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The wife of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer has dismissed the possibility of a conspiracy behind the death of her husband and rejected suggestions of any match-fixing link. ”I don’t see any conspiracy in his death,” Gill Woolmer told India’s NDTV television in an interview late on Wednesday.
Worshippers in India’s remote Andaman islands are rushing for a glimpse of a picture of Jesus Christ amid reports that it was oozing blood, witnesses said on Wednesday. Thousands of people, mostly Christians, mobbed the home of a bishop in Port Blair, capital of the Indian Ocean chain, to pray before the framed print.
Climate change, pollution, over extraction of water and development are killing some of the world’s most famous rivers including China’s Yangtze, India’s Ganges and Africa’s Nile, conservation group WWF said on Tuesday. The Geneva-based group said many rivers could dry out, affecting hundreds of millions of people and killing unique aquatic life.
More than 1,6-million people are dying every year from the effects of breathing in poisonous smoke from animal dung, wood and coal used for cooking, experts said on Monday. More than three billion people rely on the burning of solid fuels to prepare their meals because they cannot afford cleaner alternatives.
Maoist rebels in central India have killed 50 police officers in one of their worst-ever attacks in decades of insurgency, officials said on Thursday. A large group of rebels hurled grenades, petrol bombs and fired indiscriminately at a jungle security post in Rani Bodli village in Chhattisgarh state, one of several parts of the country in the grip of a left-wing rebellion.
Police in India’s Western state of Gujarat are to wear new uniforms impregnated with the fragrance of flowers and citrus to help improve their image. ”Most policemen look hassled [and] drenched in sweat after coming from any [crime scene],” said Somesh Singh, a designer at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad.
A 23-year-old Indian businessman on Tuesday said he would sell one of his kidneys to anyone who needed a transplant in order to afford to travel to the Cricket World Cup. Tarun Sharma even repeated threats made to several national newspapers to kill himself if he did not find takers for one of his two kidneys.
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The expensive silverware to be awarded to the winner of the Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean has been damaged while on display in India, organisers said on Friday. A gold ring below the coins depicting previous winners of the sport’s biggest prize got detached from the wooden base of the 11kg trophy.
Hundreds of people have rushed to a village in eastern India to see a male calf defy its herbivore nature by eating live chicks. Poultry farmer Ajit Ghosh said he discovered the calf’s strange behaviour after dozens of his newborn chickens went missing from his combined cow shed and chicken coop.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday decided to take away the right to terminate matches from umpires and handed it instead to match referees. The recommendation, suggested by the ICC chief executives’ committee in January, was adopted at the two-day board meeting that ended in Cape Town on Friday. It takes immediate effect.
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/ 24 February 2007
The 2003 World Cup was not only about Australia’s triumph over adversity, but also about a drug ban, boycotts, protests and some prominent cricketers’ farewell. Australia suffered a setback even before the show had begun when champion leg-spinner Shane Warne was ruled out of the tournament.
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/ 22 February 2007
Laurie Bowles, a dreadlocked 24-year-old Englishman, clipped his boots to his snowboard and lunged from the roof of the world into a gaping narrow gully of ice, sugar and powder. His 2Â 000m vertical descent to Gulmarg, a village in revolt-hit India-administered Kashmir, is what many ski devotees rank as among the best skiing on the planet. Just ignore the travel warnings.
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/ 19 February 2007
Two homemade bombs exploded aboard a train bound from India to Pakistan sparking a fire that killed at least 66 passengers on Monday in what the Indian government called an ”act of terrorism”. Most of the victims were Pakistanis but included some Indians and three railway policemen.
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/ 14 February 2007
India’s left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan claimed his first five-wicket haul in one-day internationals to help defeat Sri Lanka by five wickets in the third match of their series on Wednesday. The 28-year-old ripped through the top order to restrict the visitors to 230-8 after they had won the toss and elected to bat.
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/ 14 February 2007
West Indies cricketer Marlon Samuels will be allowed to play in next month’s World Cup despite an ongoing probe of his links with an alleged bookmaker, the sport’s governing body said on Wednesday. ”If he is selected by the West Indies, Samuels is free to play in the World Cup,” International Cricket Council (ICC) spokesperson Brian Murgatroyd told reporters.
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/ 9 February 2007
The French defence and aerospace company Thales on Friday received an order valued at -million to supply advanced flight simulators to an Indian firm, Rudradev Aviation, a news report said. In all, four simulators would be configured for European-made Airbus and United States Boeing aircraft.
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/ 8 February 2007
Indian police may question West Indies batsman Marlon Samuels over his links with an Indian bookmaker to whom he allegedly passed confidential team information during a one-day series in India last month. Police in India’s central city of Nagpur say they have proof of a telephone conversation between Samuels and a bookmaker on the eve of the first one-day international against India.
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/ 8 February 2007
The International Cricket Council (ICC) said on Thursday there was no merit in Australian umpire Darrell Hair’s claim of racial discrimination on the part of cricket’s world governing body and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). The sacked Australian umpire on Wednesday filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the ICC and the PCB.
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/ 6 February 2007
An eight-year-old Indian boy has died trying to show his sister how ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was hanged, police in the southern state of Kerala said on Tuesday. Vishnu Sashi fell from a bathroom water tank after tying a plastic cord round his neck on Sunday evening in Vaikom town, said inspector Rajesh Menon.
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/ 6 February 2007
Maibam Sharat was second in a line of six friends, walking past a security post with his hands up in the air as ordered by Indian troops, when he says a soldier stepped out of an armoured car and opened fire. He doesn’t know how long the shooting lasted, but when it stopped he found his friend Ranbir, who was walking in front of him, bleeding from the stomach.
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/ 31 January 2007
Sachin Tendulkar scored his 41st century to power India to a 160-run victory over West Indies in the final one-day international on Wednesday to clinch the four-match series 3-1. The 33-year-old batsman struck 100, reaching the mark with a single off left-arm paceman Ian Bradshaw from the last ball of the innings as the hosts notched up 341-3 after being asked to bat first.
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/ 30 January 2007
West Indies captain Brian Lara believes his team have built up the right momentum to be strong contenders to win the World Cup on home soil. ”Australia are the only team I feel can guarantee that they are going to be in the semifinals,” the 37-year-old veteran of four World Cups told a news conference on Tuesday.
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/ 29 January 2007
Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela joined top leaders, Nobel laureates and elder statesmen in calling on the world to reinvent non-violent approach to solving conflicts.
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/ 28 January 2007
Marlon Samuels hit 98 off 95 balls and captain Brian Lara made 83 as the West Indies came back strongly to defeat India by three wickets in the third one-dayer on Saturday. The tourists overcame a rollicking start by the hosts to bowl India out for 268 and then surpassed the challenging target in the 44th over.
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/ 24 January 2007
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov questioned on Wednesday the purpose of a United States plan to place an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. US officials say the system will protect it and it European allies from missiles that could be fired from North Korea, Iran or other ”rogue regimes”.
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/ 24 January 2007
The role of the match referee will come under scrutiny during an International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executives’ committee meeting in the United Arab Emirates later this week. The ICC’s executive board recommended last November that a paper be prepared following the Oval Test fiasco when umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove decided Pakistan had forfeited the match against England.
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/ 22 January 2007
A man was arrested on Monday for slapping India coach Greg Chappell as he left an airport in eastern India with his cricket team, a police officer said. The incident occurred as more than two dozen demonstrators protested against the team’s arrival because no players from Orissa state were included in India’s cricket squad.
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/ 21 January 2007
Saurav Ganguly scored a sparkling 98 on his one-day international return after a 16-month absence to help India to a 14-run victory over West Indies on Sunday. The 34-year-old opener struck 11 fours and three sixes to lead the hosts to a commanding total of 338 for three, enjoying good partnerships with Gautam Gambhir (69) and Sachin Tendulkar (31) after they were put in to bat
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/ 21 January 2007
Kenya’s John Kelai won the Mumbai Marathon on Sunday as thousands of the city’s residents ran alongside top athletes from Africa and Australia. Kelai clocked a time of two hours, 12 minutes and 27 seconds to beat out Ethiopians Gashaw Melese with 2:12,32 and Tariku Jufar in 2:12,49.
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/ 20 January 2007
The family of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty hailed on Saturday the eviction of her chief tormentor from Celebrity Big Brother as a triumph of ”good over evil,” amid a furore over racist bullying on the show. ”This vote has shown that goodness always prevails, like in Bollywood films,” a spokesperson for Shetty and her family said.
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/ 18 January 2007
Poor form has ended sporting careers or at least forced a relegation to the bench. In Sachin Tendulkar’s case, it has led to a promotion. Tendulkar (33) will be vice-captain to skipper Rahul Dravid for the one-day series against the West Indies amid speculation that he may even be named Indian captain after the World Cup.
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/ 18 January 2007
Surrounded by throngs of Hindu pilgrims at India’s biggest religious gathering, holy man Kanhaiya Lal Maharaj says he has balanced a water pitcher on his head for 24 years and has the dent in his skull to prove it. ”This is a moving temple, like a mobile phone,” he said, perched on a stool and showing the pitcher to onlookers.