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/ 4 December 2006
Somalia’s weak government on Monday banned vehicles travelling from Islamist-held Mogadishu to its seat in the provincial town of Baidoa, after two suicide car bombings there blamed on the Islamists. Citing fears of more such attacks as the two sides and government ally Ethiopia gird for all-out war, government officials said the ban was necessary to protect the town.
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/ 4 December 2006
A stylish century by youngest team member Michael Clarke defused the prospect of a series-levelling victory by England in the second Ashes cricket Test at the Adelaide Oval on Monday. Clarke claimed his third Test century and first in Ashes cricket with 124 as Australia whittled England’s innings lead down to just 38 runs.
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/ 4 December 2006
Barcelona are on the verge of creating an unwanted European Champions League record — they need victory against Werder Bremen on Tuesday to avoid being the first defending champions not to reach the knockout stages. Bremen only need a point from the match at the Nou Camp to join English champions Chelsea from Group A in the next round.
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/ 4 December 2006
The world faces a staggering diabetes epidemic as poor diet and inactive lifestyles result in people being afflicted at an ever younger age, a major conference on the disease heard on Monday. ”The biggest challenge of today is to communicate the magnitude of the epidemic throughout the world,” Pierre Lefebvre, outgoing president of the International Diabetes Federation, said.
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/ 4 December 2006
Zimbabwe has accumulated arrears of more than $127-million on its obligations to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the issue is likely to dominate discussions when an IMF team visits Harare this week. Zimbabwe’s failure to service its foreign debt forced the IMF to suspend Harare’s voting rights in the fund in 2003.
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/ 4 December 2006
The cup jinx that has blighted Mamelodi Sundowns for the past six years persisted on Sunday as Ajax Cape Town squeezed into the final of the lucrative Telkom Knockout following a penalty shoot-out at Rustenburg’s Olympia Park. Hans Vonk emerged the hero of Ajax’s 5-3 penalty victory on a sweltering afternoon.
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/ 4 December 2006
It has been likened to a surreal Noah’s ark: a bizarre, curving chapel created by the legendary Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier and acclaimed as one of the most important buildings of the 20th Century. But the Notre Dame du Haut pilgrimage chapel, perched on a hill near the French village of Ronchamp, is in danger of being overrun by tourists.
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/ 4 December 2006
Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet fought to survive on Monday after a heart attack put him in a Santiago military hospital, while teary-eyed supporters of all ages held vigil outside. Pinochet (91) who ran Chile with brutal discipline for 17 years, was in stable but serious condition after an angioplasty on Sunday to unblock clogged arteries.
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/ 4 December 2006
Mohamed Gad walks barefoot through the muddy tannery, seemingly not bothered by the acrid odours of chemicals and the stink of unprocessed skins. He places piles of shaved leather on a cart, pulls it across the workshop and unloads the lot next to the colouring drums where the leather is cleaned and tanned using chrome.
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/ 4 December 2006
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said Iraq was in the grip of civil war as United States and Iraqi forces attacked insurgent bases in a bid to shore up the authority of a government itself riven by factional rivalries. Outgoing Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was revealed to have acknowledged in a memo just before he lost his job that US strategy was not working.