Attack on US consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan | ||||||
| Advertisement Pakistani television filmed two of the blasts BBC,15:11 GMT, Monday, 5 April 2010 16:11 UK, At least seven people have died after militants attacked the US consulate in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar. There were several explosions in the area near the consulate and buildings collapsed. A gun battle between police and the attackers followed. Pakistan's main Taliban faction said it had carried out the raid. The raid came hours after 43 people died in a suicide attack about 80 km (50 miles) north-east of Peshawar. The bomber targeted a crowded rally held by a Pashtun nationalist party in Timergara, Lower Dir. 'Great concern' Investigators suspect it was co-ordinated with the Peshawar attack, in which police told the BBC four militants and three security personnel died.
There were no reported US casualties and it is not clear if the US consulate building suffered any damage. The White House condemned the attack and expressed "great concern". Officials said the attack was well organised, but order had been restored. The militants struck near Shama Square, a major crossroads at the northern end of Peshawar's cantonment area, near the US consulate. 'Miscreants' There are also some army barracks and offices of the army's Military Intelligence in the vicinity. An Associated Press reporter at the scene said two of the explosions were just 20m from the consulate, which is in a heavily fortified area.
Pakistani police officer Ghulam Hussain told AFP news agency: "The target was certainly the American consulate but they didn't succeed in getting there. "One of the suicide bombers blew himself up close to the gate. Police guarding the US consulate started retaliatory fire. "More blasts took place. We have recovered unexploded material from four different points," he said. Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq said his group had carried out the raid. "Americans are our enemies. We carried out the attack on their consulate in Peshawar. We plan more such attacks," he told Reuters news agency. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the bombers as "miscreants trying to spread panic", reports AFP. TV footage showed army soldiers taking battle positions on the main Khyber Road where the blasts took place. Witnesses told BBC Urdu a couple of armoured vehicles parked outside the consulate caught fire.
"I saw attackers in two vehicles. Some of them carried rocket-propelled grenades," Peshawar resident Siraj Afridi told Reuters. The BBC's Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad says that this is the first successful attack against a US facility in Pakistan target in four years. In 2006, a US diplomat was killed by a suicide car bomber near the US consulate in Karachi, days before a visit to Pakistan by then US President George W Bush. Peshawar, which is on the edge of Pakistan's tribal areas, has been frequently targeted by Islamist militants. Analysts say the attacks appear to be in response to a major security operation launched in the Orakzai tribal region near Peshawar last week.  | ||||||
Monday, April 5, 2010
Pakistan, Attack on US consulate ..., [ 841 ]
Americans are our enemies - we carried out the attack on their consulate, we plan more such attacks 
Nasa, Image of the day Apr. 5th,,,[ 840 ]
Space shuttle Discovery's engines ignited at 6:21 a.m. EDT Monday, April 5, for liftoff of the STS-131 mission from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
The seven-member crew will deliver the multi-purpose logistics module Leonardo, filled with supplies, a new crew sleeping quarters and science racks that will be transferred to the International Space Station's laboratories.
The crew also will switch out a gyroscope on the station’s truss, install a spare ammonia storage tank and retrieve a Japanese experiment from the station’s exterior. STS-131 is the 33rd shuttle mission to the station and the 131st shuttle mission. Image Credit: NASA/Troy Cryder
Discovery Lifts Off on the STS-131 Mission
Flooded mine in P.R.of China....[ 839 ]
China rescues 114 from flooded mine
Beijing, China (CNN) -- More than a week after their coal mine in northern China was flooded by a rush of underground water, 114 miners were pulled out alive Monday, China's state-run TV reported.
Rescuers worked to reach another 39 believed to be still trapped inside. CCTV, which carried the rescue efforts live, showed the miners being brought out in stretchers to loud cheers.
CCTV, which carried the rescue efforts live, showed the miners being brought out in stretchers to loud cheers.
The workers were wrapped in blankets and rushed to ambulances where they were in stable condition, local media said.
The miners were part of a larger group of 261 working in the Wangjialing mine when it flooded March 28.
Rescuers were able to reach 108 miners immediately after the flooding.
Monday's rescue, which began shortly after midnight, comes two days after tapping was heard from within the mine.
Late Sunday night, rescuers noticed swaying lamp lights inside the mine -- indicating signs of life, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
Some of the miners attached their mining belts to shaft walls as water first rushed in. They remained suspended for three days until a mining cart floated by and they jumped in, CCTV said.
Two hundred people, as part of 50 rescue groups, were working around-the-clock to drain water, monitor gas and pull out miners, said Wang Jun, governor of Shanxi province where the mine is situated.
"So far the coordination is in order, the effect is obvious," he told CCTV.
Mine accidents are common in China. In 2009, 2,631 people were killed in such accidents. The figure, while high, is down from 2002 when 6,995 people died.
On Monday, the country launched a two-month campaign to inspect safety regulations in mines and other industries that have had serious accidents.
Earthquake 7.2 hits Mexico-Baja California..[ 838 ]
Earthquake rocks western Mexico | ||
BBC ,,Monday, 5 April 2010 03:46 UK A 7.2 magnitude earthquake has hit the Mexican peninsula of Baja California, killing at least one person and causing tremors as far away as Nevada. The quake struck at 1540 (2240 GMT), 26km (16 miles) south-west of Guadalupe Victoria in Baja California, at a depth of 32km, said the US Geological Survey. Mexican media report that a number of people are still trapped in their homes in the town of Mexicali. It was the worst quake to hit the region for many years, officials said. The US Geological Survey said some 20 million people felt tremors from the largest quake to hit the area since 1992. Bridge checks Mexican civil protection officials said a man had died when his home collapsed outside Mexicali, near the earthquake's epicentre.
Rescue teams with digging equipment and sniffer dogs have been despatched to the worst-affected areas of Mexicali from the nearby city of Tijuana. The quake caused buildings to sway in Tijuana, where Easter celebrations were interrupted as families rushed for open ground. Some parts of Baja California had seen power cuts, officials said. The BBC's Peter Bowes in Los Angeles says the shaking lasted for about a minute and US firefighters were called out to inspect roads, bridges and power-lines. The LA Fire Department had also responded to a number of automatic alarms and people being stuck in lifts, reports said. Rides were temporarily suspended at the Disneyland theme park in California. Many readers who contacted the BBC spoke of the "surreal" swaying of buildings for up to a minute, although Steve Rider from Palm Springs in California said it was "the most powerful earthquake I have ever felt". Kyle Stockburger, in Los Angeles, said: "Everyone stopped talking in the restaurant and the overhead lights started swaying back and forth. It wasn't violent, just unreal. It felt like the whole earth was swaying." | ||
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Himalaya: The world’s tallest peaks.,[ 837 ]
Himalayan Glacier, Southern China
Posted April 4, 2010
Besides the world’s tallest peaks, the Himalayan Mountain Range holds thousands of glaciers. In southern China, just north of the border with Nepal, one unnamed Himalayan glacier flows from southwest to northeast, creeping down a valley to terminate in a glacial lake. On December 25, 2009, the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image of the glacier.
Mountains on either side of the glacier cast long shadows to the north. From a bowl-shaped cirque, the glacier flows downhill. Where the ice passes over especially steep terrain, ripple marks on the glacier surface indicate the icefall. Northeast of the icefall, the glacier’s surface is mostly smooth for several kilometers until a network of crevasses mark the surface.
At the end of the glacier’s deeply crevassed snout sits a glacial lake, coated with ice in this wintertime picture. Just as nearby mountains cast shadows to the north, the crevassed glacier casts a shadow onto the lake’s icy surface. This glacial lake is bound by the glacier snout on one end, and a moraine—a mound formed by the accumulation of sediments and rocks moved by the glacier—on the other.
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Michon Scott based on image interpretation by Bruce Raup, National Snow and Ice Data Center.
- Instrument: EO-1 - ALI