Rugby-Relentless Force defence holds Reds to draw

May 4 (Reuters) - Resolute defending by the Western Force helped the Australian Conference's bottom side hold the Queensland Reds to a 11-11 draw in a fiercely contested Super Rugby clash in Perth on Saturday.

The Reds dominated possession and territory for long periods but struggled to turn that superiority into points as the Force produced eye-catching big hits in a defiant display in front of their appreciative home crowd.

Reds flyhalf Quade Cooper had the opportunity to win the game but his 75th-minute conversion from near the right touchline was pulled wide.

"Our defence was great during that game ... they threw a lot at us and we were perhaps unlucky not to grab the win there," Force skipper Matt Hodgson said in a pitchside interview.

"We play good when we play the big teams like the Crusaders and the Reds, we just need that consistency week in week out and we will be a great side."

Despite surprising the seven-times champion Crusaders last month and the Reds in Brisbane in March, the Force were expected to provide little resistance after losing their eight other matches.

But they showed fighting spirit to collect two points in a competitive battle in which both sides tried to run the ball.

"They put a lot of pressure on us at the breakdown, which we knew they would, we adjusted well in the second half but we just needed to turn that possession into points." a disappointed Reds scrumhalf Will Genia said.

"They came out and were very enthusiastic and energetic and credit to them."

The Reds thought they had taken an early lead through Digby Ioane, who announced a deal to join French club Stade Francais in the week. However, the impressive winger was denied the try by the television match official who ruled he was in touch before crossing.

The Force continued to scrap and took advantage of their rare forays forward with flyhalf Sias Ebersohn knocking over penalties in the 22nd and 26th minutes to open up a 6-0 lead.

Cooper responded with one of his own as the Reds went in behind at the break but their Wallaby skipper James Horwill failed to emerge for the second period after taking a heavy blow. The lock looking dazed as he played out the final phases.

More Reds pressure followed, though, before the Force scored the game's opening try in the 52 minute after absorbing the wave of attacks.

Collecting possession near their own line, the home side moved the ball to both flanks with winger Nick Cummins making big yards down the left and number eight Ben McCalman crashing over with Wallabies flanker Liam Gill in tow.

Ebersohn missed woefully with the straightforward conversion to leave the scores at 11-3 and Cooper cut the deficit by three with a second penalty.

The Reds continued to press against the blue wall and eventually the pressure told with replacement Chris Feauai-Sautia deemed to have touch the ball down on the line under a scrum of bodies in the 74th minute by the television match official.

But Cooper failed to snatch the victory with the conversion and the Force held firm in the final minutes. (Compiled by Patrick Johnston; Editing by Ed Osmond)

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Australia's Ormsby holds nerve for maiden victory in Delhi

(Reuters) - Australian Wade Ormsby held his nerve to overcome a triple bogey and complete a wire-to-wire victory by one stroke for his maiden professional title at the Panasonic Open India on Sunday.

Ormsby, who held at least a share of the lead from the opening round, carded a final-round one-under-par 71 for a total of nine-under 279 to finish a shot ahead of Thai Boonchu Ruangkit (69) at the Delhi Golf Club.

Singapore's Lam Chih Bing (72), who had the lead briefly during the final round, finished third while India's Shiv Kapur (71) bogeyed two of his last three holes to finish three shots behind Ormsby in fourth.

Starting the day with a one-stroke advantage, Ormsby came back strongly after the triple bogey by sinking three birdies in four holes from the fifth to the eighth hole.

He dropped another shot on the 12th hole but an 18-foot birdie conversion on the 17th was enough to seal his victory.

"It means so much. I've played tournaments worldwide but to finally get a win in Asia is fantastic," the 33-year-old, who finished tied 33rd and tied 20th in Malaysia and Chiangmai respectively, told the Asian Tour.

"I was so disappointed in Malaysia and Chiangmai as I played well on both weeks but didn't finish them off. I knew there was a win in there for me and I am glad I came here."

Boonchu, who was looking to become the oldest winner on the Asian Tour at 56, was happy to have been able to challenge his younger opponents.

"Conditions were really tough out there the entire week but to be able to play the way I did even at 56 years old really says a lot about my game," Boonchu said.

"I've shown that I still have what it takes to compete against the younger boys but I just ran out of steam towards the end. But overall, it has been a good week and all I can say is never write off an old man."

Ormsby, Boonchu and Lam, the top three finishers, will be invited to the Asia-Pacific Panasonic Open, co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour and Japanese Tour, in Osaka in September.

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Golf-Australia's Ormsby holds nerve for maiden victory in Delhi

April 7 (Reuters) - Australian Wade Ormsby held his nerve to overcome a triple bogey and complete a wire-to-wire victory by one stroke for his maiden professional title at the Panasonic Open India on Sunday.

Ormsby, who held at least a share of the lead from the opening round, carded a final-round one-under-par 71 for a total of nine-under 279 to finish a shot ahead of Thai Boonchu Ruangkit (69) at the Delhi Golf Club.

Singapore's Lam Chih Bing (72), who had the lead briefly during the final round, finished third while India's Shiv Kapur (71) bogeyed two of his last three holes to finish three shots behind Ormsby in fourth.

Starting the day with a one-stroke advantage, Ormsby came back strongly after the triple bogey by sinking three birdies in four holes from the fifth to the eighth hole.

He dropped another shot on the 12th hole but an 18-foot birdie conversion on the 17th was enough to seal his victory.

"It means so much. I've played tournaments worldwide but to finally get a win in Asia is fantastic," the 33-year-old, who finished tied 33rd and tied 20th in Malaysia and Chiangmai respectively, told the Asian Tour.

"I was so disappointed in Malaysia and Chiangmai as I played well on both weeks but didn't finish them off. I knew there was a win in there for me and I am glad I came here."

Boonchu, who was looking to become the oldest winner on the Asian Tour at 56, was happy to have been able to challenge his younger opponents.

"Conditions were really tough out there the entire week but to be able to play the way I did even at 56 years old really says a lot about my game," Boonchu said.

"I've shown that I still have what it takes to compete against the younger boys but I just ran out of steam towards the end. But overall, it has been a good week and all I can say is never write off an old man."

Ormsby, Boonchu and Lam, the top three finishers, will be invited to the Asia-Pacific Panasonic Open, co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour and Japanese Tour, in Osaka in September. (Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; editing by Clare Fallon)

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Video claims Nigeria sect holds 7 French hostages

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A video posted online Monday apparently shows seven French hostages kidnapped from northern Cameroon, with a masked militant claiming the radical Islamic group Boko Haram from neighboring Nigeria holds them.

The video, posted to YouTube and mentioned on a jihadist website, shows one of two French men reading a statement, with a woman in between them. Four children sit on the ground near them, flanked by two masked militants wearing camouflage uniforms and holding rifles.

A masked militant in front says in the video that Boko Haram kidnapped the French hostages, a family of three adults and four children who were taken from outside a national park in Cameroon's Far North Region on Feb. 19. A black banner in the background, bearing the images of the Quran flanked by two Kalashnikov assault rifles, also resembles a symbol previously used by Boko Haram.

The man says the kidnappings came due to the French military intervention in northern Mali, where its troops have fought with Malian soldiers against Islamic extremists who took over the north in the months following a coup last year. The man also threatens the Nigerian and Cameroonian government, calling on them to release their imprisoned members.

"Let the French president know that he has launched war against Islam and we are fighting him everywhere," the man says in Arabic. "Let him know that we are spread everywhere to save our brothers."

The man threatens to kill the French hostages if group's demands are not met.

The Associated Press could not immediately confirm the video's authenticity Monday, though it shares similarities with some Boko Haram propaganda videos published in the past.

However, in this video, the man speaks entirely in Arabic, while other Boko Haram videos have its leader Abubakar Shekau also speaking the Hausa language of Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north. Boko Haram has not published a video featuring hostages before. The video appears to have been filmed outside, as prayer mats hung in the background sway in a breeze.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement that "for us, these images are horribly shocking. They show cruelty without limits." He said France is fully mobilized to free the hostages but "verifications needed in these circumstances" are under way.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault of France told journalists his country's intelligence services are analyzing the video and "examining the nature of the demands."

The French gas group GDF Suez last week identified the captives as an employee working in Yaounde, the Cameroon capital, and his family. The group was vacationing in the north, a company statement said without elaborating. Cameroonian and Nigerian soldiers continue to search for them in the arid, rural border region the two countries share in West Africa.

Waza Park, a natural wildlife reserve in Cameroon's Far North Region attracts mainly foreign tourists. But the area often suffers from raids by bandits lurking in Cameroon, Chad and neighboring Nigeria, who abduct locals for ransom. A local witness told the AP he saw gunmen on motorcycles abduct the tourists on Feb. 19.

Boko Haram — which means "Western education is sacrilege" — has launched a guerrilla campaign of bombings and shootings across Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north. It is blamed for at least 792 killings last year alone, according to an AP count. It is known to have ties to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, an Algerian-based group that opened a front in Mali.

The sect, which typically speaks to journalists in telephone conference calls at times of its choosing, could not be immediately reached for comment Monday.

Boko Haram remains highly fragmented, without a clear command-and-control structure. One splinter organization launched from Boko Haram appears to be Ansaru, which has claimed the recent north Nigeria kidnappings of a British citizen, a Greek, an Italian, three Lebanese and one Filipino, all employees of a Lebanese construction company called Setraco. The group earlier claimed the kidnapping in December of a French national working on a renewal energy project in Nigeria's northern Katsina state.

However, the video claiming the kidnapping comes after supposed Boko Haram leaders denied this weekend that they took part in the kidnapping of the seven French citizens — leading to more questions about who actually remains in control of the group. Shekau hasn't been seen in a video since late November.

A total of 15 French citizens are currently being held in western Africa. In addition to the seven kidnapped in Cameroon, there is one other in Nigeria and seven thought to be in northern Mali.

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Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef in Cairo and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

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E. African nation Djibouti holds parliament polls

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Voters in the tiny East African nation of Djibouti are casting ballots in the nation's parliamentary elections.

Friday's vote is notable because opposition political parties can win seats for the first time.

Djibouti — a nation of less than 1 million people — hosts the only permanent U.S. military base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier. The base hosts conventional forces but also special forces and aerial drones believed to be flown over Yemen and Somalia.

President Ismail Omar Guelleh won a third term in 2011 in a vote colored by an opposition boycott and a clampdown on dissent. Guelleh's critics lament changes he made to the constitution in 2010 that scrubbed a two-term limit from the nation's bylaws.

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