and-data recorder of a new Russian passenger jet that slammed into a jagged, mist-shrouded cliff on a dormant volcano, an official said Wednesday...Read Remaining News...

Bodies found at Russian jet wreckage in Indonesia

The wreckage of a missing Sukhoi Superjet-100 are scattered on the mountainside in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia

CIDAHU, Indonesia (AP) -- Rescuers discovered bodies Thursday near the shattered wreckage of a new Russian-made passenger plane that smashed into the steep side of an Indonesian volcano during a flight to impress potential buyers. All 45 people on board were feared dead...Read Remaining News...

China: The world's cleverest country?

Chinese School Students

China's results in international education tests - which have never been published - are "remarkable", says Andreas Schleicher, responsible for the highly-influential Pisa tests...Read Remaining News...

Japan tornado: One dead and many injured in Tsukuba, city northeast of Tokyo

Tornado at Tsukuba, city northeast of Tokyo

TOKYO - A tornado tore through a city northeast of Japan's capital on Sunday, killing one person, injuring dozens of others and destroying scores of houses...Read Remaining News...

Thousands march as Japan shuts off nuclear power

Participants raise banners with a slogan, "Good bye, nuclear power station"

TOKYO (AP) -- Thousands of Japanese marched to celebrate the switching off of the last of their nation's 50 nuclear reactors Saturday, waving banners shaped as giant fish that have become a potent anti-nuclear symbol...Read Remaining News...

Hillary Clinton arrives in Bangladesh today-Saturday on difficult mission

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

DHAKA: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived on Saturday for a difficult mission in Bangladesh where violence and a crackdown on the opposition threaten new instability...Read Remaining News...