Roger Federer is desperate to clinch a third successive Wimbledon title to erase the misery of his 2005 Grand Slam flops at the Australian and French Opens. The top seed has captured seven titles this year and has lost just three times in 57 matches. But still the 23-year-old is not satisfied.
Guardian editorial: Zimbabwe’s brutal clearances of thousands of slum dwellers from the country’s capital, Harare, might not top the league of human-rights abuses in Africa (as defendants of Robert Mugabe’s corrupt regime are quick to point out).
Pornographic websites and their legions of fans will soon have their very own corner of cyberspace. The domain name extension ”xxx” has been approved by the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the organisation responsible for approving decisions about domain extensions.
In the face of mounting casualties and a growing threat of civil war in Iraq, George Bush on Saturday urged Americans to stay the course and insisted that he had a plan for eventual victory. In his weekly radio address, the president said: ”Our country has been tested before and we have a long history of resolve and faith in the cause of freedom. Now we will see that cause to victory in Iraq.”
Lions coach Clive Woodward has demanded action against All Blacks captain Tana Umaga and hooker Keven Mealamu after Lions skipper Brian O’Driscoll dislocated a collarbone in a crunching tackle early in the first rugby Test. The 3-21 loss to the All Blacks proved costly for the British and Irish Lions.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) have backed down from their threatened second round of strikes after talks with the new deputy president. South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported Cosatu as saying it was however too late for Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka to stop the current round of mass action.
There may have been aspects of The Godfather, GoodFellas and, most pertinently, Donnie Brasco to the life of the Mafia boss Joe Massino, but Friday’s courthouse scene in Brooklyn was strictly B-movie. The paunchy 62-year-old gruffly pleaded guilty to the murder of a subordinate and, in doing so, accepted a life sentence.
With a glazed look in her eyes, the bored production line worker dips her hand into a bag full of short and curlies, peels off a strip of double-sided transparent tape and applies the furry finishing touch to a plastic vagina. On the table behind, three young migrant workers from Hubei province are a picture of tedium as they fix studs and chains on a red rubber bondage outfit.
Six months after the tsunami struck, little remains of the village of Navalady built on a narrow finger of sand extending into the Indian Ocean on Sri Lanka’s east coast. Debris lies in piles on the beach and the road through the village, washed out by the waves, has not been repaired.
He lived and died in the world of gangsta rap, and the identity of his killer remains one of the most enduring and bloody mysteries in the music industry. The Notorious BIG was gunned down at traffic lights in Los Angeles, and since then theories about who pulled the trigger and why have tormented his family.