HANOI - Vietnam has broken ground on a 1.2 billion dollar coal-fired power plant, state media reported Monday, as the fast-growing economy seeks to stem power shortages.The Nghi Son 1 project, to be fully operational by 2014, will have a capacity of 600 megawatts, the Vietnam News

ANKARA - Turkish airspace closed to Israeli military flights: Turkish ministerBDST: 12:27 HRS, July 5, 2010

SYDNEY: Australia`s new Prime Minister Julia Gillard has cast serious doubt over a new 18-nation Asian forum proposed by her sacked predecessor, a report said on Monday.Gillard told the Sydney Morning Herald that former leader Kevin Rudd`s Asia-Pacific community, a hallmark of his plans

LONDON: More than 50 prisoners are still missing since riots at Syria`s Saydnaya prison two years ago led to the deaths of at least 17 prisoners and five military police, Amnesty International said on Monday.In a report marking the second anniversary of the July 5, 2008 riots at the

PESHAWAR - Four suicide attackers armed with car bombs and rockets targeted a fort in Pakistan, killing a soldier and wounding at least seven in an area troubled by Taliban, officials said Monday.The squad targeted the post manned by paramilitary in the northwestern town of Timargarah in

NEW ORLEANS:  Efforts to clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill ramped back up Sunday after Hurricane Alex prompted a five-day shutdown, amid new questions over how BP would pay for the mounting costs.Cleanup workers arrived back on Grand Isle, Louisiana by the hundreds, spilling off

ANKARA- Turkey will sever diplomatic ties with Israel unless it apologises over the commando raid on an aid convoy to Gaza in which nine Turks died, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted as saying Monday.BDST: 12:26 HRS, July 5, 2010

NEW YORK: American Joey "Jaws" Chestnut has wolfed down 54 hot dogs in 10 minutes to claim his fourth consecutive world title in one of the planet`s most bizarre sports: competitive eating. But the New York event was marred Sunday by the arrest of Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi, Chestnut`s

MOSCOW: Six people were killed in an accidental explosion at a Russian military firing range in Siberia, reports said Monday.Two military engineers -- a major and a lieutenant colonel -- and four employees of a local munitions firm were killed in the explosion in the Altai region of south

WASHINGTON: A Fourth of July parade turned into a tragedy in the Midwestern state of Iowa when two horses pulling a carriage went out of control and trampled 24 people, many of them children, US media reported.One person was killed, and some of the other injuries were severe, the reports

PORT-AU-PRINCE: The inmates at Haiti`s only women`s prison cry out in desperation as warden Marie-Yolaine Mathieu makes her rounds, hoping that she will hear their case and perhaps, help secure their release."Director, director, I need to speak to you," calls out one woman with matted

NEW DELHI: Police came out in force in cities across India on Monday for an opposition-led national strike over fuel price rises that disrupted flights and train services, and closed schools and businesses.The strike was called by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and

SINGAPORE: Oil was up in Asian trade on Monday as traders cashed in on cheap crude following a slump in prices last week, analysts said.New York`s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in August, gained 38 cents to 72.52 dollars a barrel.Brent North Sea crude for August delivery

BEIJING: Twenty-four people were killed and 19 others injured in a fire aboard a steel company`s shuttle bus in eastern China at the weekend, a local official said Monday.The accident happened Sunday in the city of Wuxi, in Jiangsu province, a city government spokesman told AFP."The

NEW YORK: Officials at New York`s John F. Kennedy International Airport evacuated one of its airport terminals after a bomb scare Sunday on one of the busiest US holiday travel days, WABC television reported.The television station reported that authorities cleared JFK`s Terminal 1, while

LONDON: British police were Monday hunting a man suspected of shooting his ex-girlfriend, killing her new partner and then gunning down a police officer.   Raoul Thomas Moat, 37, allegedly shot his former partner and her new boyfriend early Saturday in Birtley, northeast England,

KABUL - US General David Petraeus formally took up his new role as commander of the Afghan war during a ceremony at NATO headquarters in Kabul on Sunday, saying: "We are in this to win."In a solemn ceremony held amid tight security, Petraeus received the colours of US and NATO forces

BAKU: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that Washington was ready to help Azerbaijan and Armenia reach a peace deal on the breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region and that the issue was a "high priority". "We stand ready to help both Azerbaijan and Armenia to achieve and

KABUL: Afghan authorities said Sunday that they killed more than 60 rebels in raids against Taliban militants and their drug-trafficking backers in a restive part of southern Afghanistan. More than 16 tonnes of drugs -- mostly opium -- were also seized in Bahramcha district of Helmand

SANGE: A fuel truck exploded and set fire to a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, killing more than 230 people and injuring scores, officials and local residents said Saturday.Flames engulfed dozens of earth and straw constructed homes as villagers, many of them children,