Cyclone Thane in TamilNadu Updates

Cyclone Thane kills 33 in southern India

Cyclone Thane, with a wind speed of 140 kilometers (85 miles) per hour, has lashed the coastal districts of southern India, killing at least 33 people.

The cyclone ripped through the coast between Cuddalore city in Tamil Nadu state and the union territory of Pondicherry on Friday, according to India's National Disaster Management Authority.

Officials say the deaths have been mostly due to building collapses and electrocution caused by heavy rainfall and strong winds, which have uprooted trees and power lines.

Cuddalore is the worst-hit region, with an estimated 5,000 fishermen's homes damaged.

The bad weather has also affected trains and flights in the region.

The cyclones that form frequently over the Bay of Bengal bring widespread destruction and flooding to India's southern and eastern coasts.

Shanghai subway crash injures dozens

A subway train in China's commercial center of Shanghai has smashed into the back of another train, injuring dozens of people.

Local reports say the accident Tuesday on Line 10, one of the city's newest lines, may have been caused by problems with the signaling system, similar to a crash in July on one of China's high-speed train lines.

Shanghai TV says more than 100 people were taken to hospitals for treatment. The exact number of injuries could not be immediately confirmed.

Shanghai, a city of 23 million, has rapidly expanded its subway system in recent years. Some lines have had problems with faulty signaling, doors not opening properly and poorly trained operators.

Bomb Blast in Turkish capital

Blast kills 3, wounds 15 in Turkish capital

News Updates! A suspected car bomb went off near a high school in the Turkish capital on Tuesday, igniting other vehicles and killing three people in a nearby building, the interior minister said. The blast also wounded 15 people.

The explosion was "highly likely to be a terrorist attack," said Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin. "The explosion occurred in a place where car and people traffic is intense. It looks like the intension was to inflict as much harm to people as possible."

The parked car was purchased a week ago but it was not yet registered.

Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey have recently escalated their attacks on Turkish targets, but Islamist and leftist militants have also carried out some bombings in this NATO member and U.S. ally.

Kurdish rebels were blamed for a small bomb attack in the Mediterranean resort town of Kemer that wounded 10 people, including four Swedes on Aug. 28. Turkish warplanes bombed suspected rebel hideouts in northern Iraq last month in response to the escalation of attacks by the guerrillas.

The bodies of three people were found in a building near the car that exploded in downtown Ankara, Sahin said. Fifteen people were also wounded, he added.

Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said police had information that a bomb was planted on the car, although other officials quoted a witness as saying that a burning gas canister had been tossed onto the vehicle.

The explosion sparked a series of blasts in adjacent vehicles.

Reyhan Altintas, a neighborhood administrator, said she rushed outside after hearing a loud blast. It was followed by three other blasts, apparently caused by cars catching fire.

At least five of the wounded were in serious condition, said Sahin.

"I had never heard anything like it in my life," witness Adnan Yavuz said of the initial blast. "Then came another explosion and parts of a car dropped from the tree."

The wounded were initially treated in the school yard before medics rushed to the scene and whisked them away to hospitals, NTV television said. Authorities evacuated the school as worried parents rushed to pick up their children.

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Four Armymen killed in copter crash

Four Army personnel were killed in a Dhruv helicopter crash in north Sikkim near the Sino-India border, days after a Pawan Hans chopper went down in the northeast claiming 17 lives.

Wreckage of the advanced light helicopter (ALH) Dhruv, which had gone missing on Thursday, was traced in the Shiv Mandir area by Army choppers at 9.30 a.m on Friday and ground parties reached the spot an hour-and-a-half later, Eastern Army Command sources said.

The bodies of two pilots and two soldiers were found at the spot, they said.

“Though it seems that the helicopter had crashed due to the inclement weather in the region, a Court of Inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the reasons behind it,” they said.

The sources said the helicopter was carrying two pilots of the rank of major and two technicians, one of whom was a junior commissioned officer while the other a non-commissioned officer.

The helicopter had taken off in tandem with another Dhruv yesterday at 9.30 a.m. from Sewak road base in Siliguri on a routine training exercise but lost contact with it around 11.30 a.m. over the Shiv Mandir area.

The chopper was flying at about 15,000 feet near the Yumisamdong area which is now under a thick blanket of snow and covered with dense forest.The area is around 15 km north of Lachung village in north Sikkim.

The army had on Thursday launched a major search operation but had postponed it after five hours till the morning due to inclement weather.

On April 19, a Russian-origin MI-17-2 chopper -- owned by Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd (PHHL) -- crashed claiming 17 lives after it took off from Guwahati for Tawang.

Dhruv is an indigenously-developed helicopter and has been inducted into the Army and the IAF. A total of five accidents involving the ALH Dhruv have taken place in the last six years including two fatal ones.

In the first incident in 2005, the whole fleet of the chopper was grounded after it experienced a forced landing in Andhra Pradesh due to problems in the tail rotor.

In 2007, before the Aero India, two pilots were killed in a Dhruv crash involving IAF’s aerobatic display team Sarang.

Similar incidents had taken place in 2009 and 2010 also. A Dhruv helicopter of the Ecuadorian Air Force hit the ground after veering off course while flying in formation with two other helicopters over an air force base near Quito.

In 2010, a Dhruv helicopter team of the Indian Air Force was forced to make a crash landing while rehearsing for the “Vayu Shakti” show.

Blasts at Yemen weapons factory

A blast at an ammunition factory in southern Yemen has killed at least five people and wounded 50, reports say.

The explosion shook the southern Yemeni town of Jaar and could be heard up to 10 miles (15km) away.

Reports said the plant had recently been seized by militants who, on Sunday, clashed with government forces in the town.

Officials said they expected the death toll to rise as bodies were still being recovered from the scene of the blast.

Sailboat Sinks off San Diego

2 Dead, 8 Injured as Sailboat Sinks off San Diego

Ten people were thrown into the waters of San Diego Bay Sunday when their sailboat capsized, leaving two men drowned and eight people injured, authorities said.

The boat flipped over for reasons that remained unclear and then sank near Shelter Island shortly after 5 p.m., San Diego Fire-Rescue spokesman Maurice Luque said.

Harbor police pulled all 10 from the water and took them to a boat dock where some 60 firefighters and paramedics were waiting. Two men in their 50s or 60s were declared dead at the scene and the other eight were taken to local hospitals. Two children were released from the hospital after being treated briefly.

Luque said none of the injuries was life-threatening or critical.

Though just 10 people were reported to be aboard, divers searched the sunken wreckage for any additional victims.

"We are confident that everyone is accounted for," Luque said.

One woman was being treated in intensive care at UCSD Medical Center for hypothermia, said Marguerite Elicone, a spokeswoman for the Port of San Diego, which includes the Harbor Police.

Most of those on board were members of an Asian family, and investigators had to bring in translators to speak to them, Luque said. He did not know what language they spoke. No victims' names were immediately released.

Harbor Police officers were at the 25-foot boat within five minutes after a Navy vessel reported the boat capsized, Elicone said.

"They were pulling people out of the water. There were also civilians assisting in pulling people out of the water," she said.

No other vessels were involved, Elicone said. There were several witnesses but the spokeswoman said she didn't know what they saw.

Harbor police were leading the investigation into the cause. The U.S. Coast Guard also responded to the scene.

Phone messages left for the Coast Guard were not immediately returned.

Burma earthquake

More than 60 peoples have killed in burma earthquake.

Earthquake News Updates! More than 60 people have died in a magnitude-6.8 earthquake in Burma which struck near the Lao and Thai borders.

It happened at 1355 GMT on Thursday and was centred about 70 miles (110 km) from the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai, the US Geological Survey said.

It was felt 800km to the south in the Thai capital Bangkok, and in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.

The quake was shallow, at a depth of 6.2 miles (10km). There are fears the casualties could be much higher.

State radio in Burma said that 65 people had been killed and 111 injured in the quake.

It said that 244 houses, 14 Buddhist monasteries and nine government buildings were damaged.

The town of Tachileik and surrounding villages in Burma's Shan state appear to have borne the brunt of the earthquake.

Cracks are visible in roads and rice fields have been wrecked by rising silt and water, reports say.

The state-controlled New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported that 15 houses collapsed in the town of Tarlay.

Roads, bridges, hospitals and other buildings have been at least partly damaged.

"The military, police and local authorities are trying to find some people injured in those affected areas but the roads are still closed," he said.

The districts around Kengtung and Tachileik are hilly and remote but an active border trade is carried out between many scattered communities.

The BBC's Rachel Harvey in Bangkok says Burma is ill prepared to deal with natural disasters.

Communication systems and infrastructure are poor and the military government tends to limit the flow of information.

It is likely to take some time before a clear picture of the the disaster emerges, our correspondent says.
Collapsing wall

On the Thai side of the border, paddy fields and temples from Chaengsaen to Mae Sai have been damaged.

In Chiang Rai in northern Thailand, scores of people have been injured and buildings affected.

"We are worried that the area might be hit with stronger quakes. There was another quake at 7am," said Somsri Meethong of the Mae Sai District office, referring to an aftershock.

"I had to run again like last night. What we have seen on TV about Japan added to our fear."

One woman in Thailand's Chiang Rai province, close to the epicentre, was killed when a wall collapsed.

In neighbouring Laos, little damage and no casualties have been reported.

The head of the disaster preparedness for the Red Cross there, Bountheun Menevilay, said the quake was felt strongly in the thinly populated border provinces of Luang Namtha and Bokeo.

Earlier reports suggested there had been two strong earthquakes moments apart in the same area, but the USGS later clarified that there had been just one quake.

Earlier this month, on 11 March, a 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck just north of this area, 225km (140 miles) southwest of Dali in Yunnan, southern China.

That was the same day as the huge 9.0 magnitude quake and tsunami hit Japan; however, Japan is on a different tectonic plate.

Myanmar earthquake

Death toll of Myanmar's earthquake rises to 74, 111 people injured

Earthquake News Updates! The death toll of Myanmar's Thursday earthquake has increased to 74 with the injured remaining at 111 as of Friday 2:30 p.m. local time, according to an official statement.

A total of 390 residential houses, 14 monasteries and nine government department buildings were destroyed in the mainly affected areas of Tarlay, Naryaung and Monglin. Of them, Monglin was badly ruined in terms of residential houses with 128.

Relief measures are being taken by the state's Natural Disaster Preparedness Committee and local Red Cross as rescue teams are rushing to the stricken areas.

The quake also triggered landslides and collapsed buildings in Myanmar's northeastern Tachileik and Tarpin, Shan states.

A strong earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale jolted Loimwe, 56 kilometers southeast of Kengtung in northeastern Myanmar on Thursday night at 20:29:30 hours local time (1369 GMT).

The quake's epicenter, only 10 kilometers deep, struck the hills of Myanmar bordering Thailand and Laos.

The quake was also felt in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and China.

According to reports from the Laos, the 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Myanmar shook Laos' northern province of Bokeo and Luang Namtha on Thursday night, but no casualties have yet been reported.

According to a statement on Friday from Laos' Department of Meteorology and Hydrology at Water Resources and Environment Administration, people living in Bokeo and Luang Namtha provinces in the north of the country felt the quake, but no damage or injuries have been report from the sparsely populated region.

Meanwhile, the Irrigation department of Thailand on Friday confirmed that the earthquakes in Myanmar had not caused damage to any major dams in the northern region of Thailand.

"The department ordered a structural inspection of the dams in the northern provinces of Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai and found that all dams were undamaged by the quake," Bangkok Post online quoted Chalit Damrongsak, the department's irector-general, as saying.

There are no cracks at all in the dams, he said.

Chalit said he had ordered irrigation officials nationwide to regularly make safety checks of dams under their supervision.

The powerful 7-magnitude earthquake on Thursday night sent shock waves that shook buildings in many parts of Thailand and rattled the nerves of highrise residents in Bangkok.

People living near the dams were worried their structural integrity might have been affected and sought reassurance, Thai media reported.

In Thailand, a 55-year-old woman was killed Thursday in the quake in northern Chiang Rai province.

Some 60 aftershocks have been recorded in northern Chiangmai province since the deadly earthquake, according to Thai Meteorological Department's Seismological Bureau.

An officer from Seismological Bureau disclosed that the quake in Myanmar was followed by 56 aftershocks below 5.0 magnitude as well as six aftershocks over 5.0 magnitude.

The aftershocks are expected to continue for a week with different magnitudes ranging from 3.0 to 5.0, but no greater than 6.0 magnitude quake is expected, the seismological bureau said.

According to Vietnam News Agency, buildings in Hanoi shook when the earthquake happened, which caused panic among residents of apartment blocks.

Japan Nuclear Blast

Japan nuclear emergency: Live updates

In view of apprehensions about the safety of nuclear installations in earthquake-hit Japan, former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Anil Kakodkar today said Indian nuclear reactors were safe.

However, he said designs of reactors will evolve and improve the world over following the present crisis in Japan.

In the lecture on importance of nuclear energy, organised by V S Page Parliamentary Training Centre at Vidhan Bhavan here, Kakodkar said the nuclear installation at Fukushima plant in Japan was essentially safe.

The blast happened there because cooling could not take place due to flooding caused by the tsunami, he said.

"However, the situation is still fluid and complete assessment will be available after some time," Kakodkar said.

He said Indian nuclear reactors were safe. "The seismic activity in Japan and India is very different. After the Bhuj earthquake, the Kakrapar plant (in Gujarat) was functioning and the Kalpakam plant (Tamil Nadu) was shut down after the tsunami in South India due to flooding. It re-started after a few days," he said.

He said following the Japan experience, designs of reactors the world over will evolve and improve.

"The World Association of Nuclear Operators monitors and modifies changes in designs and reviews experiences of nuclear reactors across the world," he said adding safety of nuclear reactors was an evolving process.

Earthquake struck off Tokyo - Japan

Japan earthquake: 7.2 tremor shakes Tokyo buildings

An earthquake of 7.2 magnitude has struck off the coast of Japan, shaking buildings in the capital, Tokyo, and triggering a small tsunami.

The tremor was centred 168km (104 miles) from the east coast, north-east of Tokyo.

A 60cm (24in) tsunami reached the coastal town of Ofunato, with other towns reporting smaller waves shortly after the quake hit at 1145 (0245 GMT).

There are so far no reports of damage or injuries.

Japan is well-prepared for quakes which often hit the seismically active area.

An aftershock measuring 6.3 magnitude struck after the main quake, Japan's meteorological agency said, followed by a series of smaller aftershocks.

Some train services in the area were temporarily halted after the quake, but they were restarted shortly after noon.

Tohoku Electric Power said its Onagawa nuclear plant was operating normally after the quake and Tokyo Electric Power also said its power supplies were unaffected.

Afghan Khost province bomb blast

Eight dead in Afghan suicide car bomb.
Eight people were killed and 30 others injured in a suicide car bombing in Khost, eastern Afghanistan, police said, updating an earlier toll and warning it could rise further.

A suicide car bomb went off Friday morning in Khost city capital of Khost province, 150 km southeast of capital Kabul, killing nine people and injuring over 30 others, a provincial official said.

"So far, I can confirm nine people including a policeman were killed and over 30 others injured in the blast," Amir Badshah Mangal, Director of Public Health Department in the province told Xinhua.

He said many women and children were also among the killed and wounded persons, adding that many of seriously wounded are receiving treatment in the provincial capital hospital.

The death toll could rise, as many injured remain in critical conditions, he added.

The suicide bomber was also killed in the explosion.

however, local residents said that the bomber had the intention of attacking the house of Khost governor, nearly 150 meters a way from explosion site.

A witness told Xinhua's reporter that the blast damaged several shops and houses around the blast site in west of Khost city.

Nor group or individuals have not claimed responsibility for attack while Taliban militants have been behind most suicide and roadside bomb attacks across the war-ravaged country.

The eastern Khost and neighboring Paktika province has been the scene of Taliban-led insurgency over the past couple of years.

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Suburban Mexico City shootout

7 dead, 1 injured in suburban Mexico City shootout

A state security official says a street shootout possibly between local drug gangs has killed seven people and injured one in suburban Mexico City.

Mexico state security agency spokesman Edgar Sanchez says the shooting occurred early Sunday morning in the northern part of Mexico state that borders Mexico City. He said the dead, six men and one woman, all suffered gunshot wounds, and none have yet to be claimed by family.

State Attorney General spokesman Alfredo Albiter said an investigation is under way on the cause of the killings, but he wouldn't discount a dispute between local street dealers.

A shooting between two suspected drug gangs killed eight in the same area last month.

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Bomb blast in Northwest Pakistan

Bomb blast in Northwest Pak, 1 Policeman killed, 3 injured

Bomb blast near security checkpoint in Pakistan’s northwest city of Peshawar, One Policeman killed, three others injured.

Although nobody was hurt when the first bomb went through the checkpoint, a second remote-controlled bomb detonated as police rushed to the scene and struck them, the BBC reports.

The police checkpoint had been abandoned following a bomb attack last year.

No terror group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. Militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban have killed hundreds of people in the region in recent years.

Last week, at least nine people were killed in a bomb attack near a police station in Peshawar.

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Father raped his 12-yr-old daughter

12-yr-old girl raped by her father as punishment.

A 49 year old Zimbabwean man raped his daughter as punishment for not wearing her dress properly.

A 49 year old Zimbabwean man who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of the victim, who is still a minor, appeared before a local

magistrate in Mudzi District facing charges of raping his 12 year old daughter.

The man was staying alone with his three children, all girls as his wife had left accusing him of being irresponsible. The one he raped is the oldest of the three.

Prosecuting for the state, Ms Mary Changadzo told the court that on the night of January 11, the accused dragged his 12 year old daughter into his bedroom hut and raped her once. After that he told her that he had done that as punishment for not always putting her underwear.

“The accused dragged the complainant into his bedroom and raped her once and warned her not to tell anyone as this was a punishment for not wearing her underwear.”

The man is also said to have warned his daughter that if she does not change her behavior he will ‘punish’ her again. He warned her against telling other people about the punishment saying people will be jealous and report him to the police.

However, the matter came to light when the young girl shared her ordeal with a friend who in turn told her mother, who immediately

reported the matter to members of the police special constabulary leading to the man’s arrest.

In court, the man pleaded guilty and asked the court to be lenient on him since he committed the crime under a spell from evil spirits. He

told the court that his daughter was in the habit of not wearing her underwear and caused problems to him since he is a man living a bachelor’s life without his wife.

The man was remanded in custody for sentencing on the 08th of Feb.

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Fire at Bombay House Near Fort Area

3 dead in a fire at Bombay House: The main office of the Tata Group in Mumbai's Fort Area.

Three people have died in a fire at Bombay House, which houses the main office of the Tata Group in Mumbai's Fort Area.

The fire was located in the building's basement, which was evacuated by 11.20 am. The fire broke out at around 9.20 am.

Unconfirmed reports say three people were rescued and have been taken to St George's hospital nearby.

Ten fire engines, five water tankers and ambulances helped bring the fire under control by 11.30 am.

"Three men died at the St George Hospital after they were admitted with severe burn injuries," a fire brigade official said, adding the injured person is recuperating.

The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained, the official added.

Statement from Bombay House

A fire broke out this morning, before office hours, in Bombay House, headquarters of Tata Group.

The fire has been brought under control and the building evacuated.

Out of the people evacuated, there were three casualties; Farad Wadia, Eashwar Patel and Shashank Pawar.

A Tata Sons spokesperson said, the Group offers deepest condolences to the bereaved families and relief is being organised.

The authorities are investigating the cause of the incident. The Tata group is fully cooperating in the investigations. (With PTI Inputs)

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Woman attacked in Kerala train

Kerala woman who was raped on railway tracks, dies in hospital.

Hardly a week after a woman rail passenger was pushed out of a local train and allegedly raped, Railway Police have arrested a 23-year-old youth in another incident when he tried to misbehave with a young woman passenger on board the Thiruvananthapuram-Mangalore express.

The woman passenger was asleep on the top berth late on Sunday night when she felt someone trying to embrace her. She screamed for help and the other passengers who were all asleep immediately woke up. The incident occurred as the train was nearing Ernakulam station.

The youth, who managed to escape, was found hiding inside a toilet and was arrested by the railway police force personnel. A case under sect 354 of IPC has been charged against him, railway police said.

The accused Antony Suresh, hailing from Kanyakumari, was produced before the Judicial First Class magistrate court here and remanded to 14 days judicial custody.

Last week, 23-year-old Sowmya was pushed out of the Ladies compartment of the Erankulam-Shornur passenger train and raped by the accused. She had at least 100 wounds all over her body and police suspect that the accused hit her with a sharp edged weapon or stone which resulted in the fracture of the skull bone and jaw bone.

After fighting of her life, sowmya succumbed to her injuries on sunday and was cremated on Monday.

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Collision in Texas kills 5

Collision in Texas kills 5, including 3 children

A fiery head-on collision in West Texas has killed five people, including three children.

Authorities say the accident Sunday afternoon happened when a Volkswagen Beetle slammed head-on into a dump truck. All four people in the subcompact car were killed on impact in the crash about five miles north of Midland.

The Texas Department of Public Safety identified them as driver Deborah Beck of Andrews and her three grandchildren — 8-year-old Tiffany Klein, 3-year-old Jeremyah Rodriguez and 2-year-old Sebastian Savage.

Trooper John Barton says dump truck driver 56-year-old Edwin Timmer also was killed, apparently in the ensuing fire. Barton says Timmer was talking with his wife after the crash but was unable to escape the truck, which was towing a trailer.

Barton says all five were wearing their seat restraints.

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Fresh Thai-Cambodia clash kills 1

Fresh Thai-Cambodia clash kills 1 before new truce.

Renewed fighting between Cambodian and Thai troops along the countries' disputed border killed a Thai soldier Saturday and sent thousands of people fleeing before military commanders agreed on the second cease-fire in two days.

The fiercest border clashes in years also damaged a landmark 11th century temple near a strip of disputed land that Thai nationalists have seized on as a domestic political issue.

At least five people have died in two days — one civilian and one soldier from Thailand and one civilian and two soldiers from Cambodia, according to officials from the two countries. Each side blames the other for starting the fighting.

Tensions between the Southeast Asian nations have risen in recent days because of demonstrations in the Thai capital, Bangkok, demanding that the government oust Cambodians from land near the Preah Vihear temple. Thai nationalists claim the land is actually part of Thailand.

The demonstrators — from the same group, the People's Alliance for Democracy, that in 2008 occupied the Thai prime minister's offices and Bangkok's two airports in a bid to force out two previous governments — called Saturday night for Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his Cabinet to step down, saying they had failed to safeguard the country's sovereignty.

The rally by the PAD — also known as the Yellow Shirts — has raised tensions in a country still recovering from political violence last year in which about 90 people died. However, the several thousand who attended Friday night's protest was small compared to major turnouts in the past.

While a full-blown war is unlikely, nationalist passions are inflamed in both countries — with no clear way to settle the long-standing territorial dispute surrounding the temple, built during a time when Cambodia's Khmer empire ruled over much of Thailand.

Thai army spokesman Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd said Thai and Cambodian regional commanders met Saturday and agreed to stop fighting and not deploy more troops to the area.

The two sides also agreed that Thailand would suspend construction of a road to the disputed area, which measures just 1.8 square miles (4.6 square kilometers), according to the private Cambodian Television Network, which is close to the government. A Thai statement did not mention the matter.

The latest round of fighting began Friday on land near Preah Vihear temple, a U.N. World Heritage Site that belongs to Cambodia under a 1962 World Court ruling disputed by many Thais.

Several mortar and artillery shells exploded just yards (meters) from Preah Vihear, slightly damaging its walls and setting grass and several trees nearby ablaze, said Gen. Chea Tara, the deputy commander of Cambodia's armed forces. He said two of his troops died.

CTN showed footage of the damage, primarily on stairs to the temple that were pitted by shrapnel.

Thailand's Foreign Ministry said at least 3,000 people have fled their homes, while Sar Thavy, deputy governor of Cambodia's Preah Vihear province, said 1,000 families had been evacuated there.

Thailand initially said the flare-up could have been caused by a misunderstanding, but Cambodia described it as a deliberate "Thai invasion," claiming that as many as 300 Thai soldiers advanced Friday on a small pagoda to try to take down the Cambodian flag. TV footage Saturday showed the roof of the pagoda — erected 13 years ago — almost totally destroyed, allegedly by Thai shelling, and a Buddha statue inside damaged.

Ath Vicheth, a Cambodian soldier in the area, told The Associated Press by telephone that Saturday's clash began after Thai soldiers tried to cross the border in search of missing comrades.

Thai army spokesman Sansern, however, denied the claim and said no Thai soldiers were missing or captured. He said eight Thai soldiers had been wounded since Friday and 13 homes were either burned down or damaged. One Thai soldier was killed Saturday, he said.

The Preah Vihear issue was virtually dormant until Cambodia successfully applied in 2008 to UNESCO to have the temple declared a World Heritage Site, an application backed by the government in power in Thailand at the time.

Thai nationalists have argued that the action threatened Thailand's sovereignty, though their protests were seen mainly as a way of rallying criticism to help oust the Thai government. Both countries' leaders, defending their patriotic credentials, then built up military forces at the border.

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Iran air crash

77 including 4 foreigners killed in Iran's air crash

Iranian officials said Monday the air crash near the airport of the northwestern city of Uroumieh on Sunday killed 77, including four foreigners.

Iran's Coroner Organization confirmed in an announcement on Monday earlier reports that 77 of the people on board were killed in the incident, according to a report by local Mehr news agency.

Four Iraqi nationals were among the victims of the Sunday air crash in Iran's West Azerbaijan province, Mehr quoted Coroner Organization's report as saying, adding that two of the four Iraqi nationals have been identified by their relatives.

There were no Chinese passengers on the plane, Chinese embassy officials in Tehran told Xinhua.

Names of 73 people, 51 of whom were men and 22 were women, were disclosed by the announcement which said that four others killed in the accident still need to be identified.

An earlier report by semi-official Fars news agency said that 12 crew members were also among the killed.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed condolences to the families of the victims on Monday.

Some 27 others were injured when the passenger plane crashed near Uroumieh, according to Nosrat Molazadeh, head of Uroumieh University of Medical Sciences, local satellite Press TV reported. The injured people were transferred to the hospitals in Uroumieh.

Although on the basis of the latest reports the number of the people on board amounts to 104, there were, however, different local media reports, ranging from 104 to 106.

On Monday, another passenger plane which took off from Tehran's Mehrabad airport at 17:00 local time (1330 GMT) could not land in Uroumieh airport due to bad whether and flew back to Tehran, Xinhua reporters said.

The Fokker 100 passenger plane, belonging to IranAir airlines flew above the Uroumieh airport with one hour's delay, but failed to land and had to return to Tehran, according to Xinhua reporters who were on board to Uroumieh to report about the Sunday's air crash.

On Sunday, the Boeing-727, also belonging to the state-owned IranAir airliner, took off from Tehran Mehrabad airport at 18:00 local time (1430 GMT) and crashed at 19:45 local time (1615 GMT) near a village some 15 km from Uroumieh.

One of the black boxes of the plane has been found and the cause of the crash was yet to be found out, but earlier reports have linked the incident to bad whether condition and technical problems on the plane.

"Ten minutes before the plane arrived at the Uroumieh airport, the pilot informed the airport control tower that it cannot land due to the bad whether condition... and after that it disappeared from the radar," the governor of West Azerbaijan told Iran state IRINN TV on Sunday night.

However, in another report by Mehr, the political deputy of West Azerbaijan governor said that the last conversation of the pilot with the control tower revealed that, before the emergency landing, he had announced that his plane had a technical problem.

Iran has seen several air disasters, involving both civil and military use aircraft, in recent years.

In July 2009, a Caspian Airlines plane crashed near the northwestern city of Qazvin, killing all 168 people on board.

Experts said the U.S.-imposed sanctions against Iran, which prevented its allies from selling aircraft or aircraft parts to the country, have undermined safety standards within Iran's civil and military aviation fleet and are increasing the likelihood of more air disasters.

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Afghan car bomb attack

'Three die, 12 hurt in Afghan car bomb attack'

Three people died and 12 people were injured in a car bombing that hit Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan Monday, officials told AFP.

"Initially we received one dead body and two of the wounded died later, taking the death toll to three," said Mohammad Afzal, a doctor at the city's main hospital. He added that 12 people had been injured, mostly police.

The city's police chief, Khan Mohammad, said the explosion was a car bombing in front of a bank -- where locals said police went to collect their salaries -- and that one of the dead was a police officer.

"This was a car bomb attack which exploded next to police vehicles in front of Kabul Bank," Mohammad said.

Kandahar, the biggest city in southern Afghanistan and the birthplace of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, is at the heart of a nine-year Taliban insurgency, with some 140,000 US-led international troops in the country.

It has been flooded with international troops in recent months and there is a regular stream of convoys and patrols on the streets. Local commanders say security in the city has been improved as a result.

Explaining what happened in the blast, local police officer Basir Khan told AFP: "Police had come to the bank to get their salaries and they had parked vehicles outside.

"A vehicle packed with explosives was parked next to police vehicles and it exploded."

An AFP reporter at the scene said that gunfire was heard following the blast, which shattered windows around 200 metres away. The area has since been sealed off.

A spokesman for Afghanistan's interior ministry in Kabul, Zemarai Bashary, confirmed there had been a blast but said he could not give further details.

"At this stage I can confirm there has been an explosion in Kandahar city.

"We don't know at this stage what the target of the blast was or the type of the blast," he said.

Earlier this month, four policemen and two children were injured in a car bomb close to the police headquarters in the city.

President Barack Obama announced 30,000 extra troops for Afghanistan last year as part of a surge strategy to try to turn around the conflict.

In a review of the strategy published earlier this month, Obama insisted it was on track although he stressed that gains were fragile.