Top seed Roger Federer and number four Ivan Ljubicic swept through into the third round while American James Blake fell flat to exit on an off-day at the Toronto Masters on Wednesday. Federer, playing his first event since winning his fourth straight Wimbledon title a month ago, rolled over Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean 6-3, 6-3.
Six-time champions AC Milan and four-time winners Ajax and Liverpool put themselves in a position to reach the group stage of the Champions League on Wednesday. AC Milan edged Red Star Belgrade 1-0, Ajax won 2-1 at Copenhagen, and Liverpool beat Israeli club Maccabi Haifa 2-1 at Anfield.
Strong winds and giant waves, boosted by a south-west monsoon, have wiped out hundreds of shacks on stilts and left thousands of people homeless in the southern Philippines, local government officials said on Thursday. A number of people were missing after giant waves swept four coastal villages out to sea.
Nearly 500 000 people were evacuated from their homes in south-east China as the region, already suffering from two months of devastating weather, prepared for Typhoon Saomai to make landfall on Thursday. Saomai, with winds of more than 200kph, pounded Taiwan earlier in the day.
Israeli troops seized the town of Marjayoun and two nearby villages in south Lebanon on Thursday, witnesses said, even though Israel says it has put off plans for a broader offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas. A journalist said Israeli troops were moving on foot through Marjayoun, a town about 8km inside Lebanon.
A Bosnian war general considered a hero by Bosnian Muslims for withstanding a three-year Serb siege in the 1990s could face war-crimes charges after video footage emerged apparently showing him ordering Serb homes to be burned. Retired general Atif Dudakovic led the defence of the Bihac pocket in north-western Bosnia.
It probably wasn’t what Jane Fonda had in mind when she pioneered the home workout craze: fitness advice from grossly overweight men whose training regime includes taking a nap after a huge lunch. But in their latest effort to fight the flab, overweight Japanese are turning to the behemoths of the sumo ring.
You’re approaching a busy roundabout in a bustling Spanish city, minding your own business. Suddenly a rogue figure lurches out into the road and reels towards you. You swerve, skid, narrowly avoid collision, and go on your way, cursing perhaps. Then you learn that it was a deliberate stunt, staged to film road accidents.
Deaths from sectarian strife in Baghdad are reaching unprecedented levels, with the central morgue on Wednesday reporting a sharp rise in the number of corpses it received during July. Officials said 1 815 bodies — about 60 a day — had passed through its doors last month, compared with 1 595 in June.
Two men believed to have been part of a contract murder of a 36-year-old woman at the Germiston taxi rank in January were arrested after a tip-off on Wednesday, Ekurhuleni metro police said. Inspector Jimmy Maboko said two other men believed to have been involved in the murder are still at large.