A fire gutted an overcrowded jail in Honduras, killing more than 350 people, officials said Wednesday, as rescue teams found the charred bodies of inmates trapped in their cells by the blaze. Survivors described wrenching scenes of prisoners pleading for help as they were engulfed by choking smoke and flames, some unable to flee because they were still shackled to the bars of their cells in what is the world's worst prison fire in a decade. Those …

A foreigner was seriously wounded when a device he was suspected of carrying exploded in the Thai capital Bangkok on Tuesday, police said. Police investigators rushed to the scene after three men were seen fleeing from a house where a blast was reported in the east of the city. One of the men hurled an explosive device at a taxi which refused to stop and later tried to throw another device at police, triggering a blast which tore off his legs, …

China's defence budget will double between 2011 and 2015 and outstrip the combined spending of all other key defence markets in the Asia-Pacific region, global research group IHS said Tuesday. China's defence budget stood at $119.8 billion last year and will rise to $238.2 billion in 2015, marking a combined annual growth rate of 18.75 percent during the period, the US-based IHS said in a forecast. The 2015 figure exceeds the combined total of …

A probe designed to delve into the "Big Bang" that created the cosmos has uncovered an enigmatic fog of microwave radiation in the centre of our galaxy, European astronomers reported on Monday. Planck, a billion-dollar European space telescope launched in May 2009, found "a mysterious haze of microwaves that presently defies explanation" during a scan of the centre of the Milky Way, the European Space Agency (ESA) said. It could be a form of energy …

A British scientist arrived in Karachi on Friday to examine and record the details of the 11-metre long whale shark that was towed by local fishermen to the Karachi Fish Harbour from the open sea earlier this week. He is being accompanied by a documentary production team to tape the carcass. On Thursday, Karachi Fish Harbour Authority (KFHA) officials, after weighing the carcass at Weigh Bridge, moved it to the site of a former zoological museum …

Mexican soldiers on Thursday seized more than 15 tons of methamphetamines and other substances used to manufacture illegal drugs from a farm in western Mexico, officials said. The confiscated drugs represent the biggest seizure in the country's more than five-year war against drug cartels, according to the Mexican army. The operation resulted from an inspection of the farm by army troops in the town of Tlajomulco de Zuniga, where police report …

Fishermen killed and transported an 11-meter long whale shark, weighing in at 22 tons, to the Karachi Fish Harbour from the open seas. Although they paid Rs50,000 alone to lift and transport the carcass of this endangered sea mammal, they were only able to sell it for Rs170,000 as fish trash. The crew of the small fishing boat, Al-Hafeez, spotted the sea giant near Ghora Bari in the Arabian sea. Experts believe that the crew fed the animal diesel …

The death toll from the devastating earthquake in the New Zealand city of Christchurch last February has been raised to 185, the coroner's office said Thursday. The coroner initially found 181 people were killed as a direct result of the 6.3-magnitude quake, but more deaths had been recorded as part of the toll in recent weeks after reviews of their cases, a spokesman for the coroner said. He said the most recent addition, taking the toll to 185, …

Solar radiation from a massive sun storm - the largest in nearly a decade - collided with the Earth's atmosphere on Tuesday, prompting an airline to reroute flights and skywatchers to seek out spectacular light displays. US carrier Delta Air Lines said it had adjusted flight routes for transpolar journeys between Asia and the United States to avoid problems caused by the radiation storm, a spokesman said. NASA confirmed the coronal mass ejection …

Seven persons including a woman and a child were killed in Namak Mandi area of Peshawar when the roof of a house collapsed on Wednesday, Geo News reported. According to sources, a gas cylinder exploded in the house that caused the roof collapse and killed. People of the area pulled out the dead bodies of one woman and a child while five bodies were recovered later from the rubble.