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A total of 173 sheep were killed almost instantaneously on Tuesday when lightning struck a mountainous area in the Hoboksar Mongolian autonomous county in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

An 18-year-old Mongolian herder recalled the incident as "a nightmare".

"It started raining heavily at midnight and it hailed at around 1 pm. I was very scared and had to hide in the yurt nearby. After the lightning split the sky, the sheep outside bleated and they all died," Alten Bagen said on Thursday.

The tightly packed sheep were sheltering from the rain under a pine tree, which acted as a conductor for the electricity.

In addition, 30 sheep were carried away by floods, Bagen said.

Bagen's father, an experienced herder, was away in the mountains looking after their horses when the accident happened.

"A smell of burned meat filled the air. If I had been here, it wouldn't have happened," the 42-year-old herder said. "The animals were the only source of income for our family of four."

Father and son collected the skins of the sheep, and buried the bodies.

"I'll sell the skins and will make some money. But we can't eat the meat because of our religious beliefs," the father said.

Jangeq Chafu, a local herding technician, said it's common for livestock to get killed by lightning in the summertime, but this was the first time that so many sheep were killed at once.

"The young man doesn't have enough experience. He doesn't know how to cope with thunderstorms in mountainous areas," said Chafu. "It's dangerous for sheep to shelter under trees."

However, Chafu also said that it is sometimes difficult to help livestock escape from lightning.

"The pastures here are in a mountainous area. Locals are used to herding sheep on the mountainside in the summer. They take their yurts and live with the herds. When lightning strikes, the herder can hide in his yurt, but the animals have no place to hide," said Chafu.

"The sheep's wool also generates lots of static electricity, which may make them more vulnerable to lightning," he added.

Chafu said that the government should install lightning rods on mountain peaks.

Fifty-three pigs were killed on July 5 when lightning hit the roof of a barn in a suburb of Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province.

The pig farmer, surnamed Chen, said the pigs were sleeping after their meals when lightning struck.

"After a streak of blue light flashed by, I heard the pigs scream. Then they were silent," she said.

The neighbors said that the ears, nostrils and mouths of most animals were bleeding, and that their bodies had traces of burns and a slight burned smell. The only pig alive had a broken rear leg and struggled to stand up, but couldn't.

"The simplest way to prevent lightning in high places is to install a lightning rod," said weatherman Yao Chuping, who has worked in the field for more than 20 years.

Heilongjiang residents said they saw an unidentified flying object on Friday, the second time in a week such observations have been reported in the northeastern province.

Zhang Wei and Dai Guobin, workers at a sand processing plant in Zhangjiadian village in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang, said they witnessed a black flying object, the shape of an eagle and larger than an airplane, at noon on Friday.

The object hovered in the sky about 500 to 1,000 meters from the two workers for about a minute and then flew off, according to Zhang and Dai.

Zhang reported it to Chen Gongfu, 70, a retired professor from the school of astronautics at the Harbin Institute of Technology.

Zhang told China Daily that he was not sure if the object the two saw on Friday was the same one reported Sunday in the Phoenix Mountain National Forest Park, which is about 200 kilometers away from the sand factory.

Chen, who is studying the UFO reports in the forest park, said he has talked to at least four eyewitnesses who said they saw the same flying object at different times and locations.

Li Hui, a tourist, said she saw a luminous flying object hovering low in the sky at 3:42 pm on Sunday when a photographer was taking her picture at a viewing platform in the park.

Li was quoted by Harbin Daily as saying that she unconsciously looked back after taking a picture and saw a floating, shiny object.

But the flying object was taken in a picture by the photographer, Wu Chunyan, who also saw the UFO and quickly pressed the shutter.

The photo clearly shows a luminous object.

Chen, the retired astronautics professor, said the object looked a lot like a moth when he first saw the picture, but he ruled out the possibility as more eyewitnesses in different locations said they also saw the flying object.

Sun Yan, a worker in the park, who was about 10 meters beneath where Li Hui stood, and another worker who was at the gate of the park said they saw the UFO on Sunday. Sun Li, a forest worker, said she witnessed a bright object, as big as a washing basin with gaseous columns on both sides, at around 8 pm the same day, according to Harbin Daily.

Skeptical of the reports is Zhu Jin, curator of Beijing Planetarium, who has been studying UFO reports for years. He said he believes that the flying object was a winged insect.

"It's quite clear that it was an insect, and you can clearly see its wings. It's luminous because of the photoflash," he said. "There is no other possibility as far as my knowledge can tell."

Harbin Daily reported that the photographer used "forced flash" when taking the picture, meaning the camera's flash was used despite strong lighting in the background.

"Many people called us and asked if UFOs really visited the park," Kang Tai, a manager with the park, said on Friday.

Kang, who has worked in the park for more than four years, said that although he personally did not see a UFO, he received UFO pictures taken in the park by tourists several times, most recently in 2011.

In fact, 18 years ago, UFOs reportedly visited the park.

Meng Zhaoguo, a worker in the park, and two colleagues said they saw a strange unidentified object in June 1994.

"I saw the UFO as it just landed in the hillside," Meng recalled.

Curious, Meng asked a relative to go with him the next day to identify the object.

"I was suddenly pushed back (when I got close to the object) just as if I was receiving an electric shock because I had such an experience in the past," he was quoted as saying by Heilongjiang Television, "And the object was very noisy."

Meng said he saw a being from outer space at his home several days later.

As it got closer, Meng said, "my house became extraordinarily bright and I saw it standing in front of me. It was just like us human beings".

"It pushed me quickly and then ran out."

A Russian Soyuz craft launched into the morning skies over Kazakhstan on Sunday, carrying three astronauts on their way to the International Space Station, where they will quickly start preparing for a frenzy of incoming traffic.

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and Japan's Akihito Hoshide are set to travel two days before reaching their three colleagues already at the permanent space outpost.

Families and colleagues watched the launch from an observation platform in the Russian-leased cosmodrome in the dry southern steppes of this sprawling Central Asian nation.

Liftoff took place at the exact scheduled time of 08:40 a.m. local time (0240 GMT), sending a deafening roar as the craft gained height.

Despite withstanding intense G-force pressure, the three astronauts looked relaxed in televised footage as they performed a series of routine operations.

The Soyuz jettisoned three rocket booster stages as it was propelled into orbit, which takes just over nine minutes.

At that stage, a doll given to Malenchenko as a mascot by his daughter and suspended over the three astronauts floated out of view on television footage, indicating the craft had escaped the earth's gravitational pull.

The shell that surrounds the capsule during the launch phase also peeled away, soaking the astronauts in bright yellow sunshine pouring through the viewing hatches.

The solar arrays that deployed on the Soyuz after orbital entry will provide the craft with the power it needs during its two-day trip.

Williams, tightly squeezed into the cramped craft, gave a thumbs-up sign and waved to onboard cameras as Russian space agency chief Vladimir Popovkin congratulated the crew over radio control.

Malenchenko, who is piloting the Soyuz, is one of Russia's most experienced astronauts and is making his fifth voyage into space.

Williams, who was born in Euclid, Ohio, and raised in Massachusetts, is on her second mission and will further extend the record for the longest sojourn in space for a female astronaut. The 46-year old astronaut, who is of Indian-American heritage, spent 195 days at the space station in 2006-2007.

Sunday's launch took place on the 37th anniversary of the landmark Apollo-Soyuz mission during which crafts from the United States and the Soviet Union docked in space, setting a precedent for scientific cooperation between the Cold War foes.

Williams said in a press conference ahead of the launch that the test mission laid the ground for a long-standing friendship and collaboration in the space program.

The Soyuz is schedule to dock Tuesday with the space station at 08:52 a.m. Moscow time (0452 GMT).

Russians Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin and U.S. astronaut Joseph Acaba, who make up the crew of Expedition 32, have been working at the space station since mid-May.

The space station, which orbits up to 410 kilometers (255 miles) above the earth, is braced to handle an unprecedented level of traffic.

Japan's HTV3 cargo ship will dock with the space station next week and will be the first of nine craft making contact with the orbiting satellite over a 17-day span.

Expeditions 32 and the incoming Expedition 33 have 33 experiments planned for their stay at the orbiting laboratory. (nvn)

Following a round of job cuts on the team running its social networking site Koprol, Yahoo announced that it would stop the operation of the locally made geo-location site it acquired in 2010.

“Yahoo has decided to discontinue Koprol effective on Aug. 28,” the company said in a statement posted in the official website, koprolblog.com.

The company said the closure was part of to its focus to “more quickly innovate with core products and properties.”

“We are shutting down or transitioning a number of products that did not meaningfully drive revenue or engagement,” it said.

Users are advised to export their profile, including all original posts, reviews, check-ins and images, by going to 'Export Data' at m.koprol.com/export before August 28. (dmr)

Mick Jagger may rethink the words he sang more than 45 years ago — "What a drag it is getting old."

Thursday marks 50 years since Jagger played his first gig with a band called the Rolling Stones, and the group is marking its half-century with no letup in its productivity or rock 'n ' roll style. Jagger himself is still the cool, rich frontman of the world's most successful rock band.

Now in their late 60s and early 70s, the band members are celebrating the anniversary by attending a retrospective photo exhibition at London's Somerset House — and looking to the future by rehearsing for new gigs.

Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts are getting together 50 years to the day after the young R&B band played London's Marquee Club. Taking a name from a song by bluesman Muddy Waters, they were billed as "The Rollin' Stones" —the 'g' came later.

The lineup for the gig was vocalist Jagger, guitarists Richards and Brian Jones, bassist Dick Taylor, pianist Ian Stewart and Mick Avory on drums. Taylor, Stewart and Avory soon left the lineup; drummer Watts joined in 1963 and guitarist Wood in 1975.

The band had its first hit, a cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On," in 1963, and soon became one of the world's biggest and most influential rock acts, rivaled only by The Beatles.

The Beatles split up in 1970, but the Stones are still going strong — something Jagger says he could never have imagined at the time.

"Groups in those days and singers didn't really last very long," Jagger, 68, told the BBC. "They weren't supposed to last. It was supposed to be ephemeral. It was only really Elvis and The Beatles that were the biggest things that ever happened in pop music that I can remember. But even (Elvis) had lasted perhaps less than 10 years, so how could anyone really last?"

Richards told the BBC that his biggest regret in the last 50 years was the drowning death in 1969 of Brian Jones, but that on the whole the band's career has been "an incredible adventure."

Music critic John Aizlewood said the Stones' contribution to rock 'n' roll is "immeasurable."

"They are a founding father of rock music as we know it," he said. "Other bands have tried and not pulled off that amount of sexiness, allied to a kind of street-fighting menace."

Aizlewood said the Rolling Stones have endured where other bands have split because "they are smart enough to put the band ahead of the individuals, despite their collective egos."

He said they are also canny businessmen, and realized early on that "once you get to a certain level, if you maintain your live performance, you can play stadiums forever."

The Stones have sold more than 200 million records, with hits including "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," ''Street Fighting Man" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

But in recent years much of their income has come from touring. Their last global tour, "A Bigger Bang," earned more than half a billion dollars between 2005 and 2007. And as they enter their sixth decade, more live shows are on the way.

Richards said the band had begun rehearsing, but dates haven't been fixed.

"There's things in the works," he said. "It's definitely happening, but when I can't say yet."