Indonesia plans to use weather changing technology to try to unleash torrents of rain and extinguish raging fires on Sumatra island that have cloaked neighbouring Singapore in thick haze, an official said Wednesday. The city-state, which is home to 5.3 million inhabitants, has been pressing Jakarta to take action to put out the blazes, which have pushed air pollutant levels on the island to a 16-year high.

The death toll from flash flooding triggered by early monsoon rains has risen to 120 in northern India, officials said Wednesday. "At least 110 people have died. The state government and the army are trying to rescue thousands of tourists who are stranded near the submerged valleys and Hindu shrines," said Jaspal Arya, the disaster relief minister of Uttarakhand state. In neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, government officials said at least 10 people have been killed in landslides. str-rn/co/mtp

Already travelling at super-hurricane speeds, winds on Venus have accelerated by an astonishing one-third over the past six years, the European Space Agency (ESA) reported on Tuesday. Separate teams of astronomers analysed images from ESA's Venus Express orbiter, monitoring cloud patterns on our closest neighbour. When Venus Express started operations in 2006, high-altitude winds between latitudes 50 degrees either side of the equator were recorded at about 300 kilometres (187 miles) per hour on average, they found.

Heavy rains pounded parts of north India Monday, resulting in the deaths of at least 26 people, as the annual monsoon covered the country nearly two weeks ahead of schedule, officials said. The Press Trust of India put the death toll at 30 and a government minister in the rain-ravaged state of Uttarakhand told AFP the number of people killed in the region was likely to be higher. Surprise showers struck the capital New Delhi over the weekend, flooding the arrival halls in the international and domestic airports and leading to traffic snarls in parts of the city.