The pilot and co-pilot of a UN-contracted plane were injured when their aircraft crash landed in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region yesterday, the UN said.
The Antonov 28 was bringing supplies to UN peacekeepers in the region when its nose wheel reportedly collapsed on landing at Saraf Omra in North Darfur, the UN said in a statement.
"A pilot and a co-pilot were injured. There were no fatalities. The incident is currently being investigated," it said. (AFP)
Umpire killed by cricket ball
A cricket umpire died at the weekend after being hit on the head by a ball thrown by a fielder.
Alcwyn Jenkins, 72, was officiating on Saturday in a local league match at the St Helen's ground in Swansea, South Wales when the accident happened. He was airlifted to hospital but died shortly afterwards.
Neil Hobbs, honorary chairman of the South Wales Cricket Association, told The Times: "The throw would have been from about 40 metres away. No one can quite believe it has happened.
"Umpires do get hit by the ball occasionally, but the chances of it being a fatality must be less than one in a million."
Steve Davies, chairman of Swansea Cricket Club, said the incident happened in front of an unusually large crowd at the ground, where Gary Sobers hit six sixes in an over in 1968.
"Just before the game he turned to me and said, I just love playing games at St Helen's. It's a wonderful place to play cricket.'" (Reuters)
Oldest Bible goes online
The surviving parts of the world's oldest Bible were reunited online yesterday, generating excitement among biblical scholars still striving to unlock its mysteries.
The Codex Sinaiticus was hand written by four scribes in Greek on animal hide, known as vellum, in the mid-fourth century around the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great who embraced Christianity.
Not all of it has withstood the ravages of time, but the pages that have include the whole of the New Testament and the earliest surviving copy of the Gospels written at different times after Christ's death by the four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Bible's remaining 800 pages and fragments - it was originally some 1400 pages long - also contain half of a copy of the Old Testament. The other half has been lost.
"The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures," said Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library.
"This 1600-year-old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation," he said.
The texts include numerous revisions, additions and corrections made during its evolution down through the ages. (Reuters)
'Robocop' comes to life
A policeman in a Robocop outfit patrolled a train station in Manila's Makati financial district as part of a campaign by the Philippine National Police to increase public awareness on crime prevention and safety. Crime remains a major problem in the Philippines, where police say over one million unlicensed firearms are in the hands of civilians and rebel groups. (AFP)
Born to be barefoot?
As running shoes get more pricey and more complicated, some long distance runners are opting to "just do it" without any shoes at all.
And even seventh generation shoemaker Galahad Clark says he would like to get our feet back to the garden.
"Edenism is the new word," the Britain-based Clark said as he strolled lower Manhattan shod in his thin-soled creation. "Our shoes are not as good as barefoot, but they're as close as we can get."
Mr Clark's line of running and walking shoes, called Vivo Barefoot, feature a three millimetre sole that, he contends, frees the wearer to walk and run as evolution intended.
"We just tried to make the least shoe we possibly could," said Mr Clark, in what might seem a counter-intuitive move from a man whose family has been making shoes for almost 200 years.
Mr Clark, whose uncle Nathan invented the desert boot in 1947, says his shoes are "more like glorified socks". (Reuters)
Yemenia jet wreckage search complicated
The search for the Yemenia Airbus wreckage off the Comoros coast is difficult and will take time as the operation is being conducted under difficult conditions, the French ambassador stationed there said yesterday.
"It is long and complicated," Luc Hallade told reporters. "I totally understand the suffering of the families, but truth must be told: It will take time due to difficult conditions.
"We have picked up black box signals. We are trying get the precise location of these recorders," he added.
The Airbus A310 plunged into the ocean last week with 153 people on board as it tried to land at Moroni airport.
A 12-year-old girl is the only survivor of last Tuesday's crash. (AFP)