With legs resembling tree trunks and packing the body weight of two average-sized men, sumo wrestling’s “Great Sandstorm” would seem a good fit for the wildly popular Japanese sport. But Egypt’s Abdelrahman Ahmed Shaalan, the first professional sumo wrestler from both the African continent and Arab world, faces some mighty challenges as he embarks on a quest to become a yokozuna, or grand champion. The... 

An arena where the Taliban used to execute women provides a chilling and incongruous setting for one teen girl’s unlikely Olympic dream. But the dusty floors, broken mirrors, and poorly-lit hallways inside Kabul’s Ghazni stadium have been the training base for 17-year-old Sadaf Rahimi. Dressed in a track suit, red lace up boots and a blue bandana, she is on course to become Afghanistan’s... 

He never forgot the sounds and shapes of his home town. She never gave up hope her lost son would one day come home. Ben Doherty in Khandwa, India, and Andrew Darby in Hobart, report on an emotional reunion between a mother and her son. Saroo was perhaps five years old and he adored his older brother. This night Guddu was going to nearby Khandwa train station, and Saroo insisted on tagging along. His... 

Chemical changes in groundwater that occur when an earthquake is about to strike could be the cause behind the bizarre behaviour of animals during such calamities, a new study has suggested. The team of researchers led by Friedemann Freund from NASA and Rachel Grant from the UK’s Open University began to investigate these chemical effects after seeing a colony of toads abandon its pond in L’Aquila,... 

A 37-year-old US man injured in a 1997 gun accident has been given a new face, teeth, tongue and jaw in what doctors say is the most extensive face transplant ever performed. University of Maryland Medical Center officials announced on Tuesday that Richard Lee Norris is recovering well after last week’s surgery, beginning to feel his face and already brushing his teeth and shaving. He’s... 

Cyber-environmentalists say 80 countries have joined the World Cleanup 2012 campaign which will see volunteers across the globe use the Internet to target illegal trash dumps for cleanup. Portugal and Slovenia kicked off the unprecedented six-month-long global anti-dumping campaign on Saturday, with Tunisia joining in Sunday. “The aim of the action is to solve the illegal dumping problem on a local... 

Australia’s Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House were plunged into darkness on Saturday for the annual Earth Hour campaign, leading a global effort to raise awareness about climate change. In a twist to this year’s Earth Hour, Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers will observe from the International Space Station countries around the world turn off the lights for 60 minutes from 8:30 p.m. local time and... 

China has announced it will end within three to five years the practice of transplanting organs from executed prisoners, a step that would address what for decades has been one of the country’s darkest and most criticised human rights issues. A wide range of official media have run apparently co-ordinated articles describing the merits of voluntary organ donations by the public instead. They... 

The one thing 14-year-old Moshe Kai Cavalin dislikes is being called a genius. All he did, after all, was enroll in college at age eight and earn his first of two Associate of Arts degrees from East Los Angeles Community College at age nine, graduating with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. Now, at 14, he’s poised to graduate from UCLA this year. He’s also just published an English edition... 

When a young man bought an old dairy plant in the US seven years ago, even he didn’t imagine it would lead to a yoghurt empire on track to hit $1 billion in sales a year. At lightning-quick speed, Hamdi Ulukaya has taken his Greek yoghurt business Chobani from five employees in a rundown plant to a powerhouse with more than 1000 staff. Now the man dubbed ”the Steve Jobs of yoghurt”...