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DRESDEN: A German accused of brutally murdering a pregnant Egyptian woman in full view of courtroom judges went on trial amid massive security in Dresden to answer for a crime that has provoked outrage across the Muslim world. The 28-year-old German of Russian extraction sat motionless behind a bullet-proof screen as he was accused of the murder of Marwa al-Sherbinbi, a 31-year-old Egyptian pharmacist after stabbing her to death with a seven-inch long kitchen knife in the same court building earlier this year. Mrs Sherbinbi was three months pregnant at the time of the attack. The incident was witnessed by her three-year-old son Mustufa. She bled to death in the courtroom after being stabbed at least 16 times. Her husband was also seriously injured. A security guard who arrived on the scene minutes later, shot her husband in the leg after mistaking him for the killer.

MISA RUMI: A pioneering solar energy project is using green technology to improve the lives of isolated villagers living beyond the reach of power lines on Argentina's windswept Andean plains. Now residents of the village of Misa Rumi in Jujuy province are cooking their lunchtime soups and stews on solar-fired stoves and installing solar-heated showers as part of a project led by a local NGO, the EcoAndina Foundation. With the use of a built-in sundial, the solar stoves are tipped to face the strongest sun and can set light to a piece of paper within seconds. They have proved popular, saving villagers the work of gathering scarce firewood or buying pricey canisters of natural gas. Elsewhere in Misa Rumi, the scorching Andean sun is used to heat a communal bakery and solar-powered water pumps that guarantees irrigation for the residents' vegetable patches. Misa Rumi lies at some 3,750 meters (12,000 feet) above sea level, but a solar heating system at the village school takes th...

LILONGWE: Madonna was in Malawi on Monday to attend a ground-breaking ceremony for a school that she is helping to build in the country where she adopted two children. The pop star's Raising Malawi charity, which support vulnerable and orphaned children, is building the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls in the capital, Lilongwe. On the charity's website, the 51-year-old said she was taking her family with her to Monday's launch of the school, which aimed to "empower girls to become Malawi's future leaders". Madonna adopted a little girl, Mercy James, in Malawi earlier this year, three years after she obtained custody of her first adoptive Malawian child, David Banda. Both are aged four. Madonna met both the children in orphanages, where they had been placed after their mothers had died. She also two biological children, daughter Lourdes, 13 and son Rocco, nine. Madonna said Raising Malawi was working with the local ministry of education and education experts fr...

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 KARACHI: South Australia have signed Shahid Afridi for the Twenty20 Big Bash this summer as a replacement for the spinner Ajantha Mendis. The Redbacks had announced the recruitment of Mendis in July but he is now unavailable due to Sri Lanka's planned tri-series with India and Bangladesh in January. South Australia's Big Bash campaign begins on December 29, when Pakistan will be involved in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. However, Afridi has not played Test cricket since 2006 and is not expected to feature in their Test squad, which would leave him free to take part in the full Twenty20 competition. "We narrowly missed out on finals last season and these signings are definitely a boost to our quest to qualify for the Champions League this year," South Australia's high performance manager Jamie Cox said. "I have made no secret of the fact that I view the Big Bash competition as the most commercial on the domestic calendar and the ...