India to test N-missile

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW DELHI: India is planning to test launch a new nuclear missile that for the first time would give it the capability of hitting the major Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai. The government has hailed the Agni-V missile, with a range of 5,000 kilo-

metres, as a major boost to its efforts to counter China's regional dominance and become an Asia power in its own right. The test launch was expected to come as early as Wednesday evening.

Laden kin stuck in Pak

ISLAMABAD: A lawyer for Osama bin Laden's three widows and their nine children says the family is expected to be deported from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia later on Wednesday. Mohammad Amir Khalil said the family was unable to leave overnight on Tuesday as planned because the brother of bin Laden's youngest wife, Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al-Sada, was not in possession of his passport. Zakaria al-Sada has been in Pakistan campaigning for his sister Amal's release. The family has been in Pakistani detention since the US raid that killed bin Laden almost a year ago.

Exodus fear in China

Shanghai: Another 100,000 people may have to move away from China’s Three Gorges Dam due to the risk of disastrous landslides and bank collapses around the reservoir of the world’s biggest hydroelectric facility, state media said on Wednesday. The Ministry of Land Resources says the number of landslides and other disasters has increased 70 per cent since the water level in the $23 billion showcase project rose to its maximum level in 2010. Some 1.4 million people already have been resettled due to the huge project on the Yangtze River.