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Members of a group listed by the United States as a terrorist band are now running the capital of neighbouring Somalia, days after Islamic fighters wrested control of the city from warlords, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Tuesday. ”The renowned extremist and terrorist organisation, al-Ittihad, is at the helm of the current leadership in Mogadishu,” Meles told lawmakers.
Excess speed caused a fatal metro-train accident in the Spanish city of Valencia, a regional minister said on Tuesday, and there are suggestions the train driver may have been ill or unconscious. At the moment of the accident on Monday the black box recorder showed the train was travelling ”too fast”, regional infrastructure minister Jose Ramon Garcia Anton said.
The Tripoli criminal court heard testimony from prosecution witnesses on Tuesday as the re-trial of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting Libyan children with the Aids virus resumed and was then adjourned until July 25. The three witnesses, a father and two mothers, appeared with their infected children before Judge Mahmud al-Huweissa.
It is an awe-inspiring sight, watching a nine-tonne attack helicopter perform a loop and barrel rolls, the aeronautical equivalent of Luciano Pavarotti performing a perfect pike on the diving board. But this is exactly what Denel Aviation’s CSH-2 Rooivalk attack helicopter can do, although it is not part of its operational flying capabilities.
Matthias Kessler of T-Mobile won the undulating third stage of the Tour de France on Tuesday after 216,5km of racing from the outskirts of Luxembourg. Belgium’s world champion Tom Boonen took the race leader’s yellow jersey from fellow sprinter Thor Hushovd of Norway.
South Africa soon will open an embassy in Guinea and the two countries plan to scrap entry visas between them, their leaders said on Tuesday. South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki and Guinea’s Lansana Conte said their countries had also agreed to boost trade and economic cooperation in the sectors of transport, mining, water and hydro electricity generation in Guinea.
The president’s council of the South African Rugby Union (Saru) met in Johannesburg on Tuesday to discuss the extension of the contract of the Springbok coach, Jake White. The council afforded White an opportunity to address them on the matter, whereafter it deliberated further in order to make an informed and conclusive pronouncement.
Maria Sharapova laughed off the appearance of a streaker at Wimbledon on Tuesday but admitted she had been surprised by how long he had been allowed to remain within a few yards of her on centre court. The appearance of a naked young man mid-way through the second set of her quarterfinal had no apparent impact on Sharapova’s game.
Israel on Tuesday ordered more military action to secure the release of a captured soldier the government said was still alive after an ultimatum set by his Palestinian captors expired. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert again ruled out any negotiations with militants to free the conscript.