LONDON, July 6:  Rock band Black Sabbath turned in a rocking career-spanning set at London’s Hyde Park.
The legendary heavy metal band performed old favourites including ‘War Pigs’ and ‘Iron Man’ and material from their new album ’13’ to the delight of the hoardes gathered for the second night of Barclaycard’s British Summer Time, reported Daily Mirror.
Ahead of the show, frontman Ozzy Osbourne had celebrated his wedding anniversary with wife Sharon and daughter Kelly with a party backstage, and he appeared to want to continue the celebrations on stage.
The 65-year-old rocker shouted, “Do you know what day it is today? It’s my wedding anniversary. Sharon! Get out here.”
As the band closed their set with classic hit ‘Paranoid’, it started raining and the crowd which included actor Johnny did not seemed to mind as they continued singing along until the very end. (PTI)

HOUSTON (US), July 6:  A man opened fire on an arena floor at a Caribbean music festival, wounding at least four people, police said, and two women were injured as the crowd rushed to flee the shooting.
Several thousand people had gathered at the arena for a Fourth of July party at the Houston Caribbean Festival, which was supposed to run until around 5 am, Houston Police spokesman Jodi Silva said.
Witnesses told police they saw a man open fire at 1:55 am yesterday on the floor of the arena, hitting four men, Silva said.
“Everybody was having a good time, until someone shot a firearm,” Silva said.
Immediately after the shots were heard, people panicked and began to flee, Silva said. Two females were hurt as people rushed to exit, but Silva did not know the extent of their injuries. Silva said the shooting victims were taken to two different hospitals, and one man was in critical condition and not expected to survive.
No ages or identities for any of those hurt were available immediately. The Houston Caribbean Festival is an annual event that takes place during the holiday week at different venues in the area. Messages left at the telephone number listed on the organizer’s website were not immediately returned.
The arena is accessible by a small two-lane road, which made it difficult for emergency crews to arrive as thousands of cars tried to leave.
The organiser of the festival had medical care personnel at the arena that gave first aid to the victims, Silva said. They were assisted by people at the party who had medical training.
There have been no arrests. The Houston Police Department is calling for people with information to come forward.
Silva says about 30 off-duty policemen were at the festival to provide security but they were on the perimeter of the arena. (AGENCIES)

ABUJA, July 6:  Clashes between Nigerian armed forces and Islamists after a daring attack on the military in the country’s restive northeast left 53 insurgents and six troops dead, a spokesman said.
The rebels attacked barracks and a police station in the town of Damboa, in Borno state, late Friday while most of the troops were out on patrol in surrounding villages, drawing an army response, defence spokesman General Chris Olukolade said in a statement yesterday.
Five soldiers and a senior officer were killed while repelling the attack.
The area was cordoned off and searched, while the bodies of the fallen soldiers were recovered and taken to a military morgue. The wounded were treated at a military medical facility.
“Half of Damboa has been burnt, including the police station. People are just fleeing the town,” said a resident reached by telephone who requested anonymity.
Others said the military had seized four armoured carriers.
“The soldiers gave the Boko Haram fighters a good fight and took over the four APCs they came with,” said one. “The soldiers also suffered casualties.”
“Many homes were burnt in the attack. Many residents have fled the area. The police station was also burnt”, another resident said.
Witnesses estimated that the toll among civilians and the armed forces could be higher than that given by the army.
Security experts say the overstretched and under-resourced military is incapable of fighting an effective counterinsurgency against Boko Haram militants, who have killed thousands in their five-year campaign for an independent Islamic state in the north.
Also on Friday, a suicide bomber rammed his car into a checkpoint at Konduga, Borno state, killing a policeman and three militiamen, Olukolade said. (AGENCIES)

NAIROBI, July 6:  Shooting was reported in Kenya’s coastal district of Lamu, the same area where some 60 people were massacred last month, authorities said.
Kenya’s National Disaster Operations Centre said in a brief statement yesterday on Twitter that gunfire broke out in the trading centre of Hindi near the town of Mpeketoni, the scene of the mass killings.
The NDOC said that local authorities and police were responding and that the “location has been secured”. But there were no reports of casualties.
The Kenyan Red Cross also said no casualties had been reported.
The incident took place around 15 kilo metres from Lamu, once a popular tourist resort.
Details of the incident were not immediately clear, although a spokesman for Somalia’s Shebab rebels issued a statement claiming that the Al-Qaeda-linked group’s fighters had carried out another attack in the area.
“The attackers came back home safely to their base,” Shebab military spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab said, claiming that 10 people had been killed in the attack.
The Shebab also claimed responsibility for last month’s attack at Mpeketoni, saying it was in retaliation for Kenya’s military presence in Somalia as part of the African Union force backing the country’s fragile and internationally-backed government.
Survivors of the massacre in the town and a similar attack the following night in a nearby village reported gunmen speaking Somali and carrying Shebab flags killed non-Muslims and said their actions were revenge for Kenya’s military presence in Somalia as part of the African Union force fighting the Islamists.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, however, denied that the Shebab were involved and instead blamed “local political networks” and said that the victims had been singled out because of their ethnicity.
The attackers appeared to target Mpeketoni because the town is a mainly Christian settlement in the Muslim-majority coastal region, having been settled decades ago by the Kikuyu people, the same tribe as Kenyatta.
Police also arrested alleged separatists from the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), a group that campaigns for independence of the coastal region, as well as the governor of Lamu county, who is an opposition politician. (AGENCIES)

CAIRO, July 6:  Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab has rejected public outrage against the recent hike in fuel prices and asked them to accept the decision.
Mahlab said this yesterday during a phone interview with “90 Minutes program” on el-Mehwar TV channel.
“This raise in prices is a hard way but Egypt should go through it, especially after debt accumulation”, he said.
The commuters had blocked the roads and bickered with public transport drivers soon after the announcement of fuel price hike.
The Egyptian government raised the fuel prices by upto 78 per cent on Friday midnight to tackle a bloated subsidy system.
The decision, which raised the public outrage came as an attempt to reduce 240 billion Egyptian pounds (USD 33.5) billion national budget deficit.
The new increase in fuel prices ranged from 0.40 Egyptian pounds (USD 0.06) to 0.75 Egyptian pounds per litre.
The price of 92 octane gasoline, which used to be sold at 1.85 Egyptian pounds per litre, was raised to 2.6 Egyptian pounds per litre and 80 octane gas from 0.9 Egyptian pounds per litre to 1.6 Egyptian pounds per litre
The price of diesel was raised from 1.1 Egyptian pounds to 1.8 Egyptian pounds per litre, reported Youm 7 website.
Meanwhile, Cairo Governor Galal Mostafa al-Said yesterday approved a 15 to 20 per cent increase in the Cairo public transportation fees.
“There will be continuous monitoring of the new fee,” Said was quoted as saying by the state-run MENA news agency.
He also said the white Cairo taxis fees will be increased to 3 Egyptian pounds instead of 2.50 Egyptian pounds as the starting fee and 1.40 Egyptian pounds for every kilometre instead of the current 1.25 Egyptian pounds.
On the first Friday after being inaugurated in June as Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah el-Sisi appeared on the TV with sportive clothes calling on people to ride motorcycles when going to work or school in order to save money and energy.
Several photos of him riding a motorcycle with hundred of motorcyclists went viral on social media sites.
Many activists who were unhappy with this decision posted many caricatures, photos and statues on social media sites to express their opposition. (PTI)