Mogadishu - At least 15 Somali civilians died and many others were wounded when Ethiopian forces shelled an insurgent stronghold in north Mogadishu on Friday, witnesses said Saturday.

"In a vegetable market around me, five civilians died on the spot instantly after a shell landed," Fadumo Yusuf, a shopkeeper, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "The shells landed consecutively and it was to difficult to escape."

Another resident in the area Abdi Wahab told dpa that around seven other dead civilians could seen in the area and 10 wounded people were rushed to hospitals.

New Delhi - Thousands of football-crazy fans lined the streets of the eastern Indian metropolis Kolkata on Saturday to welcome Diego Maradona, news reports said.

The Argentinian football legend is on a three-day trip to India's football capital to lay the foundation stone of the Indian Football School.

The 48-year-old newly appointed coach of Argentina, who was accompanied by his girlfriend Veronica, seemed pleased though a bit nonplussed by the response of his Indian fans, PTI news agency and NDTV television channel reported.

Panama City  - Panamanian media reports Saturday said that a Russian naval vessel has passed through the Panal Canal for the first time since 1944.

The reports cited the Russian embassy in Panama City in disclosing that the anti-submarine destroyer Admiral Chabanenko had passed through the canal after having taken part in recent naval manoeuvres with Venezuela.

The Russian ship, commissioned in 1999, is 164 metres long and has a crew of about 300.

In 1944, during World War Two, four Soviet submarines had passed through the canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific after undergoing repairs.

Ostersund, Sweden - Emil Hegle Svendsen dominated a biathlon World Cup sprint race on Saturday while fellow-Norwegian star Ole Einar Bjoerndalen missed the podium by a fraction.

The two-time 2008 world champion Svendsen missed one of 10 targets in the shooting range and won the 10-kilometres race in 25 minutes 42.3 seconds. It was the seventh career win for the 23-year-old.

Tomasz Sikora of Poland trailed by 12.7 seconds in second place, also with one penalty loop. Simon Fourcade of France was third, 28.1 seconds off the pace after hitting all targets.

Kolkata, Dec 6 : Kolkata police has unearthed a massive mobile SIM card racket in the city following disclosures from Mumbai that two SIM cards used by terrorists in the Mumbai attacks were from this metropolis.

The Kolkata police have arrested a Kolkata resident Tauseef Rehman and a Srinagar resident Mukhtar Ahmed Sheikh in connection with the SIM card racket. They were produced at Bankshall City Civil and Sessions Court today and remanded to police custody till December 14.

Hamburg - The fairy tales are over for German football as national team manager Oliver Bierhoff urged hard work for future success in an interview published on Saturday.

"We must realize that the summer fairy tale, and the summer fairy tale 'reloaded' - if you want to give Euro 2008 this name - is over ... We must be down to earth again," Bierhoff told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.