There’s something particularly eerie about an abandoned shopping mall. Perhaps it’s the stark contrast from its intended purpose: to see such a sterile place once designed to entice throngs of shoppers into its doors, now so completely devoid of any human life, dilapidated and darkened with time. It’s basically the very definition of post-apocalyptic. But in the case of the (now ironically named) New World shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, […]

No one can accuse China of stinting in its efforts to reach for the sky. Less than a year after construction was halted on a world-beating 838-meter tower in Changsa in central China (just days after it began) architects have revealed plans to build something even bigger. At one kilometer (0.6 miles) high, the largest of the two Phoenix Towers planned for Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in central […]

Daredevils will be flocking to Gurnee in Illinois this summer for the chance to take on Goliath – the world’s tallest, steepest, fastest roller coaster. The latest attraction which opened at Six Flags Great America on Thursday is a wooden roller coaster that breaks three world records. Those brave enough to take a ride on it will be plunged down a 180ft near-vertical drop, as the roller coaster twists and […]

More than a million Iraqis have been forced from their homes by conflict this year, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday — a number only likely to rise as Islamist militants and Iraqi security forces battle for control. A humanitarian crisis is brewing, as families who’ve fled fighting with little more than the clothes on their back seek water, food and shelter from the summer heat. Meanwhile, the first of […]

In September 2013 I wrote about how the battle between the Taliban and the Pakistani government lay in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi. If that urban centre burned, the whole country might as well burn with it. Up till now the government’s offer of talks exposed the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as unreasonable and illogical, but the government persisted – one unable and the other unwilling to accept the idea that perhaps […]

The “slow” quakes emanate from the deep like clockwork every 14 months on Canada’s west coast. They typically release the energy of a Magnitude 7 earthquake, but the powerful tectonic events are almost imperceptible because they occur slowly over two weeks, instead of in sudden jolts that last just seconds. “They would represent a pretty big earthquake if they happened like a regular quake, but because they are so slow […]

Iraq is facing its most severe crisis in years, with the country on the brink of break-up amid lightning offensives by Sunni Muslim militants. How has it happened so quickly? Iraq’s plagued by violence, so what’s new?   The US-led invasion in 2003 unleashed a bloody insurgency led by Iraq’s Sunni Arabs, who controlled the country under Saddam Hussein. Attacks on officials and civilians triggered large-scale reprisals by members of […]

A group of amateur explorers has stumbled upon a set of dinosaur bones in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district. The discovery, made in Bagh forest area, is believed to be one of the most striking findings of dinosaur remains in India. A team of palaeontologists on Tuesday unearthed a huge bunch of dinosaur bones, including leg bones and three bones of cervical vertebrate, that could shed light on the life of […]

Towns stand empty as skeletons still surface one year after devastating floods swept away thousands of people in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, BBC Hindi’s Nitin Srivastava reports from Kedarnath. A trail of death and destruction was left across the 4,000 villages of Rudraprayag district when floods engulfed the famous Hindu shrine of Kedarnath. At least 5,700 people missing were presumed dead while more than 540 bodies recovered from […]

•Voters were mutilated by the Taliban in Herat after casting their ballots •So far, 20 civilians and one election worker have been killed in attacks •Officials believe seven  million out of 12 million eligible electors voted The Taliban cut off the fingers of 11 people as punishment for voting in Afghanistan’s presidential election. The barbaric attacks were in the western Herat province after Saturday’s vote, according to police. In violence […]