19 January 2014 The aircraft was pounded by fierce winds and rain before being hit by lightning and crashing near a village. Jakarta - A light aircraft crashed and burst into flames on a beach in eastern Indonesia on Sunday after being hit by lightning, killing all four people on board, an off

  (IANS) / 15 January 2014 Doctors have removed a mass of impacted hair weighing half a kg from the stomach of a 12-year-old girl in China’s Henan province. Doctors at the First Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Science and Technology in Luoyang, Henan province, surgically rem

An Algerian man believed to be the world’s oldest person died at the age of 130 years in hospital in the North African Arab country after he was admitted two years ago for the first time in his life, newspapers reported on Monday. Mubarak Rahmani was born in 1884 in a desert village near the bord

Charleston, West Virginia:  The White House has issued a federal disaster declaration in West Virginia, where a chemical spill that may have contaminated tap water has led officials to tell at least 300,000 people not to bathe, brush their teeth or wash their clothes. The chemical, a foaming agen

CHICAGO: After days of an arctic chill so cold that a Chicago zoo brought their polar bear inside, the United States woke up to a break in the weather on Wednesday. The National Weather Service said "a much anticipated warm up" was expected over the eastern two-thirds of the United States which h

Paris, January 08, 2014:The bitter chill gripping North America is a result of Arctic air that has spilled southwards, and global warming may be a cause. Arctic air is normally penned in at the roof of the world by a powerful circular wind called the polar vortex, said Dim Coumou, a senior scient

Chicago:  A deadly chill had much of the United States and Canada in its wintry grip on Tuesday, as a record-breaking cold snap brought temperatures lower than on the surface of Mars. It was so cold in Chicago that the polar bear at the Lincoln Park zoo - who admittedly had not built up the winte

January 06: A US research agency has awarded an Indian American neuroscientist, Khaleel Rezak, a five year USD 866902 Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) grant for further research on his projects. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Rezak for his research on how the b

New York:  Millions of people across the United States on Monday made last minute preparations for an unusually bitter Arctic blast that could send temperatures plummeting to their coldest in 20 years. The northeastern United States and parts of Canada have endured heavy snow and deadly sub-zero

Sydney:  All 52 passengers who spent Christmas and New Year trapped on an icebound Russian research vessel in Antarctica were airlifted from the ice on Thursday in a dramatic rescue mission. A Chinese helicopter which landed on a makeshift landing pad next to the marooned ship ferried the scienti

Sudan: The head of the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan has called for an end to fighting in the country, and for peace talks to be given a chance. Hilde Johnson told the BBC the humanitarian situation was worsening. At least 1,000 people have died since fighting erupted last month between

DAMASCUS: Syria will miss a December 31 deadline for the removal of part of its chemical weapons arsenal for destruction, but international inspectors insisted the overall mission was still on track. The delay came as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 130,000 people had been

A panel of Israeli cabinet ministers has approved new legislation to annex the Jordan Valley region of the occupied West Bank. The legislation, backed by far-right members of the ruling Likud party, was endorsed on Sunday, just days ahead of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s scheduled visit to t

New Delhi:  An Indian studying in Melbourne is in a coma after being attacked by a group of people over the weekend, Australian media reports. Manriajwinder Singh, 20, was with two friends when he was assaulted by a group of eight men and one woman. The police has released CCTV footage of the

UK: Islamophobic hate crimes across Britain have risen dramatically this year, new figures have revealed. Hundreds of offences were perpetrated against the country's Muslim population in 2013, with the Metropolitan police alone - Britain's largest force - recording 500 Islamophobic crimes, compar

MOSCOW: Russian forensic experts studying the remains of Yasser Arafat on Thursday said the Palestinian leader died a natural death, ruling out radiation poisoning. “We have completed all the studies,” Vladimir Uiba, head of Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA), told a news conference.

BANGKOK: At least 29 people were killed and four badly injured when a bus plunged into a deep ravine in northeast Thailand, police said on Friday. The accident occurred around midnight Thursday-Friday in Lom Sak district, Phetchabun province while the bus was en route to the northern province of

JUBA: Thousands of South Sudanese have been killed in over a week of violence with reports of bodies piled in mass graves, the UN said on Tuesday, amid ongoing battles threatening to slide into civil war. The top UN humanitarian chief in the country Toby Lanzer said on Tuesday there was "absolute