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The Oval Test compensation row took a new twist on Tuesday when the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) set Pakistan cricket officials a deadline of the end of the month to settle the dispute. The ECB are anxious to avoid court action — but they are equally determined to reclaim the £800 000 that was lost when Pakistan were deemed to have forfeited this summer’s fourth Test.

Petr Cech’s surgery for a depressed fracture of the skull has thrown Chelsea’s preparations for Wednesday’s match against Barcelona into disarray, particularly as number two keeper Carlo Cudicini was also knocked out at the weekend. Cech was recovering well following the collision with Stephen Hunt at Reading’s Madejski Stadium on Saturday.

A cheap and widely available malaria drug is an effective treatment for pregnant women. Although amodiaquine is an older malaria treatment, little was known about how safe it is in pregnant women. But researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found it eliminated the malaria parasite without causing any serious side effects.

Dancing Barbie met Cyberman on Wednesday as British toy retailers listed their top dozen must-have presents for tech-savvy kids this Christmas. Hollywood also featured prominently with toy spin-offs from the hit movies Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean joining such perennial classics as the Trivial Pursuit board game.

At least 11 000 children are still with armed groups or unaccounted for more than two years after the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) launched a programme to release and re-integrate child soldiers back into civilian life, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. Girls in particular were worst affected, with most of those snatched by armed groups still unaccounted for.

Pop star Madonna has adopted a one-year-old African boy, his father claimed, saying he was happy his son would escape a life of poverty in Malawi, British tabloid newspapers reported on Wednesday. The Sun splashed a picture of the singer dressed in a safari hat and smiling, with a young child it said she had chosen at an orphanage strapped to her back.

Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon revealed on Thursday that he had been stunned by David Beckham’s axing from the England team. ”It seems hard to accept that he is not there,” Calderon said of Beckham’s exclusion from every squad since Steve McClaren took charge.

A menu card believed to be the last item signed by Manchester United’s ”Busby Babes” before the 1958 Munich air disaster was sold at auction on Wednesday for £12 000 (€17 800). The card, autographed by 14 members of the famous young squad managed by Matt Busby, was bought by a private collector from London at a special football memorabilia sale.

Football agents could be forced to reveal details of their bank accounts by the Premier League’s inquiry into allegations of corruption in football. Former Metropolitan police commissioner Lord Stevens, who is leading the inquiry, said his team may use Football Association rules to force agents to open their accounts for inspection.

Up to 40 people were killed in clashes between rebel groups in south Darfur, forcing foreign aid workers to abandon the Greida displaced persons’ camp, the Guardian newspaper reported on its website on Monday. An African Union spokesperson in Khartoum confirmed a flare-up in fighting in Greida, but put the death toll at 11 people, mostly civilians.

One of South Africa’s worst military disasters is to be taught in British schools to highlight the role of African soldiers in World War I, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission announced on Monday. A total of 616 South Africans, virtually all of them African, died when the steamship Mendi sank in the Channel on the way to France on February 21 1917.

An intruder armed with a knife was arrested after scaling a wall and getting into a secure area of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official London residence, police said on Monday. The man was apprehended after he scaled a fence from a road at the back of 10 Downing Street into what officials describe as the building’s outer secure area.

James Blunt’s Goodbye My Lover is the song most requested at British funerals and remembrance services, closely followed by Robbie Williams’s Angels, according to a survey released on Monday. Research for the Bereavement Register found just over a half (51%) of people ask for a specific song be be played at their funeral.

South African Hendrick Ramaala won England’s Great North Run for the third time on Sunday. Ramaala recorded a winning time of one hour and three seconds after breaking away over the last three miles of the Newcastle to South Shields course to finish ahead of Ethiopian Dejene Berhanu and America’s Dathan Ritzenhein.

A controversial strike by midfielder Gary Speed set Bolton Wanderers on their way to a 2-0 Premier League victory over Liverpool at the Reebok Stadium on Saturday. With nearly half an hour gone, Liverpool keeper Jose Reina was judged by a linesman to have carried the ball outside his area before clearing up field. Spaniard Ivan Campo teed up the resulting free kick for Speed to lash home.

Controversial Australian umpire Darrell Hair will not officiate in next month’s Champions Trophy in India because of security concerns. Hair was at the centre of a damaging row last month over the ball-tampering allegations against Pakistan that led to the Oval Test against England ending in a farce.

A star of Britain’s popular Top Gear car show who was seriously injured in a high-speed crash was airlifted on Thursday to a hospital nearer his home, officials and reports said. The show’s co-presenter, Richard Hammond, was seen laughing and smiling as he sat up on a stretcher while medics brought him to an ambulance helicopter at Leeds General Infirmary in northern England.

England head coach Andy Robinson has said that former skipper Jason Robinson could return to the side before next year’s World Cup in France if the conditions are right. Currently captain of Sale Sharks, Robinson captained England in his final season of Test rugby, but retired a year ago after collecting 35 caps and scoring 22 tries.