United Kingdom

The complete evolutionary works of Charles Darwin have gone online, including the stolen notebook he carried in his pocket around the Galapagos Islands. Tens of thousands of pages of text and pictures and audio files have been made available, including some previously unpublished manuscripts and diaries of the great British scientist.

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.

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.

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.