Somalis marked their 46th anniversary of independence quietly on Monday in Mogadishu, fearing the Islamic militants who control their capital would frown on celebrations. In past years, public events were held in Mogadishu and other towns to mark independence day.
The world’s largest steel group Mittal Steel on Monday denied that it would sell its 52% stake in Mittal Steel South Africa as part of the deal to merge with world’s second largest steel maker Arcelor. "We firmly deny this rumour and it couldn’t be further from the truth," said Mittal Steel spokesperson Paul Weigh in a statement.
Voters in the poverty stricken West African nation of Mauritania overwhelmingly approved a new Constitution in a weekend referendum, Interior Ministry officials said on Monday. Officials said that based on early returns they believed that 80% to 90% voted on Sunday to approve the Constitution.
The Algerian army on Sunday killed 19 armed suspected Islamists, newspapers reported on Monday. The army, backed by police, used heavy artillery and rockets fired from helicopters in an operation against suspected Islamists in the Edough mountains near Annaba, 600km east of Algiers.
Venus Williams admitted on Sunday that it will be a strange experience when she opens her title defence at Wimbledon this year without sister Serena by her side. Serena is absent with a knee injury and has played just four matches since last year’s US Open, three of them at the Australian Open in January.
Passengers running about in the nude and having sex outdoors were common on a cruise-liner where an Australian woman died of an overdose of a date-rape drug. The night manager of the cruise on the Pacific Sky in September 2002, Kathleen Taylor, told the Glebe Coroner’s Court in Sydney that she would often have to separate couples caught engaging in sex acts in public.
Tinashe Rioga, the 21-year old Zimbabwean accused of trying to hijack a South African Airways domestic flight from Cape Town on June 17, appeared briefly in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court on Monday. The case was postponed for a bail application on July 5, and he was remanded in the Bellville South police station cells.
Roger Federer insisted on Sunday that a fourth successive title rather than breaking records is motivating him ahead of Wimbledon. Swiss ace Federer (24) can become only the third player in the open era to win Wimbledon four times in a row if he triumphs again at the All England club championships, which start on Monday.
Flamboyant United Kingdom businessman Sir Richard Branson on Monday launched the Virgin Money credit card in the South Africa, predicting that it would lead to the biggest shake-up ever in the South African credit-card market. Branson vowed to break what he called the country’s "banking beast", charging that South Africans were being "ripped off".
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Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari shrugged off the chaos that marred Portugal’s 1-0 win over The Netherlands, officially the dirtiest match in World Cup history with an accumulated 20 yellow and red cards. The Brazilian said while Deco should not have been one of the four players sent off, similar scenes were relatively common in South America.