Nissan Motor Co. recalled 908,900 vehicles around the world Thursday for defective accelerator sensors that could cause the engine to stall.
The recall affects the Serena minivan, Infiniti M luxury model, X-trail sport utility vehicle and other models, the automaker said. No accidents have been reported related to the problem.
Most of the vehicles being recalled are in Japan. Others are in North America, Europe and Oceania, Yokohama-based Nissan said.
Sensors, manufactured in Japan, can malfunction, causing the vehicle to slow down and at times stop, it said.
A deadly 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck southern Pakistan on Tuesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The death toll rose quickly, with at least 30 deaths reported in the quake’s aftermath in Awaran in Balochistan province, said Asad Gilani, the province’s home secretary.
In addition to the fatalities, “dozens have been injured,” Gilani said.
Officials fear people are trapped in the rubble.
The province declared a rescue emergency. All officials were put on high alert, and doctors at hospitals were on standby.
More than 200 troops have been sent to the area to provide aid, including rescue teams and medical teams, Lt. Col. Abid Ali Askari said.
The tremors lasted two minutes. People flocked out onto the streets of Quetta, the provincial capital.
The quake was strong enough to cause a mass 30 to 40 feet high to emerge from the ocean like a small mountain island off the coast of Gwadar, local police official Mozzam Jah said. A large number of people gathered to view the newly formed island, he said.
Zahid Rafi, principal seismologist of the National Seismic Monitoring Center, confirmed the island had. He said that this is “not surprising” considering the magnitude of the earthquake.
The government says it will grant special visas to Syrians who want to leave their conflict-wracked nation and travel to Brazil.
The government’s says Tuesday that the foreign ministry has been authorized to issue the visas for “humanitarian reasons,” allowing Syrians affected by the conflict and the “deterioration of living conditions” to enter the South American country.
Brazil has a Syrian immigrant community estimated at about 3 million.
Zimbabwean authorities say at least 81 elephants have been killed for their ivory tusks by poachers using cyanide poison in water holes in a vast western national park.
Wildlife department officials said industrial cyanide, used in gold mining, was put in the park’s remote water holes, killing smaller animals drinking there and vultures and other predators feeding on the dead animals.
Nine alleged poachers were arrested after rangers tracked them to a cache of ivory hidden in the park.
Zimbabwe’s state media reported Tuesday that newly-appointed environment minister Saviour Kasukuwere has vowed harsher jail penalties for poachers.
She has a reputation as being a fiercely talented live performer.
So fans at Rihanna’s Singapore Grand Prix concert on Sunday were expecting the very best in showmanship.
But according to Radar Online, many were left disappointed by the 25-year-old’s efforts, complaining that she was not only lip-synching to her hits, but was also ‘high’.
Rihanna was performing at the Formula 1 event after a colourful few days in Thailand where she was criticised for both posing with an endangered primate and visiting a live sex show.
She was probably hoping her luck would change once she left the country.
It’s not the first time she has been accused of lip-synching.
Organisers of Scotland’s Tea in the Park Festival last July were forced to defend her after it emerged she relied on a backing track.
Yet even if she did lip synch in Singapore on Sunday she still managed to cause a stir with her flamboyant and risque performance.
Around 30 large dolphins have beached themselves in northeastern Brazil.
The dolphins known as false killer whales ran aground on Sunday in Areia Branca, roughly halfway between the cities of Fortaleza and Natal.
Images distributed by the environmental police of Rio Grande do Norte state show beachgoers and passers-by attempting to aid the animals, which lay in shallow waters. Most were still, occasionally moving their tails, as beachgoers swabbed them with wet T-shirts.
O Globo newspaper reported Monday that at least seven on the animals have died.
The paper said it was not immediately known why the animals beached themselves, but biologists were examining whether the pod leader may have been ill.
O Globo says this is among the largest collective beachings in Brazil in recent decades.
The death toll from several storms that hit Mexico this week rose to 101, authorities said late Friday. An additional 68 people are still missing after storms ravaged the area, the nation’s Interior Ministry said. At one point this week, Mexico seemed to be pummeled from all sides by then-Hurricane Manuel and the remnants of Hurricane Ingrid. Some 24 states in the country had been impacted by storm damage, the Interior Ministry said. And the bad news, forecasters say, is that heavy rains could continue through the end of the month. One area battered by rain was the tourist destination of Acapulco on the Pacific coast. Manuel had left about 40,000 tourists stranded in Acapulco. As of Thursday, more than 10,000 were able to board military or commercial flights out of the storm-ravaged area. On Friday, some good news was delivered to trapped tourists. Four ships arrived with 125 tons of groceries and nine tons of medical oxygen, the Interior Ministry said. But it may be some time, officials said, before Acapulco International Airport is fully functional.
Rescuers say they have found 17 bodies of Hindu devotees who were swept away in the Yamuna River during a religious festival in the Indian capital.
Fire official S.L. Sharma says the devotees drowned during a ceremony immersing clay statues of the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesha into the river at the end of a 10-day festival.
Sharma says the bodies were recovered Thursday, a day after thousands of devotees thronged the river banks celebrating the birth of Ganesha, who is widely worshipped as the god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune.
Millions of Hindus install Ganesha statues in colorfully decorated homes and specially erected temporary structures across India and worship them before immersing them in lakes, rivers and the sea.
Venezuela accused the United States on Thursday of denying President Nicolas Maduro’s plane permission to enter U.S. airspace — a claim that a State Department official denied.
Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said U.S. officials have blocked plans for Maduro’s presidential plane to fly through Puerto Rican airspace on the way to China.
He described the move as an aggression and called for an explanation from the U.S. State Department.
A senior State Department official told CNN that Jaua’s claim was untrue, saying that the Venezuelans have, in fact, been approved to clear U.S. airspace.
In remarks broadcast on state television, Maduro called the situation “a serious offense.”
The Venezuelan president vowed to take action, adding that the United States had also denied visas for several members of his country’s delegation scheduled to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
The State Department official also called the visa issue untrue, saying the United States had approved them.
Maduro is scheduled to travel to China on Saturday. Jaua said officials were evaluating alternate routes so that the trip could continue as scheduled.
A passenger train collided with a double-decker city bus in Ottawa today, killing six people and critically injuring 11 others.
Witnesses said the bus went through a closed crossing barrier.
It was Canada’s worst train accident since an oil train derailed and exploded in a Quebec town in July, killing dozens of people.
A number of bus passengers were injured, Ottawa Fire spokesman Mark Messier told CP24 television. Via Rail posted a message on Twitter saying there were no reports of major injuries to passengers or crew on the train.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper posted a message on Twitter saying he was deeply saddened by the accident and his thoughts and prayers were with the families of those involved.
The crash occurred in the west end of Ottawa, Canada’s capital city.
A volcano in Indonesia prompted the evacuation of more than 6,000 people this weekend, blanketing buildings and cars in ashes, emergency officials said Monday.
Mount Sinabung erupted early Sunday. It is the highest mountain in North Sumatra with an altitude of about 2,600 meters (8,530 feet). North Sumatra is a province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Five people suffered breathing difficulties after inhaling volcanic ashes, and they were transported to a hospital in the North Sumatran city of Kabanjahe, said Jhonson Tarigan, a spokesman of the Sinabung Disaster Control Agency.
More than 6,200 evacuees sought shelter in eight locations, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for Indonesia’s national disaster management agency.
Beyoncé was pulled off stage by a shirtless concertgoer during a performance in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Sunday night.
The over-excited fan managed to put his arms around the 32-year-old singer and yank her off the elevated platform she had been singing from.
However, Beyoncé’s entourage were quick to step in, with two security guards rushing onto the stage to disentangle the singer from the grip of the fan.
The incident occurred when Beyoncé moved around the platform and leaned forward to sing to the crowd.
After Beyoncé’s security guards pulled her back onto the stage, Beyoncé quickly resumed singing and dancing in her sequined blue jumpsuit during the performance at the Estadio do Morumbi stadium following the incident.
‘It’s all right,’ she told the crowd as she picked up a Brazilian flag that was tossed onto the stage. She moved toward the man after resuming singing and told him: ‘It’s alright, it’s alright.’
Mother-of-one Beyoncé then stopped her Mrs. Carter show to address the man and ask him his name.
‘I love you all,’ she said towards the end of a 90-second clip YouTube clip, which captured the incident.
An aviator today began a world first attempt to cross the Atlantic ocean dangling from a massive cluster of balloons.
Jonathan Trappe, 39, achieved lift-off at 6.20 am (11.20am GMT) in heavy fog from Caribou, Maine, in the United States and is aiming for Europe.
Like a fairytale from the Disney movie ‘Up’, Trappe will attempt to make the 2,500-mile solo from 370 balloons filled with helium.
The journey is the first of its kind and a successful crossing will see Trappe fly into the history books as the first person ever to scale the ocean in a flight of this type.
Incredibly, winds could see him land anywhere between Iceland and Morocco after a journey expected to take between three and five days.
The latest weather reports before the launch suggested winds would take Trappe to western Europe.
‘Weather is absolutely the most dangerous factor,’ said Trappe speaking immediately before launch.
Trappe already holds the record for the longest ever cluster balloon flight of 14 hours.
He became the only person to have crossed the English Channel by cluster balloon in May 2010, and the Alps in September 2011.
Previous flights have seen him travel in a simple office chair suspended by the balloons. This time he’s elected to dangle inside a small yellow life boat in case he ditches into the ocean.
‘If I touch down on water then the attempt will be over as it will be impossible to take off again, but the boat will keep me alive.
‘It will be incredibly dangerous as I could be several days away from any rescue crew and it will mean surviving rough seas for a long time, alone.’
While Trappe is the first ever to attempt an Atlantic cluster balloon crossing, five people have died trying to cross the ocean in 12 total attempts using hot-air balloons or more conventional single gas balloons.
A group of western tourists trekking through a remote jungle track in Papua New Guinea have been injured in a savage attack in which their guides were hacked to death.
The attack happened on the popular Black Cat trail, near the town of Wau in Marobe province, when the tour group was ambushed by bandits wielding machetes, knives and spears.
The Western tourists, believed to include eight Australians and a New Zealander, are understood to have sustained injuries that include cuts and minor head injuries.
The gang of six men that attacked the tourists on the Black Cat track has disappeared into the jungle and police are hunting them.
Trek leader Christie King, the only woman among the travellers, led some of the tourists through the bush to find assistance after the attack.
They are now said to be making their way back to the capital Port Moresby.
Stanley Komunt of the Morobe Mining Joint Venture project who co-ordinated the group’s rescue said that they initially thought that only one guide had been killed but found two bodies when they arrived at the scene of the attack.
It has not been established whether the attack was just to steal the tourists’ possessions – everything they had was taken by the bandits – or whether it was because a gang of locals objected to porters from another district bringing visitors to their area and benefiting from the tourist’s fees.
Shocked local villagers have banded together to hunt for the attackers.
All of the surviving porters have knife wounds, some of them serious.
Everyone relishes that spark of falling in love for the first time.
But, much as they try, few married couples get to feel it all over again. Unlike gobsmacked Jason Mortensen.
Dosed up on morphine for a hernia operation, the love-struck American couldn’t believe his eyes when he caught sight of the woman by his bed.
Gawping, he had a million questions: ‘Did the doctor send you? Man you are eye candy! Woah. You’re the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen.
‘Are you a model? Who are you? What’s your name?’
The answer blew his mind.
‘I’m your wife,’ she giggled.
In a video that has now amassed more than 240,000 views, Mr Mortensen’s jaw drops. And he’s got a fair few more questions to ask.
‘You’re my wife?!’ the former missionary gasps, ‘Holy sh**! Dang. How long?’
Candice Mortensen, the blonde beauty behind the lens, tries to encourage her husband of six years to eat a cracker as he recovers in an unidentified hospital.
But he is too distracted.
‘It’s hard baby, it’s hard… Do we call each other baby?’
Dumbfounded, he clutches his head: ‘Man I hit the jackpot!’
Now recovered, Mr Mortensen, Vice President of sales at Oltuse Pharmaceuticals in Orem, Utah, is sticking to his every word.
Commenters flooded to praise the ‘husband of the year’ on YouTube after the video was posted on August 30.
A mother whose son died 18 years ago pickled him in alcohol and stashed his corpse in the basement where she has cared for him ever since… all so his son can learn to love him.
Tsiuri Kvaratskhelia keeps Joni Bakaradze’s body entombed in a wooden coffin beneath the family home in Georgia, eastern Europe.
But despite having died in 1995, the 22-year-old has remained almost perfectly mummified, thanks to his mother’s constant love and attention.
And every year on his birthday she has even given him a change of clothes – until four years ago when decay finally made the feat impossible.
There is also a little viewing window in the basement so family, friends and passers by can see how he’s getting on.
Mrs Kvaratskhelia has learned more than a few tricks to keep her son presentable.
‘One night I had a dream when a voice told me to treat Joni by rubbing alcohol so from then on I’ve being using wet sheets dipped in alcohol to preserve the body,’ she said. ‘You must not leave the body without the sheets overnight as the skin will turn black as charcoal.’
But now Joni, whose cause of death remains unknown, is finally beginning to decompose since illness prevented Mrs Kvaratskhelia from giving him the daily care he needs.
‘My son is handsome. When I use the sheets his skin will be white again and everything will be normal.’
A one-way ticket to a barren, hostile landscape, where temperatures can drop as low as -150°C, might not sound like everyone’s dream destination.
But as of the application deadline a week ago, more than 200,000 people from 140 different countries have applied to be among the first colonists on Mars.
The applicants have agreed to stay on the red planet for the rest of their lives – and be filmed for a reality TV programme, said the company behind the mission, Mars One.
They added that landing systems will be tested eight times before they are used to transport humans – a move that Mars One said will make the trips ‘much safer than moon missions’.
From the 200,000 applications, between 24 and 40 candidates will be selected to participate in a seven-year training program that would start in 2015.
The group said it aims to have a human settlement on Mars within a decade.
But Dr Veronica Bray of the University of Arizona has expressed concerns about the project.
A rescue worker says at least 30 people died when a bus plunged into a deep canyon in northwest Guatemala Monday morning.
Volunteer firefighter Juan Pablo Ucla tells The Associated Press that the bus fell into a river at the bottom of the 600-foot (200-meter) canyon around 8:15 a.m. He says rescuers have pulled at least 40 injured people from the bus, and expect the death toll to grow.
The area around the municipality of San Martín Jilotepeque has mostly dirt roads that wind through steep mountains without guardrails or other safety measures.
Tokyo has been chosen by the International Olympic Committee to host the 2020 Summer Games.
In voting Saturday in Buenos Aires, the committee picked Tokyo over the two other contenders, Madrid and Istanbul.
Tokyo previously hosted the Summer Games in 1964.
Japan’s bid for 2020 billed the city as the safe choice — despite radiation leaking from the Fukushima nuclear plant. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe personally made a presentation to the committee and promised an effective cleanup.
“A safe and secure Olympic Games will be staged by us — I think that was another hope for their support. I would like to pledge that we will be discharging this responsibility.”
Abe said Tokyo would try to stage a successful Games to thank the world for its support after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Japan.
Tokyo’s bid came in at $5 billion to $6 billion, compared to $19 billion pledged by Istanbul, said Ed Hula, editor and founder of aroundtherings.com, which covers the business and politics of the Olympic movement.
Turkey would have been the first Muslim country to host the Games, and with a median age of less than 30 years, one of the youngest. However, it missed out for the fifth time.
On Sunday, the three sports competing to be added to the 2020 roster will know their fate.
Squash is hoping to be included for the first time, but is up against a combined baseball/softball bid and wrestling — which is seeking to be reinstated.
The 2016 Summer Olympics will be in Brazil. The Winter Olympics will be held in Russia in 2014 and South Korea in 2018.
Somali militants attacked a restaurant near Mogadishu’s seat of government for the second time in less than a year on Saturday, detonating two large blasts that killed at least 15 people and wounded nearly two dozen, an official said.
The force of the blasts appeared to tear much of the roof off the restaurant, which is frequented by government workers.
Early reports indicated that a car bomb blast and a suicide bomber attacked The Village eatery.
Militants, most likely from the group al-Shabab, attacked The Village last November. That attack, though, was less severe; two suicide bombers attacked but the blast killed only one guard.
African Union forces pushed the al-Qaida-affiliated group al-Shabab out of Mogadishu in August 2011, but the rebels continue to carry out suicide attacks in the capital.
