A tropical cyclone bearing down on Western Australia intensified on Saturday, placing the region on high alert as the storm threatened to bring destructive gale-force winds. Severe tropical cyclone Lua, upgraded to a Category 4 storm - five is the highest - is moving steadily towards the coast and is expected to make landfall on Saturday afternoon. "There is a threat to lives and homes. You are in danger and need to act immediately," Western …

North Korea said Friday it would launch a rocket next month to put a satellite into orbit, a move that would breach a United Nations resolution passed after a previous launch in 2009. The event was scheduled between April 12-16 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of founding leader Kim Il-Sung, the official news agency said.

Brain and eye problems have surfaced in astronauts who spent more than a month in space, marking a potential setback to plans for longer deep space missions, a US study said Tuesday. The research in the journal Radiology analyzed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 27 astronauts with an average of 108 days in space, either on space shuttle missions or aboard the International Space Station. Shuttle missions typically lasted a couple …

Russian and South Korean scientists signed a deal Tuesday on joint research intended to recreate a woolly mammoth, an animal which last walked the earth some 10,000 years ago. The deal was signed by Vasily Vasiliev, vice rector of North-Eastern Federal University of the Sakha Republic, and controversial cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation. Hwang was a national hero until some of his research into …

India defeated Sri Lanka by 50 runs in the second day-night match of the Asia Cup one-day tournament here at the Shere Bangla National Stadium on Tuesday. Chasing a huge target of 305 runs, Sri Lanka took the challenge in a brave manner as their two main batsmen Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara posed threat for India. Jayawardene hit a brilliant 78 from 59 balls with ten fours and two sixes while Sangakkara played a patient innings of 65 …

About 130 North Korean officials visited the tense frontier with South Korea last week as Pyongyang intensified its threats against Seoul, a report said Wednesday. The North's Defence Minister Kim Yong-Chun and military chief Ri Yong-Ho toured the border truce village of Panmunjom on March 4, Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified South Korean military official as saying. The official also said mid-level officials had since travelled to the …

US ambassador to Egypt rushed to Germany from where she will return to United States, according to German news agency. Earlier, around 100 protesters calling for an end to military rule in Egypt clashed with soldiers near the US embassy in Cairo. Shouting "Down with military power!" the protesters lobbed stones at the soldiers, who responded by throwing them back and trying to disperse the crowd. The soldiers then returned to their position, where …

A grenade attack on a Nairobi bus station killed at least six people and wounded 63, according to a new toll issued Sunday by Kenyan Internal Security Minister George Saitoti. "The death toll is now six, and we have 63 people undergoing treatment at the Kenyatta National Hospital, 11 of them were seriously injured," he told reporters. The previous toll for the Saturday attack was five dead and around 60 injured but a sixth person has since died …

A strong geomagnetic storm is racing from the Sun toward Earth, and its expected arrival on Thursday could affect power grids, airplane routes and space-based satellite navigation systems, U.S. space weather experts said. The storm, a big cloud of charged particles flung from the Sun at about 4.5 million miles per hour (7.2 million km per hour), was spawned by a pair of solar flares, scientists said. This is probably the strongest such event in …

The United States led international pledges of emergency aid to Congo after huge blasts at an arms depot in Brazzaville killed more than 150 people and left 1,000 injured. President Denis Sassou Nguesso announced a curfew in the capital and cordoned off the area around the devastated eastern district of Mpila, as Congo issued a plea for international help on Monday. The government said an electrical short-circuit likely caused a fire which triggered …