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Laos air force plane crashes, defence minister reported dead

(Reuters) – A Laotian air force plane with at least 14 people on board crashed on Saturday, May 17,  a defense ministry source said, and a witness at the site said the defense minister was among the dead. “A Laos air force plane has crashed on its way to Xiang Khouang province in the north of the country. The mayor of Vientiane, the defense minister of Laos and his wife were on board,” the official […]

Death toll in Balkan floods reach 37; rising flood threatens power plants

(Reuters) – Soldiers, police and villagers battled to protect power plants in Serbia from rising flood waters on Sunday as the death toll from the Balkan region’s worst rainfall in more than a century reached 37. Twelve bodies were recovered from the worst-hit Serbian town of Obrenovac, 30 km (18 miles) southwest of the capital, Belgrade, but the number was likely to rise as waters receded. “The situation is catastrophic,” Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told […]

Vietnam stops anti-China protests after riots, China evacuates workers

(Reuters) – Vietnam flooded major cities with police to avert anti-China protests on Sunday, while Beijing evacuated thousands of citizens after a flare-up over disputed sovereignty in the South China Sea sparked rare and deadly rioting in Vietnam last week. China has evacuated more than 3,000 nationals following the attacks on Chinese workers and Chinese-owned businesses at industrial parks in its southern neighbor. On Sunday, China arranged two chartered flights to bring nearly 300 people, many of them […]

Pantabangan Dam stops irrigation water release for 100,000 hectares of Central Luzon farmlands

 By Marilyn E. Galang, Philippines News Agency CABANATUAN CITY, Nueva Ecija (PNA) — The National Irrigation Administration-Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation Systems (NIA-UPRIIS) has cut off water supply to some 100,000 hectares of agricultural lands in Central Luzon irrigated by the giant Pantabangan Dam, but officials allayed fears of shortage. As of Saturday, the water level of Pantabangan dam was 182.10 meters above sea level (masl), over 11 meters away from its critical level of 171.5 […]

India’s Modi gets hero’s welcome as he brings new era to New Delhi

  (Reuters) – Hundreds of Indians thronged the leafy streets of New Delhi on Saturday to greet Narendra Modi’s triumphant march into the capital after he decimated the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and the ruling Congress party in the biggest election victory the country has seen in 30 years. Modi leaned far out of his car, waving a victory sign to jubilant supporters, in a drive from the airport to the headquarters of his Bharatiya Janata Party […]

Apple, Google settle smartphone patent litigation

(Reuters) – Apple Inc and Google Inc’s Motorola Mobility unit have agreed to settle all patent litigation between them over smartphones, ending one of the highest-profile lawsuits in technology. In a joint statement on Friday, the companies said the settlement does not include a cross license to their respective patents. “Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform,” the statement said.  Apple and companies that make phones using Google’s Android software have filed dozens of such lawsuits against one another […]

Kingdom Tower will soon be the world’s tallest building

The Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia, which will be the world’s tallest tower at 3,280 feet, is set for a December 2018 completion. Kingdom Tower will be 568 feet taller than Khalifa Tower, the current Guinness World Record holder in neighboring Dubai, once it is completed. Clem Orjaliza reports from the Middle East Bureau

Amid protests, U.S. FCC proposes new ‘net neutrality’ rules

(Reuters) – U.S. regulators on Thursday advanced a “net neutrality” proposal that would ban Internet providers from blocking or slowing down access to websites but may let them charge content companies for faster and more reliable delivery of their traffic to users. For four months now, the public can weigh in on the rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in what promises to be an intense tug-of-war between some tech companies and consumer […]