Brazilian striker Adriano scored a stunning hat-trick as Inter Milan beat holders Porto 3-1 in Milan on Tuesday in their Champions League first knockout round second-leg match to dump them out of the competition and become the third Italian team to reach the quarterfinals.
Bulls coach Heyneke Meyer has made five changes to the side who lost 23-0 to the Highlanders last week for Saturday’s Super 12 clash against the Hurricanes in Wellington, New Zealand. Meyer has decided to keep Bryan Habana at centre, and there are reprieves for out-of-form midfielder Ettienne Botha and flyhalf Derick Hougaard.
Gary Neville has admitted only a monumental disaster for Chelsea can lead to Manchester United winning the Premiership title this season. The United defender hopes to make his return for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side against Chelsea’s west London rivals Fulham at Old Trafford on Saturday.
The chiefs of Moscow’s Olympics bid committee expressed confidence on Tuesday that existing sport venues were already capable of hosting world-class events, as representatives from the International Olympic Committee continued to evaluate the Russian capital’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games.
South African peacekeeping soldiers in Burundi are becoming increasingly unpopular with the local population, the News24 website reported on Wednesday. It quoted the latest intelligence report by The Economist newspaper as saying: ”They got themselves the unfortunate reputation for excessive drinking and the abuse of prostitutes.”
Hogging the headlines about the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in recent times has been the resignation of the broadcaster’s CEO, Peter Matlare, and speculation about his successor. Whoever takes his job will face the fundamental tension of running a public broadcaster service through commercial means. And by the rules.
Never since independence has Zimbabwe desperately needed President Robert Mugabe as much as it does now. The country, the ruling party and the opposition are all in chaos and only he can get the nation out of this hole. Zimbabwe faces an acute leadership crisis that only Mugabe has the capacity to resolve, if he so decides. He Mugabe still has the nation’s future in his hands.
Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, on Tuesday announced that he would begin withdrawing his country’s troops from Iraq in September under pressure from public opinion. ”I’ve spoken to [Tony] Blair about this,” he told a TV interviewer. ”We’ve got to construct a precise exit strategy. Public opinion expects it, and we shall be talking about it soon.”
The United States plans to wreck a British initiative to commit the G8 states to combatting illegal logging in the world’s threatened rainforests, a leaked memorandum revealed on Tuesday night. The British initiative was prompted by Indonesia, which said corruption there was so rampant that the authorities did not have the power to tackle the supply of timber by criminal gangs
India’s film capital was at the centre of a sex scandal on Tuesday after one of Bollywood’s favourite villains was filmed apparently offering a woman help with her acting career in return for sex. Shakti Kapoor, whose menacing grimace has filled many a Bollywood billboard, denied any wrongdoing and accused a TV network of framing him.