The Volkswagen Group posted saw global sales rise 3,2% in 2005 to a record 5,24-million vehicles, the automaker said on Sunday. ”This development is due to our successful model initiative,” group chairperson Bernd Pischetsrieder said in a statement from the Detroit Auto Show. ”Five of our brands have achieved their best-ever delivery results.”
The Turkish man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 will be released on parole on Thursday, his laywer told The Associated Press on Sunday. A Turkish court on Thursday decided to free Mehmet Ali Agca ”on parole on January 12,” his lawyer, Mustafa Demirbag told The Associated Press by telephone.
First came the cracking noise, then a bit of dust from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Paul Cunha’s ”magnificent morning” on Africa’s highest peak was over. ”We started hearing some yelling,” he recalled. ”You could see some rocks starting to fall,” the 45-year-old said on Sunday from his bed at Massachusetts General Hospital. ”People were yelling ‘rock, run, watch out!”’
The outbreak of human infections from the deadly strain of bird flu took a significant step closer to Europe on Sunday after three people, two of them children, tested positive for the virus in the Turkish capital, Ankara. Preliminary tests showed that two young brothers and an adult had contracted the H5N1 strain.
Moroccan authorities said on Sunday 78 would-be immigrants were arrested on the beach in the northern town of Nador as they were getting ready to embark for Spain. The Moroccan migrants seeking to enter Spain illegally were picked up after they had to abandon their plans to cross the Mediterranean to Spain because of rough seas.
Doctor Fareed Abdullah on Monday denied he had been forced by the African National Congress to resign from one of the Western Cape’s top Aids-fighting posts, as alleged by the Democratic Alliance. Abdullah was responding to a statement by Robin Carlisle, DA spokesperson on Aids and opposition representative on the Provincial Aids Council.
Martina Hingis’ hopes of once again dominating women’s tennis received a reality check on Monday when world number eight Justine Henin-Hardenne dumped her out of the Sydney International first round in straight sets. Former number one Henin-Hardenne barely raised a sweat as she disposed of her childhood idol 6-3, 6-3 in just over an hour.
Several top Iranian military officers were among at least 11 people killed in a plane crash on Monday, the local media reported, the second such crash in barely a month. The military plane came down near Orumiyeh in northwestern Iran near the Turkish border and all 11 people aboard were killed.
Singapore has completed construction of Southeast Asia’s first air terminal dedicated to serving the booming low-cost airline sector, a major boost to the city’s regional hub status, officials said on Monday. The terminal at Changi Airport is scheduled to be operational on March 26, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore said.
Hybrid vehicles were the toast of the Detroit auto show this month, but many are warning that the segment will see limited growth. "I don’t think that hybrids will occupy the majority of the market, because the hybrid price is still higher than the customer’s value," Nissan chief operating officer Toshiyuki Shiga said.