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James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the starship Enterprise in the original Star Trek TV series and motion pictures who was famously associated with the command ”Beam me up, Scotty”, died early on Wednesday. He was 85. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease, a friend said.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday wrapped up a three-day forum in Dakar, Senegal, on boosting trade ties between Africa and the world’s largest economy, which for many Africans fell short of concrete commitments to assist their home-grown enterprise.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, on Wednesday confirmed 200 Islamic activists have been rounded up in a renewed crackdown on religious extremists, but denied any links with the London bombings. Pakistani security agencies on Tuesday raided various mosques and Islamic schools across the country.
Confronting the issue of corporal punishment is often difficult because it is so personal, a conference on violence against children heard in South Africa on Wednesday. Peter Newell, of the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, was speaking ahead of a United Nations study on violence against children.
British lawmakers faced criticism from their own number on Tuesday after only 30 — less than 5% of the total — turned up for an anti-terrorism drill in Parliament. The exercise took place on Tuesday morning, when the chamber and galleries of the House of Commons were cleared after a planned "interruption" from a gallery.
The deputy president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) has apologised after raising his views on who should lead the ANC in 2007. Reuben Mohlaloga apologised for raising his views outside the working structures of the ANCYL, league president Fikile Mbalula told reporters in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
Japanese people hoping their bank accounts carry a bit more cash could see their hopes come true with an automated teller machine that doubles as a slot machine, a regional bank said on Wednesday. Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank will on August 8 introduce slot games that run during the wait as cash machines process transactions.
Rescue workers have pulled more bodies from the wreckage of a five-storey building that collapsed on Monday as a construction team was sleeping inside, and the death toll is now at eight, a Red Cross official said on Wednesday. More corpses may still be lying in the debris, said Chika Onah.
Poor rains and high crop prices have left more than 18-million people with serious food shortages in 10 African countries, a food-security monitoring group said. The food shortages are concentrated in Ethiopia, where more than half of the 18-million affected people live, the group’s report said.