Sport

Australian coach Bill Sweetenham has been cleared by an independent inquiry of bullying allegations made last year by former British table tennis player Matthew Syed. Syed had accused Sweetenham of damaging British swimming and causing the retirement of 13 senior British swimmers. Sweetenham has been the performance director for British swimming since November 2000, when he took over from Deryk Snelling. His contract, which was recently renewed, runs up till the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Syed's claims had been denied by Sweetenham, Bri

Australian cricketer, Ricky Ponting made his second century (100 runs) in his 100th match. The Australian cricket captain is playing in the final day of the third Test against South Africa at the Sydney Cricket Ground. He clocked up 120 runs in his first innings. He is the first player in Test cricket history to make twin centuries in his 100th match. The skipper has also in this match become Australia's third-highest runscorer, passing Mark Waugh (8,029) and trailing Steve Waugh (10,927) and Allan Border (11,174).

This is an excerpt translation of a text found on the German wikipedia site, with an update. Bad Reichenhall, Germany. The roof over the local ice and tennis court crashed shortly after the end of the official skating time on 2 Jan 05, at about 16.50 hrs. At the time, there were about 50 people inside, mostly families with children. By 10 pm, five had been found dead, one child among them. 20 to 25 people have been injured, just as many are missing. The reason for the cave-in of the roof was most likely massive snowfalls. Earlier that after

The old European Union countries have asked the US to put back its biometric passport deadline for another year, as biometric data inclusion issues still needed to be resolved. In the meantime, the new eastern EU countries are more preoccupied with less sophisticated issues relating to passports, namely the uniform colour required for all EU states. In former USSR states such as the Baltic state of Lithuania this new Burgundy-colored document may remind many of the Soviet-era dark red passports. Mr P. Austrevicius, former Chief Negotiator o

Nearly 15,000 people turned up to Olympic Stadium Melbourne to see the home side Melbourne Victory being held to a draw by the visiting Perth Glory in their round 16 A-League match last night. Victory where without captain Kevin Muscat who was out serving a ban from Victory's previous game against Sydney FC. Archie Thompson wore the captain's armband for the night for Victory. In the first game under Alan Vest, Perth's Glory came in strong and held long to pull the tie from the Victory. The lead goal came from Damian Mori for the Glory 5 min

According to the Scotsman newspaper, the directors of the 2012 London Olympics have insisted that the city won the right to host the games "fairly and squarely" after claims were touted by an Israeli official that a "potentially decisive vote was cast in error by an International Olympic Committee (IOC) official". The Israeli official, Alex Gilady, claims that in the third round of voting, Greek delegate Lambis Nikolaou may have accidentally voted for Paris rather than Madrid, resulting in eliminating Madrid rather than Paris from the final ro

Pakistan's Supreme Court has extended a ban on making, selling and flying kites. The ban, which was imposed on October 25, has been extended until the court meets again on January 26. Officials claim the ban is due to injuries resulting from people using metal kite strings, and due to deaths resulting from kite flyers falling off rooftops. Basant, a kite-flying festival, where tens of thousands of people fly kites from rooftops and sports fields, takes place in Lahore, Pakistan every February. Hardline Muslims oppose Basant as wasteful and

Groups for 2006 Football World Cup in Germany were drawn yesterday in Leipzig. The groups are: Group AGroup BGroup CGroup D Germany England Argentina Mexico Costa Rica Paraguay Cote d'Ivoire Iran Poland Trinidad and Tobago Serbia and Montenegro Angola Ecuador Sweden Netherlands PortugalGroup EGroup FGroup GGroup H Italy Brazil France Spain Ghana Croatia Switzerland Ukraine USA Australia South Korea Tunisia Czech Republic Japan Togo Saudi Arabia

With the arrival of the torch to Rome, it begins the ritual of the 2006 Winter Olympics of Turin. The torch will travel across Italy transported by more than 10'000 carriers and it will arrive in Turin on February 9, 2006, where the Winter Olympics will be inaugurated, after 11'000 km (6,835 miles) of travel. On November 27 the flame was burned on the altar of Hestia in Olympia, in Greece, and delivered to the first torch carrier, pole vaulter Kostas Fidippidis. The first Italian to carry the olympic flame is the marathoner Stefano Baldini, wi

Tatenda Taibu, the captain of the Zimbabwe cricket team, has announced that he will stand down from international cricket, after further threats were made against him by controversial Zimbabwean cricket figure Themba Mliswa. Taibu alleges that he was threatened by Mliswa at a meeting with Zimbabwe Cricket Board chairman Peter Chingoka at a meeting earlier this week. He claims that Mliswa said to him "If you thought it is over it is not. Your time is coming and I will get you". Taibu had earlier gone into hiding when he received a telephone

Zhang Yadong has been named as China's new head coach for the 170 member national swim team. Zhang, a national coach since 2000, is the coach behind 100m Breaststroke Olympic medalist Luo Xuejuan. The 170 members of the team, who will be aiming to compete in Beijing 2008, was announced by the Chinese swimming federation on Wednesday 21st November. Mr. Yadong replaces Zhao Ge as head coach. Zhao has left the national team to coach the Guangdong team and has become a director of the Guangdong Swimming Association.

Hotshot batsman Brian Lara has become the second player in test cricket history to score 11,000 runs. Brian achieved the milestone while delivering a characteristic century to his West Indies team score sheet during day one of the final Test against Australia in Adelaide. Lara scored an unbeaten 106 by tea and cucumber sandwich time and is now only 107 runs behind Test record holder Allan Border, who plundered and pillaged 11,174 runs in 265 innings. Lara already holds the records for the highest Test and first-class scores, 400 not out and