Iraqi Vice-President Adel Abdel Mahdi has met Iran’s top nuclear negotiator in Tehran in a bid to help mediate an end to Iran’s nuclear crisis, a source close to the Iraqi leader said on Saturday. He said the meeting with Ali Larijani took place on Friday, a day after Abdel Hadi met in Baghdad with the ambassadors of Britain, France and Germany.
World number one Roger Federer and number two Rafael Nadal set up a dream finish to the French Open on Friday by advancing to the final. Federer (24) made his first Roland Garros title match as Argentina’s David Nalbandian retired injured while the Swiss player was leading 3-6, 6-4, 5-2 in their semifinal tie.
Visitors to New York already knew it, but now it’s official: foreign tourists arriving in the city have a more than 50% chance of being ripped off on their first taxi ride. Agents from the city’s Department of Investigation (DOI) posed as clueless tourists unable to speak English and took cabs from John F Kennedy airport to Manhattan and Brooklyn.
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Ecuador began their World Cup campaign with a precious 2-0 win over Group A rivals Poland on Friday. Carlos Tenorio broke the deadlock in the 24th minute with a stooping header and Agustin Delgado made the points safe with a simple tap-in 10 minutes from time. Poland enjoyed plenty of possession but were short on ideas in the final third of the pitch.
It was a rout. After months of fighting that left hundreds dead, Mogadishu fell suddenly this week: pick-up trucks with mounted machine-guns and young warriors scrambled to leave the city. The victors broadcast a triumphant announcement that the warlords had been ousted.
The Western Cape department of local government had its electricity and water reconnected on Friday after it paid R242 000 towards its arrears bill. The department’s city centre building was disconnected on Thursday over what the City of Cape Town said was an outstanding amount of over R724 000.
The world’s most-influential finance chiefs convened in Saint Petersburg on Saturday and were to call for greater international cooperation on energy policies and increased investment in the energy sector, according to a draft text of their statement.
The Department of Correctional Services has deployed a team of investigators to probe the possibility of a syndicate assisting prisoners to escape from the Middledrift and St Albans prisons in the Eastern Cape. Spokesperson Zukisa Nduneni on Friday said a team from the department’s investigation unit has been deployed.
Cramped in a single tent sheltering 41 people, survivors of last month’s Indonesian earthquake at this hamlet complain they receive only one meal a day, with assistance still slow to fully flow here two weeks after the disaster. ”We don’t know how much longer we have to endure this situation,” said a weary looking Endang.
One of the Philippines’ most active volcanoes continued spewing ash overnight, raising fears of a possible eruption and leaving one man dead, officials said on Saturday. The Philippine Institute of Vulcanology and Seismology said an explosion from the 1 565m summit of Bulusan sent ash and steam 1km into the air and showered ash on surrounding villages.