No image available
/ 18 December 2006
National off-road motorcycle and quad racing governing bodies, race organisers, sponsors and competitors are rallying to save the image and future of the sport after the final event of the season, the 39th Roof of Africa. Arguably one of the toughest races of its kind in the world, the Roof of Africa 2006 was plagued by poor organisation and a series of logistical and supply failures.
No image available
/ 18 December 2006
Negotiations to secure the return of four South Africans abducted in Iraq are continuing, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday. ”Negotiations are continuing, the situation is complex and very delicate … we have to leave it at that … we cannot elaborate,” said spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.
No image available
/ 18 December 2006
Australia defeated England by 206 runs to win the third Test at the Waca and regain the Ashes after taking an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the five-match series on Monday. Australia wrapped up victory on the second ball after lunch on the final day when Shane Warne bowled Monty Panesar for one as England collapsed to be all out for 350 after resuming on 265 for five.
No image available
/ 18 December 2006
Sudan should have until the end of the year to agree to an international peacekeeping force in Darfur or face sanctions and other punitive measures, 15 former foreign ministers said in comments published on Monday. The international community had to convince Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir that his best interests would be served by allowing the African Union peacekeeping force to be strengthened.
No image available
/ 18 December 2006
France is to withdraw all 200 of its special forces engaged in the United States anti-terror operation in south-eastern Afghanistan, the government announced on Sunday. The elite troops have been under US command near the Pakistani border since 2003 as part of the US operation to hunt down Taliban fighters.
No image available
/ 18 December 2006
It isn’t a professional way to approach an interview, but before I meet Alex Tew I remind myself that I mustn’t like him. He is the 22-year-old who took the world wide web by storm last year with his Million Dollar Homepage. This simple idea, which saw Tew selling tiny slices of advertising space on a site that everyone suddenly wanted to visit, made him more than $1-million in less than four months, writes Steve Boggan.
No image available
/ 18 December 2006
Britain’s top female biathlete, Emma Fowler, is in Hochfilzen, Austria, for the second biathlon World Cup event of the year. But outside her hotel, the sun is beating down and her competitors are wandering around in T-shirts. "It’s a bit weird," she says. "We’re used to wearing thermals and Lycra, but when the temperature hits 10°C, you just want to strip off."
No image available
/ 18 December 2006
Sporting a beige jacket, starched pink shirt and polished shoes, Haider looks like any other young businessman about town, not a sly gunrunner who wheels and deals in Iraq’s burgeoning arms trade. Yet with the country sucked into sectarian warfare and the classic laws of the marketplace clicking into gear, traders like Haider are making a highly illegal killing.
No image available
/ 18 December 2006
The divergent experiences of two United States military units in the first year of the invasion of Iraq hold lessons for countering terrorism in Africa. In 2003, the northern city of Mosul had all the ingredients for a potential insurgency: it was home to the Iraqi Islamic Party as well as to more than 100 000 disbanded and unemployed former Iraqi army soldiers and sympathetic Kurdish militias.
No image available
/ 18 December 2006
The leader of the biggest Christian faction in Lebanon, General Michel Aoun, who has formed an alliance with the militant Shia group, Hizbullah, said their opposition movement was prepared to set up their own national unity administration if the Western-backed government of Fouad Siniora did not bow to their demands.