Gates dethroned

The net worth of Mexico's Carlos Slim Helu grew to $67.8 billion US by the end of June, allowing him to oust Bill Gates as the world's wealthiest man, according to the calculations of a Mexican financial websiteSlim controls and owns a third of America Movil, Mexico's largest fixed-line telephone company and a major Latin American wireless service provider. The company's stock climbed more than 26 per cent over the first quarter, swelling Slim's wealth to eclipse that of Microsoft's Gates.The Mexican website, called Sentido Comun ("Common Sense"), said that Slim and his family's fortune is equivalent to eight per cent of Mexico's gross domestic product The website said that Gates was worth $59 billion US at the end of June.Other than his holdings in the telephone sector, Slim has a host of other financial interests in areas such as retail, coffee shops, and restaurants.

Alex Ferguson

After spells as a player with Queen's Park, St Johnstone,Dunfermline, Glasgow Rangers, Falkirk and Ayr United, and asmanager of East Stirlingshire, St Mirren and Aberdeen, AlexFerguson succeeded Ron Atkinson as manager of Manchester United on 6th November 1986.In the 13 League matches up to Ferguson's arrival at OldTrafford, United had only won three and had lost six. Theyhad also been knocked out of the Littlewoods Cup aftersuffering a 1-4 defeat at Southampton. Looking back it iseasy to see why United's position was so dire: "Fergusoninherited a dispirited team of underachievers who hadconsistently, to their supporters' foaming discontent,failed to break Liverpool's domination. The team sheetdrawn up by the new man for his first match says it all:Turner, Duxbury, Albiston, McGrath (Olsen), Moran,Hogg, Blackmore, Stapleton, Moses, Davenport, Barnes.The team lost 0-2 to Oxford United." (Jim White quoted inTotal Sport, May 1997).

Arsene Wenger

A self-described football obsessive, the erudite Frenchman's dedication to the game has paid off in a collection of domestic honours since his arrival in 1996 rivalled only by the achievements of Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, his nemesis in chief.
Wenger's involvement in football began at an early age in France where his attempts at forging a career as a player were for the most part limited to the amateur ranks of the country's third division though he eventually managed a brief spell at top-flight Strasbourg who captured the French title. However, his participation was limited to a mere three games during the championship season.
The realisation that his skills could not guarantee a career as a footballer led Wenger to enrol at the University of Strasbourg where he completed a masters degree in Economics. Nevertheless he remained involved in the game and in 1981 was appointed the youth coach at Strasbourg. His first spell in charge of a club came at Nancy in France but proved to be less than ideal when the club were relegated.

David Beckham

A remarkable soccer player known for his distinguished style of wing play, David Beckham is undeniably one of the most celebrated global sporting icons who is also recognized as a famous public figure that even non-sports fans cherish of. The fact that he comes from a family who actively supported Manchester United Football Club certainly has provided more than enough explanation about the main factor that triggered him to develop a fondness for soccer at such a young age. Born on May 2, 1975 in Leytonstone, London, England with the name David Robert Joseph Beckham, the kid undoubtedly got the full encouragement to join soccer competitions, including that at Bobby Charlton's young player training school in which he won the prize to have a training session with FC Barcelona. Much to his delight, this initial achievement led him to an offer to be a trainee in his favorite team, Manchester United, thus quickly signed its youth training scheme contract on July 8, 1991 without any further consideration.

Ronaldinho Gaucho.

Today, he is known as Ronaldinho; the suffix "inho" in Portuguese designates diminutive (Ronaldinho = little Ronaldo).When he started his career, Ronaldinho was the nickname of Ronaldo Nazário, aka Ronaldo the Phenomenon; to make a distinction, Ronaldinho was called for a long time in Brazil Ronaldinho Gaúcho (gaúchos are the people who are born in Rio Grande do Sul).Ronaldinho started his career as a young child playing indoor soccer, and at age 7 he was already playing in Gremio, one of the two major teams in Porto Alegre (the other one is International); the images shown at these videos were recorded when Ronaldinho was aged 8.Ronaldinho's brother, Roberto de Assis, was also a successful player of Gremio's (where he was known as Assis). When Ronaldo was aged 9, his father, João da Silva Moreira, died drowned in the swimming pool of the house bought with the money that Gremio gave to Assis, to persuade him from moving to Torino, the Italian team. Ronaldo's mother, Miguelina, a nursery assistant, started working full time to support her three children: Assis (currently Ronaldo's manager), Deisi (currently Ronaldo's advisor) and Ronaldo.

Nadal unstoppable

Nadal, last year’s runner-up, played only 20 minutes total in the resumption of his third-round match against Robin Soderling on Tuesday. The second-seeded Spaniard warmed up for his match on Saturday but never played a point. After the traditional middle Sunday off, they began Monday but stopped in the fifth set because of rain late in the day.
They resumed two times Tuesday, once playing nine minutes, then playing another 11 minutes before the rain returned.Nadal took the first two sets, while Soderberg took the second two. The score is 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (7-9), 4-6, 4-4, in another rain delay.
The second-seeded Nadal was only two points away from beating Soderling on Monday before the weather once again halted play with the Spaniard leading, 6-4, 6-4, 6-6 (7-7).
When play resumed nearly two hours later, it was Soderling who looked like the superior player. The Swede won the third-set tiebreak, triumphed in the fourth set and went down a break in the fifth before rain postponed all matches for the day, leaving Nadal with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (7-9), 4-6, 2-0 advantage.

Deby dead

The hooded killers of the Chadian president's son were filmed on video surveillance cameras in the underground car park in France where his body was found, a judicial source says.Brahim Deby was discovered dead in his car early on Monday near his home outside Paris. A post-mortem showed he was asphyxiated, probably by powder from a fire extinguisher. The prosecutor's office in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, which is handling the case, refused to comment on the video images saying the investigation was ongoing.
Le Monde newspaper reported that the video showed "several hooded men" attack Deby as he drove into the garage shortly before 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Monday.Chad President Idriss Deby was believed to have wanted his son to succeed him, but this choice was widely unpopular, even by some of his own family, who viewed Brahim as unfit to govern