News Updates

BEIJING: Crew and passengers traveling on a plane that had just taken off from a restive city in China s far-western Xinjiang region on Friday thwarted a hijack attempt by six people, authorities said.The plane returned safely to the airport and the six have been detained, a brief statement on the Xinjiang government s news website said, without detailing who the hijackers were.

BEIJING: At least 20 people were killed and 14 others injured on Friday in an explosion caused by a leak of an oil tank truck in south China s Guangdong province.'The explosion, which sparked a massive fire, took place on an expressway in the provincial capital of Guangzhou around 5.15am local time, a spokesman with the city s public security bureau said.He said 20 people were killed in the explosion.State-run Xinhua news agency reported that the 14 others who were injured in the incident have been hospitalised.The fire caused by the blast was brought under control around 8.30am local time, according to firefighters.

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama scored a major victory in the run-up to the November presidential poll with the US Supreme Court in a historic verdict largely upholding his signature health care law.Obama s stunning victory in a 5-4 split verdict on Thursday was all the more sweet as the majority decision upholding the core of the law, dubbed 'Obamacare', was written by conservative chief justice John Roberts appointed by Obama s Republican predecessor George Bush.With Roberts casting the fifth decisive vote, the conservative-dominated court essentially ruled that the so-called individual mandate requiring all people to have health insurance beginning 2014 or pay a fine was unconstitutional under the commerce clause, but would stand if seen as a tax.'The federal government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. Section 5000A would therefore be unconstitutional if read as a command. The federal government does have the power to impo

BEIJING: Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Friday after achieving China s first manual docking in orbit, a milestone in the country s effort to build a space station by the end of the decade.The return of the trio, including the country s first female astronaut, to a landing zone in remote grasslands of northern China was broadcast to a national audience on state television.