AFP
Minister rapped for team remark
All of France must cheer on its World Cup football team, the government spokesman said Monday, in remarks aimed at the sports minister for criticising the team’s choice of a posh hotel.
Cop gets ready to rule field
Top referee — and former movie star — Howard Webb admits he will be happy to let the world’s top players steal the limelight when he officiates the Spain versus Switzerland at World Cup.
Stage set for a Shakira shake
The World Cup’s opening celebrations roll over two days this week, in a musical double feature that boasts top stars like Shakira on Thursday, with a still-secret performance ahead of the match on Fri
Greece aim for an upset
Greece are gracing the World Cup stage for only the second time in their history after a baptism of fire on their debut back in 1994.
Drogba to rejoin squad
Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba is due to rejoin his team-mates at their training camp in the Swiss Alps on Monday following surgery on his broken forearm, the Ivorian football federation said.
All eyes on Evra
With France plagued by scandal, an unpopular coach and a key players lacking form and fitness, Patrice Evra is one of the few members of their squad who will go to the World Cup at the top of his game
WWII bodies found in Papua New Guinea
An Australian trekker has uncovered the site of a World War II battle in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, with the bodies of at least three Japanese soldiers still lying where they fell in 1942.
‘Democracy hijacked’ as California goes to polls
The free-spending role of corporations in California’s electoral system has come under fire as the state prepares to vote on two referenda which opponents have condemned as a “hijacking” of democracy.
Anti-Qaeda militia can’t carry arms
Anti-Qaeda militiamen in the central Iraqi province of Diyala have been stripped of the right to bear arms, an official said on Sunday, sparking a wave of anger and warnings of unrest.
Activists expelled, Israel faces inquiry pressure
Israel moved swiftly on Sunday to expel the latest group of activists trying to break its naval blockade on Gaza, as pressure grew for an international inquiry into a raid that killed nine Turks. Israel’s powerful inner forum of seven mi-nisters was to meet behind closed doors to seek ways to calm the international outcry over its deadly storming of a first Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31.
