JOHANNESBURG, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Four staff at a hospital in South Africa were killed on Friday when an employee went on a shooting spree shortly after being sacked, police said.

Those victims of the shootings at Seshego hospital, near Polokwane in northern Limpopo province, included the chief executive officer, the human resource manager and the administration officer.

'The man had been sacked and handed his dismissal notice,' Senior Superintendent Motlafela Mojapelo told AFP.

ROME, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - A 40-year-old Albanian man accused of domestic violence shot dead his wife and brother-in-law in front of his two children ahead of a separation hearing in an Italian courthouse, media reports said.

Police then shot dead the man, identified as Klirim Fejzo, after he fired off at least 30 rounds, wounding several others in the shootout in the centre-northern Italian city of Reggio Emilia, a witness told the ANSA news agency.

ROME, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - A 40-year-old Albanian man shot dead his wife and her uncle ahead of a separation hearing on Wednesday in an Italian courthouse before police shot him dead, media reports said.

The killings happened in the centre-northern Italian city of Reggio Emilia at around 11:00 am, the ANSA news agency reported.

ANSA said police gunned down the man as he tried to flee and that two lawyers and a policeman were wounded in the shooting.

LOS ANGELES, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Two people were killed and two others injured in a shooting at a workshop in Simi Valley, California on Tuesday, CNN television reported.

The shooting took place at a tire assembly shop, the network said, without immediately offering more details.

A Simi Valley police spokesman, contacted by AFP, was not immediately available for comment.

CHICAGO, Oct 7, 2007 (AFP) - Police were seeking a sheriff's deputy Sunday as the top suspect in a deadly shooting rampage that reportedly left as many as six people dead in a bucolic town in the northern state of Wisconsin.

News reports said the shooting occurred about 3 am (0700 GMT) Sunday in the hamlet of Crandon, Wisconsin, population of about 2,000, not far from the Canada border.

LONDON, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - British police investigating the murder of an 11-year-old boy shot dead as he returned home from football practice on Wednesday released closed circuit television footage of his suspected killer.

The image, which has been enhanced by experts, is of a youngster wearing a hooded top. He was riding a bicycle near a pub in Liverpool, northwest England, moments before and after Rhys Jones was killed on August 22.

DUBLIN, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - An Irish policeman was shot in the stomach in Dublin's north inner city on Tuesday when he stopped a car, a spokesman said.

The garda (policeman) is a member of a traffic unit and was on duty on a motor-cycle at the time.

The spokesman said the shooting occurred in close to the city's main financial district.

'The area has been sealed off and a major investigation is under way. No arrests have been made,' the spokesman said.

WASHINGTON, Sept 21, 2007 (AFP) - A US university remained shut down Friday as police hunted for a man believed to have shot and wounded two students in the early morning hours, the university said.

Police said they were searching for a 'person of interest' at Delaware State University after the shooting around 12:54 am (0454 GMT) near the Memorial Hall on the university campus in Dover, Delaware.

WASHINGTON, Sept 21, 2007 (AFP) - Police on Friday hunted a gunman who opened fire at Delaware State University injuring two people, the university said.

The gunman opened fire around 12:54am (1654 GMT) near the Memorial Hall on the university campus in Dover, Delaware and a male student and a female student required medical attention at local hospitals, a spokesman said in a statement on the university website.

The school went into lockdown mode as the search for the lone male suspect went on.

WASHINGTON, Sept 21, 2007 (AFP) - Police were searching for a lone male suspect after a gunman opened fire at Delaware State University early Friday, injuring two people, the university announced on its website.

The gunman opened fire around 1254 local time (1654 GMT) near Memorial Hall, and a male student and a female student required medical attention at local hospitals, a spokesman said.

The school went into lockdown mode as the search went on.

SKOPJE, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - A Macedonian policeman was killed and another two officers were wounded in a shootout on Monday in the north of the Balkan country, the government said.

Killed was Fatmir Alili, the commander of a police station in the village of Matejce, where the incident occurred at around 2:00 am (0000 GMT), Deputy Interior Minister Ivo Kotevski told AFP.

The ministry gave no further details, but the private news agency Netpress reported that the police had been trying to make an arrest when the shooting broke out.

WASHINGTON, Aug 30, 2007 (AFP) - Officials' slow action likely cost lives of students and staff ahead of the bloodiest campus massacre in US history, an investigation into the April shooting at Virginia Tech University concluded Wednesday.

The probe by the US state of Virginia noted crucial errors by university police and officials following the early morning shooting of two students on April 16 by mentally disturbed gunman Seung-Hui Cho.

LONDON, Aug 30, 2007 (AFP) - British police are hunting two suspects Thursday after three men were shot dead at a suburban house in an attack from which a three-year-old girl escaped unhurt.

Father and son Keith and Matthew Cowell, aged 52 and 17, and an unnamed 33-year-old man were killed in the shooting Tuesday night in the commuter town of Bishop's Stortford, 35 miles (56 kilometres) north of London.

Two women aged 54 and 23 were seriously injured and are being treated in hospital for gunshot wounds.

ICA, Peru, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) - A Spanish team helping with rescue efforts in quake-hit southern Peru was shot at Saturday, sparking alarm but resulting in no injuries, a member of the squad said.

The K9 team, which was using sniffer dogs to try to find any bodies in the rubble of a collapsed building near the centre of the town of Pisco, was shot at 'twelve times' by an unknown person or persons, member Loli Marquez told AFP by telephone.

The team had initially thought of pulling out of Peru as a reaction to the incident, but later changed its mind.

BERLIN, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - German police said Wednesday they had found six men shot dead execution-style and left overnight in two vehicles near a train station in Duisburg in western Germany.

A police patrol found the bodies of five men, along with a sixth man who was critically wounded and died as he was taken to hospital, around 2:30 am (0030 GMT) Wednesday.

A woman passerby heard the sound of shooting and alerted a police patrol car, which went to the scene.

Police do not yet know the motive for the killings nor the identities of the victims.

BERLIN, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - Six men shot dead with a bullet through the head were found overnight in two vehicles near the station in Duisburg in western Germany, police told AFP Wednesday.

A police patrol found the bodies of five men as well as a sixth man who was critically wounded and died as he was taken to hospital around 2:30 am (0030 GMT).

Police said they had no lead on the motive of the crime.

A woman passerby heard the sound of shooting and alerted a police patrol car, which went to the scene.

WASHINGTON, Aug 13, 2007 (AFP) - A group of students in the US state of Virginia wants to be allowed to carry guns to class, saying it would prevent a repetition of the massacre at Virginia Tech in which 33 people died, a press report said Monday.

'The students at Tech, they really should have had a chance to defend themselves,' Andrew Dysart, a former Marine and now final-year student at George Mason University in Virginia, was quoted as saying in the Express freesheet, published by the Washington Post.

PARIS, Aug 12, 2007 (AFP) - A young woman was shot in the back outside a Paris nightclub on Sunday when a fierce pre-dawn gunfight broke out between police and a gang of robbers armed with machine guns, police said.

Police said three or four masked men, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, burst into the Plaza Madeleine nightclub in the capital's upmarket eighth district just after 5:00 am (0300 GMT), making off with around 1,000 euros (1,350 dollars) from the coatroom till.

NEW DELHI, Aug 9, 2007 (AFP) - World champion shooter Manavjit Sandhu on Thursday pipped popular cricket captain Rahul Dravid to win India's highest sporting honour for 2006.

The 30-year-old trap shooter earned the coveted award that carries a prize money of 500,000 rupees (12,500 dollars) on the recommendations of a high-powered committee headed by cricketing legend Kapil Dev.

Other players in contention for the award, known as the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, included ace golfer Jeev Milkha Singh and tennis doubles player Mahesh Bhupathi.

SEOUL, Aug 6, 2007 (AFP) - North and South Korean soldiers exchanged fire Monday across their heavily fortified border in the first such incident for a year, the South's defence ministry said.

The North started the shootout by firing machine gun rounds, it said.

'North Korean troops fired a volley of shots. In response, South Korean soldiers fired 10 warning shots from a machine gun. There were no casualties from the shooting,' a ministry spokesman said.

SEOUL, Aug 6, 2007 (AFP) - North Korean soldiers opened fire Monday at a South Korean guard post on the border, the South's defence ministry said.

'In response, South Korean soldiers fired 10 warning shots. There were no casualties from the shooting,' a ministry spokesman said.

Cross-border shooting incidents have been rare in recent years.

LONDON, July 28, 2007 (AFP) - One man was killed and two others were injured, one of them a 14-year-old boy, after a night of gun violence in the north-west English city of Manchester, police said Saturday.

Officers were called at about midnight local time (2300 GMT Friday) to reports that a 23-year-old man had been shot on Frobisher Close in the Chorlton-on-Medlock area of the city.

Another man was shot in the same street in June.

He was taken to hospital but died a short time later, a spokeswoman for Greater Manchester Police said in a recorded statement.

LONDON, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - Doctors will on Friday turn off the life support system of James Oyebola, a British former heavyweight boxing champion who was shot in the head at a London nightclub this week.

Oyebola, 46, will be declared legally dead at about 11:30 am (1030 GMT) Friday, his lawyer said, after his family have been given the opportunity to pay their last respects.

'James is now brain dead,' Scott Ewing said. 'There will be a meeting ... (Friday) where two consultants will do legally required tests.'

MOSCOW, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - A blast in Russia's turbulent North Caucasus republic of Dagestan killed two people, including a deputy mufti of the capital Makhachkala's central mosque, the RIA Novosti news agency reported overnight.

The blast, which tore apart a car on a Makhachkala street, killed Urmagomed Ramazanov and one of his companions and wounded another, said local emergency situations ministry officials.

LONDON, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - Doctors will on Friday turn off the life support system of James Oyebola, a British former heavyweight boxing champion who was shot in the head at a London nightclub this week.

Oyebola, 46, will be declared legally dead at about 11:30 am (1030 GMT) Friday, his lawyer said, after his family have been given the opportunity to pay their last respects.

'James is now brain dead,' Scott Ewing said. 'There will be a meeting ... (Friday) where two consultants will do legally required tests.'

LONDON, July 26, 2007 (AFP) - James Oyebola, the British former heavyweight boxing champion who was shot in the head at a London nightclub after asking three men to stop smoking, is now brain dead, his lawyer said Thursday.

'James is now brain dead. There will be a meeting tomorrow (Friday) where two consultants will do legally required tests,' said Scott Ewing.

'He is being artificially kept alive for members of the family to pay their last respects. But there`s no chance, none whatsoever.'