A controversial artwork has been unveiled as the centrepiece of major British Royal Academy exhibition, writes Martin Wainwright
While the likes of 50 Cent spin gangsta fantasies, rapper K’Naan has the brutal realities of life in war-torn Mogadishu to draw on. Robin Denselow meets Somalia’s hip-hop traveller
Khaled Hosseini’s highly anticipated second novel follows the trials and triumphs of two Afghan women, writes Declan Walsh
Two weeks after stepping down as president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo is hitting the books and resuming university studies, close aides said on Friday. The 70-year-old retired general, who stepped down on May 29 having served a constitutional maximum of two four-year terms, began coursework at the National Open University in Lagos on Thursday.
A Canadian man who was arrested driving a borrowed motorised wheelchair while drunk has been convicted of impaired driving, officials said on Thursday. Patrick Shanahan (35) was on his way home from a pub in a Toronto suburb in December 2004 at about 1.15am when he was arrested, said Corporal Jodi Dawson of the Peel Regional Police.
President Robert Mugabe’s government on Friday shrugged off a decision by Edinburgh University to strip the long-time leader of an honorary degree, saying the university had humiliated itself through the unprecedented action. ”Such actions by the university are a humiliation to the university itself …,” Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said.
The India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh cricket boards will discuss the possibility of reducing the duration of the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Officials from the four South Asian Test-playing nations, who will co-host the next World Cup, will meet in Pakistan on June 18, a senior Pakistan Cricket Board official said.
Lebanese troops pounded al-Qaeda-inspired militants dug in at a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon on Friday after the gunmen refused demands they give themselves up. Artillery and tanks blasted several areas of the squalid Nahr al-Bared camp, where Fatah al-Islam fighters have shown stiff resistance in nearly three weeks of often ferocious battles.
Ian Bell held firm for England against a revived West Indies on the first day of the third Test on Thursday. At stumps, England were 296-7, having started the final session on 167-5 at Old Trafford after West Indies, 1-0 down in the four-Test series, had enjoyed a rare spell of dominance.
The budget for the Gauteng health department has increased by 15,8% to improve health services for the province’s growing population, provincial minister Brian Hlongwa said on Friday. ”The growth in the budget is a reflection of the increasing demand for quality health services,” he said.