Israeli warplanes battered Lebanon on Tuesday, killing 26 people, and more Hezbollah rockets hit the Israeli city of Haifa, with no sign that diplomacy would halt the week-old conflict any time soon. Nine family members, including children, were killed and four wounded in an air strike on their house in the village of Aitaroun.
World powers pressed Sudan on Tuesday to accept a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur to replace an ill-equipped African Union force that has been unable to stem the violence that Washington calls genocide. The UN and aid agencies also urged donors at talks in Brussels to finance the 7 000-strong AU force for a few more months.
For decades known mainly to the outside world for their dreadlocks, gumboots and kidnapping of children, Uganda’s brutal Lord’s Resistance Army has been Africa’s most mysterious rebel movement. But in recent weeks, the group has ventured out of jungle hideouts in an unprecedented bid to paint itself as a liberation movement.
Australian rugby’s most-experienced prop Bill Young said on Tuesday a neck injury will probably force him to quit the game, according to a media report. ”At this stage, it’s probably highly unlikely I’ll play again,” 31-year-old Young told the Canberra Times newspaper.
Officials of the trade union Solidarity and Sasol managers were holding talks on Tuesday intended to end a strike that began earlier in the day, the union said. The meeting was to take place in Secunda, Mpumalanga, after the union’s general secretary, Flip Buys, had spoken to striking members, said Dirk Hermann, Buys’s deputy.
Manchester United’s Dutch international Ruud van Nistelrooy is on Tuesday due to finalise his -million transfer to Real Madrid, Marca sports daily reported. ”Real Madrid will announce today [Tuesday] the transfer of Van Nistelrooy,” Marca wrote of the man who will be Real’s first signing of the summer.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said on Tuesday the Gunners won’t get involved in the race to pick up bargain buys at scandal-hit Juventus because they can’t afford it. The Italian giants were relegated to Serie B and were penalised 30 points for their part in the country’s match-fixing scandal that saw Lazio and Fiorentina also demoted.
Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson saw his transfer kitty boosted on Tuesday and immediately set his sights on the potential clear-out of players at scandal-hit Italian giants Juventus. Under a complex refinancing scheme, the Old Trafford club said that an agreement has been made that will see their annual interest payments slashed by almost 30%.
India’s star batsman Sachin Tendulkar is set to return to international cricket in August after a four-month absence due to shoulder surgery, an official said on Tuesday. ”The report we have got from our physiotherapist John Gloster is that Sachin is fit to play,” Indian cricket board secretary Niranjan Shah told the media.
Two elephants from the Kruger National Park ”had to be killed” after a group of 15 wandered out of the park through a section of broken fence, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. The group of 15 adolescent bulls got out recently through a section of fence believed to have been damaged by people stealing parts of it, and wandered onto land adjoining the park.