Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan/Moscow - At least 65 people are believed dead in the crash of an Itek Air Boeing 737 passenger liner shortly after takeoff from Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek, the Kyrgyz authorities said early Monday.

The ill-fated airliner, bound for Tehran, was completely consumed by fire, according to the Civil Defence Ministry.

Tokon Mamitov, an advisor to Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev, announced the revised death toll, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported.

Lahore, Aug 23: Pakistan’s Indus Commissioner Syed Jamaat Ali Shah has alleged that India was filling the Baglihar Dam in clear violation of the Indus Basin Water Treaty, bringing the inflow in Chenab River down to a historic low of 20,000 cusecs.

This has forced Pakistan to launch a protest with India’s Indus Commissioner, he added.

“Although the Indians can fill the dam between June 21 and Aug 31, they can only do so by releasing at least 55,000 cusecs downstream. We made a call to the Indian Indus Basin Water Treaty Commissioner who promised to get back after checking the facts from irrigation authorities in occupied Kashmir,” the Dawn quoted Ali Shah as saying.

New Delhi, Aug. 22: At least three people were killed by a 5.9-magnitude tremor in China’s Yunnan Province.

According to a China View report, two quakes were recorded in Yingjiang, a county on the Sino-Myanmar border, on Thursday: one 4.9-magnitude event at 8:20 p. m. and another 5.9-magnitude quake four minutes later.

Provincial officials said 106 people were injured, including 24 seriously. They also said that about 120,000 people had to be evacuated.

There was also damage to transport, power, water and communications infrastructure, as well as education and health facilities.

Blackouts were reported in the county seat of Yingjiang and some of its townships. Some areas got their power back by
10:20 p. m. on Thursday.

Beijing - About 1,200 people were evacuated Wednesday after an earthquake measuring 5 on the Richter scale damaged homes in China's south-western province of Yunnan, the government and state media said.

The State Seismological Bureau said it recorded the quake at 5:35 am (2135 GMT Tuesday) with an epicentre in Yunnan's Yingjiang county and a depth of about 10 kilometres.

Many homes collapsed in towns and villages close to the epicentre and about 1,200 people were evacuated, the official Xinhua news agency quoted local authorities as saying.

Washington, Aug 18 : Biracial Asian Americans are twice as likely to be
diagnosed with a psychological disorder as monoracial Asian Americans,
a new study suggests.

Researchers at the Asian American Center on Disparities Research at the
University of California, Davis, say that 34 percent of biracial
individuals in a national survey had been diagnosed with a
psychological disorder, such as anxiety, depression or substance abuse,
versus 17 percent of monoracial individuals.

"Up to 2.4 percent of the U. S. population self-identifies as mixed
race, and most of these individuals describe themselves as biracial,"
said Nolan Zane, a professor of psychology and Asian American studies
at UC Davis.

Kidapawan City, Philippines - Philippine troops on Thursday recovered a homemade bomb planted near a public market in a southern province where days of fighting with Muslim separatist rebels have displaced nearly 160,000 people, the military said.

The device was found in a bag left near a garbage collection area of an old bus terminal in Kidapawan City in North Cotabato province, 930 kilometres south of Manila, which is near the wet section of the public market.