Beijing, May 12: At least 107 people were killed when a powerful earthquake rocked southwest China on Monday. State media reports said the quake also buried 900 children in a collapsed school as it caused buildings to fall and left whole areas cut off.

Rescue officials said the death toll was expected to increase sharply as they were yet to make contact with the worst-hit areas of Sichuan province, where roads and phone lines have been cut off since the 7.8 magnitude tremor struck. ...Read More

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday told defence scientists to speed up work on advanced technologies like hypersonic propulsions, unmanned vehicles and stealth machines to keep pace with current trends in warfare.

Singh said keeping pace with technologies like smart materials, micro and nano technologies and robotics would enable India to contend with emergence and growth of non-conventional and asymmetric warfare.

Stressing that self reliance and defence preparedness was not a case of numbers or percentages, the Prime Minister, addressing Technology Day function here, said scientists should clearly define strategic and critical areas in which development of national capability is a must. ...Read More

Islamabad, May 12: Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has announced that his party is withdrawing from Pakistan`s federal Cabinet but will not join the Parliamentary opposition.

Sharif says ministers from his party will meet with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani on Tuesday and hand in their resignations.

"Our ministers will submit their resignations to the Prime Minister on Tuesday," Sharif told a news conference after a crucial meeting of his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) here on Monday.
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Mon, May 12: Buoyed by the string of successes with the intermediate range ballistic missile Agni-III, India is planning to test a missile with 5000 km range soon.

The test of the next series of Agni missiles will propel the country into the select group of nations which have long range ballistic missiles.

Indicating that planning process for the test launch of such a missile was in final stages, Avinash Chander, Project Director of Agni-III, said today scientists were awaiting the government nod for carrying out the test flights which could be anytime by this year-end.
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