An overcrowded passenger ferry in India. At least 105 people have been confirmed dead and another 100 are missing after an overcrowded ferry split in half and sunk in northeastern India. The passenger ferry sunk on Monday during a storm in the Brahmaputra River in the country’s Assam state, AFP reported. “There were about 350 people on board when a storm split the steamer into two,” Assam... 

Satellite imagery reveals an escalation in activity at North Korea’s Punggye-ri atomic site in possible preparation for a third nuclear test, experts say. However, there is no clear indication from the photos when the test may occur. ­The images from a US-based website highlight a chain of mining carts on piles of excavated soil. This coincides with South Korean intelligence reports at the beginning... 

Canadian film director James Cameron at a seminar on 3D technology and film cooperation during the second Beijing International Film Festival One of the most commercially successful directors in Hollywood, James Cameron the creator of Titanic is eyeing movie and TV co-productions in China. The director shared his plans at Beijing Film Festival. ­Cameron’s movies have been highly successful in China,... 

Risat-1 with one of its solar panel wings is seen at the Satish Dhawan Space Center. India says it has successfully positioned its first domestically-built radar imaging satellite into orbit from a spaceport in the east coast of the country. The Risat-1 satellite, aboard a 321-ton launch rocket, took off at 5:47 am (0027 GMT) Thursday from the spaceport of Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra... 

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani (C) waves upon his arrival at the Supreme Court in Islamabad on February 13, 2012. Pakistani Prime Minster Yousuf Raza Gilani has been convicted of contempt of court for refusing to reopen old corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. After a three-month trial, the country’s Supreme Court on Thursday found the premier guilty for failing to follow... 

North Korean poster North Korea said it will reduce South Korea’s government to ashes in a matter of minutes, should a military escalation of the decades-old conflict occur. ­The statement by the North’s military, carried by the state media, did not elaborate as to how exactly such an attack would be carried out. It mentions “special actions” that would “reduce all the rat-like groups and... 

A Red Cross volunteer talks to Hoang Thi Kim Phung, whose two-and-a-half -month-old son was admitted to hospital in Long An, Vietnam, with symptoms of hand, foot and mouth disease Hanoi has asked the World Health Organization for help to cure a virulent disease affecting children. Symptoms include blistering on hands, feet and mouths accompanied by high fever and eventual organ failure. ­Nineteen... 

China will send 16 naval ships and two submarines to its first joint naval exercise with Russia, slated to start this weekend in the Yellow Sea, the Ministry of National Defense said on Tuesday. The drill, which Russian authorities said will involve warships cruising near Japanese waters, has rattled the nerves of media from Japan and South Korea. Japanese media speculated that the move is aimed at... 

A North Korean soldier stands guard in front of an Unha-3 rocket at Tangachai-ri space center on April 8, 2012 Seoul claims North Korea is assembling another heavy ballistic missile similar to the ill-fated one launched on April 13. ­Seoul’s assumptions are based on American space reconnaissance data. They say both rockets were delivered at the site simultaneously around March 23. One rocket was... 

India has test-launched its first long-range intercontinental ballistic missile, significantly upgrading the emerging Asian nation’s military capabilities. It has the capacity to target major Chinese cities and Europe. According to Indian media the missile was launched just after 8am local time from WheelerIsland off India’s east coast. It rose to an altitude of 600 kilometers and successfully... 

TEPCO plans to use a robot today to photograph possible damage inside the suppression pool at the bottom of Fukushima’s damaged number 2 reactor. TEPCO is the operator of the tsunami damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan. “We want to check whether there is no deformation or damage in the suppression pool. And, with any luck, we hope to see areas where water (injected into the reactor... 

Over 50 Chinese cities are sinking into the ground because of the continuous subsidence of the soil. The excessive consumption of ground water is to blame. As its result, under many Chinese cities, including Beijing, the world’s largest underground funnels have formed. But there are other environmental problems in the country. In China lakes are evaporating, rivers are drying out, 75 percent... 

The Nepalese government has teamed up with notorious agricultural giant Monsanto to force farmers use its GMO seeds. The strain, banned in several EU countries, will be used to substitute imports and boost the starving nation’s maize production. ­Corn is one of Nepal’s biggest crops but the country produces only about half of what it needs for its feed industry, and imports some 130,000 tons... 

A new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Foreign Ministry on the planned re-opening of talks with Japan over the disputed Kuril Islands during the next fortnight states that Russian diplomats were “stunned” after being told by their Japanese counterparts that upwards of 40 million of their peoples were in “extreme danger” of life threatening radiation poisoning and could... 

Humiliating: North Korea, embarrassed by the failure of the much-hyped rocket launch, is now widely believed to be weighing undertaking its third nuclear test in order to show its military strength The United States will not go forward with planned food aid to North Korea, the White House said on Friday, after the impoverished nation’s unsuccessful launch of a long-range missile which Washington...