Nesta still in doubt

DUISBURG: Defender Alessandro Nesta is still recovering from a right thigh injury and remains in doubt for Italy’s World Cup semi-final match with Germany. Nesta will have a new round of medical exams on Sunday. Marco Materazzi returns from a one-game suspension. Also, goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon was not hurt when he knocked his head against the post while making a second-half save against Ukraine. “Buffon’s OK. He has a hard head,” team spokesman Antonello Valentini said on Saturday.

Troublemaker No 100

LONDON: Police monitoring World Cup troublemakers at British ports said they had made their 100th arrest on Friday. A man was arrested as he tried to board a flight for Germany at London’s Stansted Airport. A police spokeswoman said that a number of orders barring troublemakers from attending matches had also been granted over the past two days by magistrates at Chelmsford England. Londoner John Francis Meighan, 21, was given a three-year banning order and ordered to pay $9,200 in legal costs.

Protest in Bangladesh

DHAKA: Hundreds of soccer fans in the Bangladesh capital attacked a jail and an electricity office after power failures interrupted broadcasts of the World Cup quarter-final match between Argentina and Germany. A group of protesters threw stones at the gates of the central jail in Lalbagh district, slightly injuring more than a dozen jail security guards who attempted to prevent them from going to a nearby electricity office, Dhaka Metropolitan Police official Aminul Islam said. He said the protesters also threw stones at the home of a top official of the jail authorities during the melee.

50 fans arrested

GELSENKIRCHEN: Minor fights and thrown bottles led to the arrests of 50 people, police said on Saturday as they worked to keep fan violence down ahead of the England-Portugal World Cup game. Speaking to reporters, assistant chief constable for Greater Manchester Stephen Thomas said that 13 of those detained were English, while the other 37 were German or other nationalities. Thomas said most of the people were detained after throwing bottles at police, fighting with each other and one was arrested for marijuana possession.