BEIJING: With worst ever geological disasters hitting China in 2010, questions are being raised over the strategy to construct mega dams to divert river waters. China recorded more than 26,000 geological disasters in the first seven months of this year, nearly 10 times the number in the same period last year, Minister of Land and Resources Xu Shaoshi said. There were only 10,500 geological disasters... 

A BBC radio DJ has been suspended for joking during a live broadcast that Queen Elizabeth II had died, a Spokesperson said. Radio DJ Danny Kelly, 39, played the national anthem and told listeners during a live show on Monday that he had an important announcement to make and then said “Queen Elizabeth II has now died”. However, within hours, the BBC had apologised for the “Inappropriate... 

Deepwater Horizon; an oil rig sank in sea after explosion Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater dynamic positioned semi-submersible oil rig built in 2001. Deepwater Horizon was owned by Transocean and leased to BP through September 2013. In September 2009, it drilled the deepest oil well in history. Deepwater Horizon sank on April 22, 2010 as a result of an explosion two days earlier. The Deepwater... 

She was hailed as the poster girl of new America, a Lebanese immigrant who won the Miss USA crown. But just a day after, Rima Fakih‘s victory has been tarnished with pictures of her pole dancing at a strip club emerging on the Internet. The 24-year-old from Michigan who is thought to be the first Muslim woman ever to win the competition, features in a video sliding up and down a stripper’s... 

2010 Carlsbad Half Marathon My high school cross country coach told me that you see your biggest improvement in the second year of running. I could definitely understand why, unless you are just a natural born runner, which most people aren’t. But I would never imagine that I would see such a huge improvement after running my second..half marathon. In the Carlsbad Half Marathon, my first race of... 

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II turned 84 on Wednesday, marking the occasion with the release of previously unpublished photographs of her as a baby. The shots, showing the then Princess Elizabeth aged seven and 10 months, are part of an exhibition of the work of former royal photographer Marcus Adams at Windsor Castle, outside London. The queen, who celebrates her “official” birthday... 

LONDON: Europe gave the all-clear for its airspace on Thursday as nations came to the aid of the airline industry, which lost about $1.7 billion due to the ash cloud. Sweden’s government will offer airlines which lost money due to the Icelandic volcano support in the form of a 90-day reprieve from social fees and airport charges, an official said on Thursday. German airport operator Fraport AG is... 

KARACHI: Newlywed and hailed as cross-border peace ambassadors, Indian tennis star Sania Mirza and Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik arrived in Pakistan on Thursday to a frenzied reception. Camera bulbs flashed and fans thronged to get a glimpse of the lovebirds as they landed at Karachi airport, their first visit here after their April 12 wedding that bridged the two nations’ bitter sporting... 

NEW YORK: Computers in companies, hospitals and schools around the world got stuck repeatedly rebooting themselves after an antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus. McAfee Inc confirmed that a software update it posted at 9am Eastern time caused its antivirus program for corporate customers to misidentify a harmless file. It has posted a replacement update for download. McAfee... 

NEW YORK: Adolf Hitler, for years a vessel of frustration in a popular internet meme, has been quieted. “Downfall,” a German film released in 2004 about Hitler’s last days, has been adopted for wildly popular YouTube parodies that have spanned mock rants about topics as varied as playing Xbox video games to Kanye West to Apple’s iPad. Every spoof is from the same scene in the film:...