Peace talks due to start in Somalia this week were overshadowed by a grenade attack in a Mogadishu market that killed at least three people on Wednesday. The attack caused chaos at the Bakara market a day before the opening of the peace meeting, already adjourned from the weekend in a climate of violence.
Sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3 (PS3) have finally topped the one million mark in Japan eight months after its launch, lagging well behind those of Nintendo’s Wii, research showed on Wednesday. Sony had sold just over 1,01-million PS3s as of July 15 since the console’s launch in Japan on November 11, according to Enterbrain, a Japanese publisher that tracks video-game console sales.
German rider Patrick Sinkewitz, who was forced to retire from the Tour de France on Monday, has tested positive for testosterone, the German cycling federation BDR announced on Wednesday. The BDR said that T-Mobile rider Sinkewitz was caught with an elevated testosterone level at an out-of-competition test on June 8.
Zambia’s civil- and trade-union coalition on Wednesday threatened to picket a regional summit next month in Lusaka in protest over the political impasse in their country. The coalition said that it wants the summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) next month to discuss the country’s political impasse on the constitution-making process.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is going to court to stop a Mail & Guardian screening of the controversial documentary Unauthorised: Thabo Mbeki in Johannesburg on Wednesday evening. An interdict application will be heard in court on Wednesday afternoon.
Scotland’s richest man pledged on Wednesday to give away his £1-billion fortune to charity to help alleviate poverty in Africa. Sir Tom Hunter plans to donate the huge amount to good causes in developing countries and in Britain during the rest of his lifetime, in one of the largest charitable donations in modern British history.
what could have been a scene from car-heist movie <i>Gone In 60 Seconds</i>, a brazen Malaysian Porsche thief has struck again. After crashing the car, worth more than $280 000, out of an auto showroom, then abandoning it when fuel ran out, the thief returned with a can of petrol and stole it again — this time from the police, reports said on Wednesday.
A Swiss police force on Wednesday handed out bars of chocolate to motorists in an attempt to encourage safe driving habits. The one-day "Thank You" campaign targeted clean motorists stopped during routine roadside checks, following a rash of serious road offences this year in the western Fribourg region, cantonal police said in a statement.
United States forces have arrested a top Iraqi militant who acted as a link between al-Qaeda’s Iraqi offshoot and Osama bin Laden, the global jihadist network’s Saudi founder, the US military said on Wednesday. Brigadier General Kevin Bergner said American troops had arrested Khaled al-Mashhadani on July 4 in the northern city of Mosul.
South Africa marked Nelson Mandela’s 89th birthday on Wednesday with tributes and congratulations as the anti-apartheid icon prepared to launch a new international group to help solve the world’s problems. Mandela was to unveil the group of elder statesmen at a news conference in Johannesburg.