Liam and Theo were a team, fast friends doing a dangerous job — searching out roadside bombs laid by insurgents in Afghanistan. The jovial British soldier and his irrepressible dog worked and played together for months, and died on the same day. On Thursday they came home, flown back to Britain in a somber repatriation ceremony for the soldier remembered for his empathy with animals and the companion he loved. Lance Cpl. Liam Tasker, a dog handler with the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, was killed in a firefight with insurgents in Helmand Province on March 1 as he searched for explosives with Theo, a bomb-sniffing springer spaniel mix. The dog suffered a fatal seizure hours later at a British army base, likely brought about by stress. Military officials won't go so far as to say Theo died of a broken heart — but that may not be far from the truth. "I think we often underestimate the grieving process in dogs," said Elaine Pendlebury, a senior veterinarian with animal charity PDSA. "Some dogs react very severely to their partner's loss." She said it was not uncommon for pets to respond to an owner's death by refusing food and becoming sick — and the bond between working dogs and their handlers is especially close. "The bonding that I have seen between soldiers or police and their dogs is fantastic. When you see them working together, it's really one unit." A military Hercules ...

Taufik Hidayat, the former Olympic and world champion from Indonesia, became the All-England Open's first major casualty when he lost an engrossing late night tussle to unheralded Japanese player Kazushi Yamada on Wednesday. Hidayat whom many regard as the finest player never to have won the world's oldest tournament may have lost his last chance to do as he slipped to a 21-10, 21-14 defeat. It was a strangely one-sided affair, especially as Hidayat never stopped trying to work his way back into the match, and there were only the briefest of moments, early in the second game, when he looked as though he might turn it around. "I don't know why I was so bad -- I just wasn't feeling well," the second seed said. "I don't think he was really good. I just made so many unforced errors." Despite this, there were plenty of long rallies, and an important ingredient in the upset was Yamada's speed at knocking off the shuttle in the forecourt, one of Hidayat's most renowned areas of strength. The world number 28 first signalled that he was bothering his star opponent when he launched a jump smash at 12-8 which put Hidayat's flick serve ...

Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo on Monday ordered his government to take control over the country's key cocoa sector, so far dominated by multinational companies. "The purchase of coffee and cocoa from producers and groups of producers will be undertaken exclusively by the state throughout" Ivory Coast, said a decree read out on public television. Ivory Coast is the world's leading cocoa producer, accounting for 40 percent of global supplies valued at $4.5 billion (3.3 billion euros) a year at current prices, according to London's Financial Times. Alassane Ouattara, internationally recognised as the winner of Ivory Coast's disputed presidential election in November, has banned cocoa exports until March 15 as part of a bid to pressure Gbagbo to relinquish power. Meanwhile fighting flared again in Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan, with three killed and houses set alight, as battles in the west sent scores fleeing ...

Soldiers backing Ivory Coast's defiant leader mowed down women protesting his refusal to leave power in a hail of gunfire Thursday, killing at least six and shocking a nation where women's marches have historically been used as a last resort against an unrestrained army. Because the president's security force has shown almost no reserve in opening fire on unarmed civilians, the women decided this week to organize the march in the nation's commercial capital, assuming soldiers would be too ashamed to open fire. But at least six of the thousands of women demonstrating Thursday were killed on the spot, said Mohamed Dosso, an assistant to the mayor of Abobo who said he saw the bodies. The three-month old conflict in Ivory Coast has entered a new level of intensity. With each passing day, the regime of Laurent Gbagbo is proving it is willing to go to any length to stay in office following an election that international observers say he lost. Sirah Drane, 41, who helped organize the march, said she was holding the megaphone and preparing to address the large crowd that had gathered at a traffic circle in Abobo. "That's when we saw the tanks," she said. "There were thousands of women. And we said to ourselves, 'They won't shoot at women.' ... I heard a boom. They started spraying us. ... I tried to run and fell down. The others trampled me. Opening fire on unarmed women? It's inconceivable." The attack prompted an immediate rebuke from the U.S., which like most governments has urged Gbagbo to step down and has recognized his rival as the country's legitimate ...

With nerves frayed by months of tremors that peaked in a horrifying earthquake this week, Christchurch residents are lashing out against those they need the most. Police said domestic violence surged by 50 percent after a major tremor rocked New Zealand's second city last September, the prelude to Tuesday's quake that left at least 123 dead and destroyed parts of the city centre. Just a day into the latest disaster, police commander Dave Cliff said authorities had seen another surge in family assaults, with many homeless or without power and water, and as some turned to alcohol to cope. "The stress and trauma of Tuesday's earthquake is understandably taking its toll, and the continual aftershocks are exacerbating the tiredness and emotional fatigue," said Cliff. "However family violence is not okay under any circumstances and it is important that situations are not allowed to escalate." Many in Christchurch have been on edge since the September 4 quake which caused massive damage but no loss of life, with more than 5,000 aftershocks ravaging the city of 390,000 -- New Zealand's second largest. ...