On Monday,  Seoul’s foreign ministry annpunced that a South Korean mountaineer has gone missing after climbing the world’s highest mountain.

The missing South Korean was identified as Song Won-Bin, 44.  Song went missing on Saturday while returning to base camp with several other climbers after scaling Mount Everest in the Himalayas, a ministry spokeswoman told AFP.

She added that a search operation  would start  soon, however, she  did not elaborate  any further.

Yonhap news agency said Song had collapsed due to altitude sickness and fallen off a cliff. It quoted a diplomat in the South Korean embassy in Kathmandu.

US president Barack Obama though praised, was also slammed a day after he became the first sitting US president to reveal his support on gay marriage.

His remarks made the social conservatives and religious leaders condemn him.

On the other hand, the Obama campaign attacked Republican Mitt Romney, who repeatedly stated his opposition to same-sex marriage, as out of touch on the issue.

Mr Obama went to the West Coast on Thursday for fundraisers in Seattle and Los Angeles which is expected to raise millions.

North Korea released its warning  following the removal of the US of its food aid because of its rocket launch, opening fears of a new nuclear test, as China reportedly hold a refugee deal with its strong-willed ally.

In its bold statement late Tuesday, the nuclear-armed North broke off a bilateral agreement to stop testing of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles after Washington suspended much-needed food aid.

"We have thus become able to take necessary retaliatory measures, free from the agreement. The US will be held wholly accountable for all the ensuing consequences," its foreign ministry said.

The North Korea refused to accept the criticisms and condemnations from UN council.

Pyongyang said Washington had enforced  a "brigandish demand" on the Council and that every country has the right to launch satellites for peaceful purposes.

"Nothing can stand in the way of (North Korea)’s space development for peaceful purposes," it vowed.

On Friday North Korea said that its long-range rocket launch had failed. After liftoff has experienced  disintegrating mid-air and landed  into the sea.

Ignoring  international warnings, the North still pursued  with what it said was a launch to put a peaceful satellite into orbit, causing  condemnation from world leaders who said the "provocative" act threatened regional security.

Following few  hours after the rocket exploded over the Yellow Sea, the North then said that the satellite had failed to enter orbit, adding "scientists, technicians and experts are now looking into the cause of the failure".

Meanwhile, despite of the failure world leaders like U.S. and Japan still think that North Korea’s action was provocative and indeed breached UN Security Council resolutions.

On Wednesday, North Korea disclosed that  fuel is being injected into their rocket  as part of their preparation for the  launch condemned by its neighbors and the West.

The launch is scheduled to happen  between Thursday and next Monday and has lead  neighbors like the Philippines to change  their air traffic just in case.

Meanwhile, Japan said it would shoot down the rocket if it will pass its airspace.

The launch of the Unha-3 rocket, which according to  North Korea  will merely put a weather satellite into space, breaches U.N. sanctions imposed to prevent Pyongyang from creating  a missile that could carry a nuclear warhead.
 

Officials and media reports said that passengers of a US airplane restrained the pilot  when he started to scream about Al-Qaeda and bomb threats.

The JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas, Nevada was redirected  to Amarillo, Texas when the incident, which the airliner said was caused by  a medical issue which involves  the captain.

The captain went to a restroom just outside the cockpit, and when hereturned  began shouting "Iraq, al-Qaida, terrorism, we’re all going down!" according to the Amarillo Globe-News newspaper.

Passengers were obviously scared of the pilot and his rants but some of them were able to calm him down.

Meanwhile, the pilot was transported by ambulance to have him examined.

US seismologists has reported that a 6.4-magnitude earthquake shook  Papua New Guinea Thursday, however,  a tsunami warning was not issued and seismologists said "no major human impact is expected."

The quake that struck  the New Britain region at 7:13 am (2113 GMT Wednesday)had  a depth of 48 kilometers (30 miles), 204 kilometers southwest of the main city in the area Rabaul and 598 kilometers from national capital Port Moresby.

Geoscience Australia, which put the depth at 103 kilometers, said the quake may have been felt as far away as Port Moresby but "no major human impact is expected".

A man was reportedly pawed by a lioness at a wildlife park in Darwin on Friday and was quickly brought  to hospital with arm injuries, officials at the facility said.
 
Peter Davidson sustained a  torn muscle  from the bone of his arm after apparently putting it through the cage bars.

Charlie Manolis, chief scientist at Crocodylus Park, told the Northern Territory News taht a girl went to him about the incident.
 
Manolis said the man is a worker of  the park and was getting rid of weeds near the lion enclosure when Shebe, 9, attacked.

Meanwhile, Crocodylus Park has more than 1,000 crocodiles in its collection, at the same time as other wildlife including big cats, primates, and birds.

Due to serious declines in perennial Arctic sea ice over the past decade may be strengthening  a chemical reaction that causes  to deposits of toxic mercury, a NASA-led study showed on Thursday.

In the  study, it found that thick, perennial Arctic sea ice was being changed into a thinner and saltier ice that releases bromine into the air when it joins with sunlight and cold, said Son Nghiem, a NASA researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

That situation prompts a chemical reaction called a "bromine explosion" that turns gaseous mercury in the atmosphere into a toxic pollutant that falls on snow, land and ice and can accumulate in fish, said Nghiem, lead author of the study.

Nghiem added that the released bromine can also take ozone from the lowest level of the atmosphere, the troposphere.

Though much of the attention on Arctic sea ice has dealt  on summer sea ice cover, the NASA-led study, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, examined perennial sea ice during winter and the transition into spring.
 

Next week will be an altogether exciting event for Apple products lover since talks about revealtion of  cheaper iPad 2 and two iPad 3 models migth be released  in Apple Inc.’s much-awaited iPad-related. The report came from a Taiwan-based tech news site.

Taiwan-based tech news site DigiTimes quoted the  sources from Apple’s upstream supply chain who said Apple will launch 16- and 32-GB iPad 3s, and an 8-GB iPad 2.

"In addition to iPad 3, Apple is also expected to unveil an 8GB iPad 2, allowing the tablet PC series to cover different segments and to defend against Windows 8-based tablet PCs, the sources noted," DigiTimes said.

DigiTimes  added  that with Apple aggressively placing orders, iPad 3 shipments in the first quarter of 2012 may double from original estimates.