Quake Rattles Western China

Stated media in China reports a strong 6.3-magnitude earthquake rattled the country's northwestern Xinjiang region Saturday, injuring at least 24 people.The US Geological Survey says the quake had a shallow depth of 9.8 kilometres and its epicentre was in a remote, mountainous area 99 kilometres south of the city of Dushanzi.But the tremor was felt strongly in Xinjiang's regional capital of Urumqi nearly 300 kilometres away, as well as in the major cities of Dushanzi and Kuitun, China Central Television said.At least 24 people were reported injured,...

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US Approves New Weight-loss Pill

US health regulators have approved a weight-loss pill for the first time in 13 years.Belviq, made by Arena Pharmaceutical, can be used by obese or overweight adults with at least one condition.The drug achieved only modest results in clinical studies, helping people lose on average about 5% of their body weight.Belviq was rejected in 2010 because of concerns over tumours that developed in animals tested with the drug.After San Diego-based Arena resubmitted its application with more data, the...

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US Storms Cut Power To Millions

Some two million people are without power after violent storms hit the region around the US capital, Washington DC.The storms swept from the Midwest states to the region around Washington, packing winds of up to 80mph (130 km/h).The power outages left many sweltering without air conditioning amid a record-breaking heatwave.At least nine deaths have been linked to the storm, officials say.The storm is locally referred to as a "derecho" - a violent, straight-lined windstorm associated with a fast-moving...

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Annan Warns Talks Of Syria risks

UN envoy Kofi Annan has warned that a failure to agree at talks in Geneva today on his peace plan for Syria could spark an international crisis.Mr Annan told the meeting history would judge harshly if there was no deal on ending the bloodshed in Syria.Russia, which sees Syria as a close ally, is said to be resisting proposals that could exclude President Assad from a transitional unity government.Some 15,800 people have died in the 16-month uprising, rights groups say.Before the talks started,...

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Paraguay Suspended From Mercosur

The Mercosur trade bloc has suspended Paraguay over the impeachment of President Fernando Lugo on 22 June.The presidents of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay said Paraguay would remain outside the bloc until the next presidential election in April.But at the end of a two-day summit in Argentina they decided not to impose sanctions on Paraguay.They also announced that Venezuela would now become a full member of Mercosur.Venezuela's application to join the Mercosur as a permanent member had been approved...

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China Spacecraft Returns To Earth

A Chinese space capsule carrying three crew members has returned to Earth following a 13-day mission. Images of the capsule landing in Inner Mongolia at 10:05 local time (02:05 GMT) were shown live on television. The astronauts, including China's first woman in space, carried out a successful manual docking with the Tiangong-1 laboratory module. The mission is a key step towards China's goal of building a space station by 2020. Premier Wen Jiabao hailed the mission as a "complete success". This...

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Aid Workers Kidnapped In Kenya

A Kenyan driver has been killed and four foreign aid workers kidnapped at a refugee camp in Kenya close to the border with Somalia, police say.The foreigners, from Canada, Norway, Pakistan and the Philippines, worked for the Norwegian Refugee Council.They were travelling in a convoy when they were ambushed by gunmen in Dadaab, which houses more than 450,000 Somalis.Several aid workers have been kidnapped from Dadaab in the last year and many groups have withdrawn from the camp.The region's deputy...

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Samsung Galaxy Nexus Banned In US

A judge in California has blocked US sales of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphones while the court decides on the firm's patent dispute with Apple.US District Judge Lucy Koh said Apple "has shown a likelihood of establishing both infringement and validity".Earlier this week, she barred sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the US until the case was resolved.However, she said that Apple would have to post bonds of nearly $100m (£64m) to enforce the rare pre-trial injunctions.The bonds serve...

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Islamists Damage Timbuktu Shrines

Islamist fighters in Mali have damaged the shrines of Muslim saints in the city of Timbuktu, witnesses say.The fighters, from the Ansar Dine group, which controls much of northern Mali, attacked the mausoleum of Sidi Mahmoud, one of 16 shrines in the city.Last week, the UN cultural organisation Unesco put Timbuktu on its list of endangered world heritage sites, fearing damage following the coup which toppled the Malian government in March.Islamists regard shrines as idolatrous.However, some Muslims,...

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Mursi sworn in as Egypt's leader

Mohammed Mursi has been sworn in as Egypt's first civilian, democratically elected president at a historic ceremony in Cairo.Mr Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, took the oath before the supreme constitutional court.Later, in a speech to Cairo University, he promised to restore the parliament dissolved by the military this month.He said that the army, which has run Egypt for decades, must respect the will of the people.President Mursi will have to sort out a very difficult relationship...

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Adele Announces Pregnancy

Pop star Adele is expecting her first child, she has told fans via a message on her website.The 24-year-old said she and her partner Simon Konecki were "delighted to announce" that they were expecting their first child together."Obviously we're over the moon and very excited but please respect our privacy at this precious time," she said.The London-born singer had the world's biggest-selling album last year with 21, which sold more than 17m copies.More than 4 million of those copies were sold...

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Scientists Hack Flying Drone

American researchers took control of a flying drone by "hacking" into its GPS system - acting on a $1,000 (£640) dare from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).A University of Texas at Austin team used "spoofing" - a technique where the drone mistakes the signal from hackers for the one sent from GPS satellites.The same method may have been used to bring down a US drone in Iran in 2011.Analysts say that the demo shows the potential danger of using drones.Drones are unmanned aircraft,...

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Tom Cruise And Katie Holmes To Get Divorced

Hollywood A-listers Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are divorcing, bringing an end to a five-year marriage.The office of celebrity divorce lawyer Jonathan Wolfe confirmed the divorce. "This is a personal and private matter" he said in a statement.The couple have a six-year daughter, Suri, and Cruise, 49, has two children from his marriage to Nicole Kidman.Cruise married Holmes, 33, his third wife, in an Italian castle in November 2006.A spokesman for Cruise said: "Kate has filed for divorce and Tom...

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Google To Sell Tablet And Glasses

Google has unveiled the Nexus 7 - its first own-brand tablet.The device is made by the Taiwanese company Asus rather than the firm's own Motorola hardware unit. It runs the new Jelly Bean version of Android.An 8GB version will be sold for $199 (£127) from mid-July pitching it directly against Amazon's Kindle Fire.The firm also showed off its internet-connected augmented reality glasses revealing the first models would ship in 2013.The announcements were made at Google's I/O developers' conference...

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Gunmen Storm Pro-Assad Syria TV

Gunmen have attacked a Syrian pro-government TV channel, killing seven people, state media say.Journalists and security guards died in the attack on al-Ikhbariya TV south of Damascus, Sana news agency reported.Hours earlier, President Bashar al-Assad said Syria was in "a real state of war" and US intelligence officials predicted a long, drawn-out struggle.UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has called a meeting of the UN action group for Syria for Saturday.His deputy envoy said on Wednesday that...

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Mass Evacuation For Colorado Fire

More than 32,000 people have fled their homes in the US state of Colorado as a growing wildfire breached perimeter lines and moved into the city of Colorado Springs.Traffic and smoke choked the streets as people hurried to evacuate the city and the nearby US Air Force Academy.Over 800 firefighters are battling a fire that has scorched over 6,200 acres (2,509 hectares) and is 5% contained.Extreme fire warnings are in place across several western US states.The Waldo Canyon Fire began on Saturday...

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Google Computer Works Out How To Spot Cats

A Google research team has trained a network of 1,000 computers wired up like a brain to recognize cats. The team built a neural network, which mimics the working of a biological brain, that worked out how to spot pictures of cats in just three days. The cat-spotting computer was created as part of a larger project to investigate machine learning. Google is planning to use the learning system to help with its indexing systems and with language translation. The computer system was put together...

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EU With New Vision For The Future

European authorities have unveiled their vision for the future, which gives them much greater powers.It includes the creation of a European treasury, which would have powers over national budgets.European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said it was "a defining moment for European integration".Described as a 10-year plan, it is designed to strengthen the eurozone and prevent future crises, as countries grapple with current debt problems.This week, some markets fell sharply on fears that leaders at the EU summit on Thursday and Friday would...

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Facebook's Email Switch

Facebook is facing a backlash from users after replacing email addresses listed in members' contacts with those provided by its @facebook.com system. The company said it had acted to make details "consistent" across its site. If Facebook's email system takes off it could drive more traffic to the firm's pages helping boost advertising sales. But some users have branded the move "annoying" and "lame" and publicised instructions on how to display original addresses instead of the Facebook ones. Facebook...

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Deadly Attack On Bar In Mombasa

Three people have now died after a hand grenade was thrown into a Kenyan bar where patrons were watching a Euro 2012 football match, the Red Cross says. Earlier reports said one person had been killed in the blast in Mombasa, but two victims died later in hospital. One of those injured at the Jericho bar is being held as a suspect. The blast comes a day after the US embassy had warned that there was an "imminent threat of a terrorist attack" in the area. Local police chief Aggrey Adoli told...

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Fatal tornado In Florida After Debby Storm

The expansive, stalled Tropical Storm Debby lashed Florida on Sunday, spawning apparent tornadoes in the central part of the state that killed one woman, a county spokeswoman said.Gloria Rybinski, emergency operations spokeswoman for Highland County, said two twisters destroyed four homes in the southern end of the county and damaged others.The woman was found dead in a home in Venus, located in the middle of the state roughly between Port St. Lucie and Sarasota, Rybinski said. In addition, a child in one of the affected homes was injured and...

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Troops End Taliban Hotel Siege

Afghan security forces have ended a 12-hour attack by Taliban militants on a hotel outside Kabul, in which at least 20 people died, officials say.Insurgents attacked the Spozhmai Hotel in the Lake Qargha area on Thursday night, taking many hostages.Kabul's police chief said 15 civilians, including hotel guests, died. All five insurgents were killed.The Taliban claimed the attack, saying the hotel was used by wealthy Afghans and foreigners for "wild parties".Lake Qargha is on the outskirts of...

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Bee Swarm Attacks Thai Monks

Dozens of novice monks have been taken to hospital after an attack by a swarm of bees in northern Thailand.The monks were cleaning the Chedi Luang temple in Chiang Mai province on Saturday when the attack took place.The Bangkok Post said more than 70 monks were admitted to hospital, quoting one doctor as saying he had seen 19 in serious condition.Bee stings typically cause skin rashes and nausea but multiple attacks are more serious and occasionally deadly.Temple abbot Phra Ratcha Jetiyajarn told the Post that 76 monks had been taken to three...

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Sandusky Found Guilty On 45 Of 48 Sex Abuse Charges

A jury found former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky guilty on 45 of 48 child sex abuse charges on Friday, ending a trial that rocked U.S. college football and renewed attention on pedophilia in America.Sandusky, 68, faces potentially hundreds of years in prison for molesting 10 boys over 15 years. He was escorted immediately out of the courthouse in handcuffs and taken into an awaiting sheriff's cruiser.A large crowd that gathered outside the Centre County Courthouse in central...

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Israel kills Gaza militant as truce unravels

Israeli air raids on Hamas security targets in Gaza killed one militant and wounded 20 people on Saturday, medical officials in the Islamist-ruled territory said, while increased rocket fire by militants wounded an Israeli man.The escalating violence undermined a shaky truce brokered by Egypt on Wednesday, which sought to calm the new flare-up in fighting that began on Monday when an Israeli man and two gunmen were killed in a raid across Egypt's Sinai.The Palestinian militant was killed in an...

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Bolivian Police Stage Mutiny Over Low Wages

Looting has broken out near Bolivia's presidential palace as junior members of the police force, angry over low wages, joined a nationwide mutiny.A crowd of 200 officers, wearing civilian clothes and covering their faces, attacked the National Intelligence Directorate on Friday, smashing windows and pulling out furniture, documents, computers and even setting flags on fire.The directorate is one block from the main square in La Paz, where the presidential palace is located.Advertisement: Story...

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Pakistani Parliament Elects New Prime Minister

Parliament elected a new prime minister on Friday in a dignified ceremony that contrasted with the back-room intrigue of the preceding days and that offered at least a brief interlude in the wider struggle between President Asif Ali Zardari and the senior judiciary. Raja Pervez Ashraf, a former cabinet minister with a controversial reputation, won a handsome majority of votes with the support of Mr. Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party, which leads the coalition government. After the vote, Mr....

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Uruguay To Be The First To Legalize And Sell Marijuana

We may at last be on the verge of discovering whether such unalloyed support is justified. Uruguay’s government has indicated it plans to become the first government to market and distribute marijuana directly to users.     Under a plan Defense Minister Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro announced late Wednesday, which the leftist government will soon present to lawmakers, the state will oversee sales, which would be allowed only to adults 18 and older.     Mr. Fernández Huidobro said the government would try to attain...

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Turkish Warplane Missing Near Syrian Border

Turkey's government has held an emergency security meeting amid reports that one of its fighter jets was shot down by Syrian security forces.The F-4 Phantom disappeared over the Mediterranean, south-west of Hatay province, not far from Syria's coast.Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was initially quoted as saying: "The other side have expressed regret".Later he could not confirm what brought the jet down but said rescue teams were searching for the crew."Regarding our pilots, we do not have any information, but at the moment four of our gunboats...

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Taliban Insurgents Attack Popular Kabul Resort

On a warm summer evening, with peacocks strutting amid the patio chairs and moonlight reflecting off the lake, the Spugmay Restaurant is one of the most elegant sanctuaries in Kabul, a place where the war feels almost far enough away.Seven young men changed that with sickening speed Thursday night. Armed with guns and grenades and explosives strapped over their baggy clothes, a minivan-load of Taliban fighters stormed through the ivy-draped restaurant’s arched gateway, transforming a relaxed...

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