New Zealand named a revamped side on Tuesday for their opening rugby Test of the season against Ireland, selecting only six of the team who lost last year’s World Cup quarterfinal to France. Winger Anthony Tuitavake is the only new cap in the starting line-up, with three more new faces on the reserves bench.
Pakistani fast bowler Mohammad Asif has been arrested at Dubai airport on charges of possessing illegal drugs, cricket officials said on Tuesday. The 25-year-old Asif was seized while returning home from India after featuring in a domestic event that ended on Sunday, a Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) official said on condition of anonymity.
Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro was ruled out of the upcoming Euro 2008 championships on Monday after suffering a left ankle injury, according to the Ansa press agency. The replacement for the 34-year-old Real Madrid defender — capped 116 times — will be announced soon, the Italian Football Federation informed Ansa.
Top government officials in Southern Africa began meeting on Monday to find ways of addressing trade barriers, such as scrapping visa requirements, which are said to hinder regional integration. Experts from finance ministries in the region are expected to find solutions to problems affecting the free movement of people and goods.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe made a surprise appearance on Monday at a world food summit in Rome, drawing fierce criticism from the British government. In his first official trip abroad since elections in March, Mugabe attended the summit organised by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Immigrant leaders in South Africa said on Monday that thousands of refugees frustrated at miserable living conditions were on the point of retaliating against a wave of xenophobic attacks. Tens of thousands of immigrants have been forced to take refuge at temporary shelters around the country after mobs began attacking foreigners.
World leaders gathered in Rome on Tuesday for a United Nations summit on food security as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged "hard decisions" and heavy investment in agriculture. "For years, falling food prices and rising production lulled the world into complacency," Ban said, adding: "Governments put off hard decisions."
Guitarist and songwriter Bo Diddley, who died of heart failure on June 2 at age 79, was an innovative R&B pioneer who forged rock’n’roll’s signature beat but rarely got the credit — or the riches — heaped on his fellow musical icons. He died at his home in Archer, Florida, where he had been convalescing since last year after suffering a stroke and later a heart attack.
When John Armstrong asks if it is better for an educator to live in London and be regarded as a small fish in a large academic pond or to become a larger fish in a smaller Australian pond, he makes the question sound both practical and a theme worthy of philosophical investigation.
"I wish to take issue with two dangerous and rather irresponsible generalisations that Percy Zvomuya made in "Africans have never liked one another" (May 23). One is that Africans have always hated Africans. The other is that people who came from Malawi and settled in Zimbabwe were called derogatory names and discriminated against," writes Chris Kabwato.