6.0 magnitude earthquake struck China’s Sichuan province
An earthquake of magnitude 6.0 stuck western Chinese provinces of Sichuan & Gansu on Tuesday. There were no immediate reports of any causalities or damage.
The epicentre of this earthquake was about 1,253 km from southwest of Beijing. The Olympic torch was paraded in the capital of earthquake-hit Sichuan province on Tuesday on its journey to Beijing, where the Games will open on Friday.
Tornado killed 3 in northern France
At least three people have been killed in a tornado that hits northern France, damaging some homes & uprooted trees along its path. The tornado swept through the Lille region’s town of Hautmont & three other communities shortly before midnight on Sunday.
The local prefecture says 13 people have been hospitalised for injuries & three others killed as a result of the tornado.
Earthquake struck California, Los Angeles
An earthquake of magnitude 5.4 struck Los Angeles on Tuesday, rocked buildings across Southern California. There were no major structural damage.
The quake hit at 11:42 am local time. The epicentre of this earthquake was about 48 km east of Los Angeles in suburban Chino Hills.
It was followed in the next few hours by more than two dozen aftershocks, the largest measuring 3.6 & geologists said there was a small chance it could be a foreshock to a larger earthquake still ….
Earthquake struck Japan
A strong earthquake struck off the east coast of Honshu on Saturday. The US Geological Survey said that the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck beneath the north Pacific Ocean, 123 km from east northeast of Iwaki, Japan at a depth of 40 km.
There were no initial any reports of damage from the quake. Nuclear power facilities in the area were unharmed & were continuing to operate as usual. The earthquake was epicentred in the same area as a June 14 tremor ….
ABC correspondent arrested on drug charges
The ABC’s South Asia correspondent Peter Lloyd has been arrested in Singapore on drug charges. The 41 years old was arrested earlier this week & is expected to be charged with drug-related offences today.
He will face up to 20 years jail & 15 strokes of the cane if found guilty of drug charges. Police from Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau arrested Lloyd on Wednesday. He is accused of supplying a Singapore man with methamphetamine, ….
Blast in Chechnya killed 9 Russian soldiers
At least nine soldiers have been killed on Tuesday & four others injured after an explosion in ammunition in the war-ravaged southern Russian province of Chechnya.
Defence Ministry said, “An uncontrolled explosion occurred as ammunition was being transferred from a tank into a vehicle near the town of Shali”. Two of the six injured following the explosion died in surgery, raising the initial death toll from seven to nine.
Prosecutors have opened an inquiry into the explosion & Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov ….
Miss Venezuela becomes Miss Universe 2008
Miss Venezuela Dayana Mendoza has won the Miss Universe pageant. The 22 years old stunner beats runners-up from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Russia & Mexico to clinch the diamond-studded golden crown.
Miss Universe 2008: Miss Venezuela Dayana Mendoza.
1st Runner Up: Taliana Vargas (Columbia).
2nd Runner Up: Marianne Cruz Gonzalez (Dominican Republic).
3rd Runner Up: Vera Krasova (Russia).
4th Runner Up: Elisa Najera (Mexico).
Serial blasts in Karachi killed 1
At least one person killed & 50 persons have been injured in a series of six bomb blasts in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Monday. The explosions, which occurred in busy commercial & residential areas, caused widespread panic in the bustling city of about 16 million people.
These series of blasts in Karachi were of low intensity and they have not caused any damage to property. Police & paramilitary Pakistan Rangers were ….
International serial killer Charles Sobhraj marrying Nihita Biswas
Confessed French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, who was convicted & sentenced to life in prison in Nepal, is engaged & plans to marry a woman of 44 years younger than he is. Both Sobhraj, 64 years old & his 20 years old Nepalese fiance, Nihita Biswas, said that they are planning to get married if he is freed by Nepal’s Supreme Court.
Nihita Biswas first met Charles Sobhraj in prison to act as his interpreter & she was hooked. Charles Sobhraj ….
Bomb blast in Yemen killed five
At least five people have been killed on Sunday in an explosion in central Saada, a town in northwest Yemen at the focus of a Shiite revolt. Rescue services evacuated the casualties as security forces sealed off the area.
Yemen’s mountainous Saada province on the border with Saudi Arabia has been the heartland of an on-off uprising launched by Zaidi Shiite rebels in 2004 in which thousands of people have died. Preliminary investigations indicate that the explosion resulted from a bomb ….
Lakshmi Mittal tops UK’s Richest Power list; Sarin at 24th
Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal figures right on the top of a new “richest power list”, compiled after combining two separate rankings of the most powerful & the most richest in the UK. Giving Mittal Company on the new list, compiled by The Times newspaper, is another Indian-origin executive Arun Sarin, the world’s top mobile firm Vodafone’s outgoing CEO, who has made it to 24th in the combined list, even though he does not figure among the top 1,000 richest persons ….
Read More: Lakshmi Mittal tops UK’s Richest Power list; Sarin at 24thJudge orders Google to give YouTube user data to Viacom
U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton authorized full access to the YouTube logs after Viacom Inc. & other copyright holders argued that they needed the data to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips. Judge overseeing a $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit against YouTube has ordered the popular online video-sharing service to disclose who watches which video clips & when.
The data would not be publicly released but disclosed only to the ….
3 killed in Jerusalem bulldozer rampage
At least three people have been killed 44 others injured on Wednesday afternoon (local time) when a bulldozer driver went on a rampage in downtown Jerusalem. Police has said that the driver plowed his vehicle into two public buses, toppling them over, & slammed into several cars. The driver was shot dead by an elite policeman. He said that the incident was a terror attack.
Police emphasized that the terrorist was carrying an ….
Sikhs protest attack on girl whose hair was chopped off in New York
Sikh community has took out protest march in New York against an attack on a 12 years old girl who had her long hair cut off by a fellow student. Sikhs are demanding actions to stop such cases. Gurprit Kaur’s hair was cut by a fellow student on June 9 in a school in Flushing in Queens suburb of New York City, five days after one Jagmohan Singh Premi was punched on the face in another school by a fellow ….
Read More: Sikhs protest attack on girl whose hair was chopped off in New YorkMan killed 5 officers, sets fire at police station
A man wielding a knife broke into a Shanghai-area police station on Tuesday & killed five police officers & injured four others. He also set fire to the building’s main gate. Police identified the 28-year-old suspect only by his surname, Yang.
The unemployed resident of Beijing was reportedly unhappy with the punishment he received after being convicted of stealing a bicycle, when he launched his attack on the station. He was arrested at the scene.
Gunmen kill six police officers in northern Mexico
The attorney general’s office has on Saturday said that the gunmen killed six police officers in an ambush in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa. The six officers had stopped at a red light in a police vehicle in Culiacan when they were shot by unidentified men in a white truck.
It was the third such attack against police this week. Drug cartels have stepped up attacks on police as they lash back at a nationwide crackdown on trafficking.
Australia: “We won’t sell uranium to India”
Australia government has on Monday said that they won’t sell uranium to India. Australia will keep its ban on selling uranium to India because of New Delhi’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said, “We’ve had as a party a long standing policy position of only exporting uranium to countries who are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”.
He said, “India for its own reasons is not a party to that”. The former Australian government followed ….
Suicide attack killed 10 in south Afghanistan
At least ten civilians have been killed in a suicide attack targeting a NATO patrol in local market of Kandhar on Friday.
The attacker walked to a NATO convoy patrolling in the local bazaar of Girishk district of Helmand province & detonated explosives strapped to his body.
4 Pak soldiers killed in ambush along LoC
Four Pakistani soldiers have been killed & three others injured when an army patrol was attacked by unidentified assailants in a thickly forested area along the Line of Control in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The Army patrol, on a routine scouting of the LoC along the Buttle sector of Jajira area, detected some “unknown assailants”, on the Pakistani side & they opened fire at the soldiers. Two soldiers were killed on the spot while two others succumbed to their injuries in hospital.
The ….
China: Floods kill 112 people in 12 provinces
China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs said on Tuesday that China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs says flooding has killed 112 people in 12 provinces. The ministry has said 57 of the deaths were in the central & northern provinces of Henan, Shanxi & Shaanxi.
The 55 other fatalities were in nine southern provinces: Guangxi, Jiangxi, Hunnan, Hubei, Guangdong, Guizhou, Yunnan, Zhejiang & Anhui. Heavy rain has been drenching the provinces for several weeks.