ninemsn News on april 10 © for ninemsn.com:

• Joy sweeps 'liberated' Baghdad
• Saddam's fate unclear
• Russian school fire kills 28
• Soccer Australia board to step aside
  

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  Joy sweeps 'liberated' Baghdad

  AP - Jubilant crowds swarmed in Baghdad's streets, dancing, cheering and looting as US commanders declared President Saddam Hussein's rule in the ancient capital was over.As Baghdadis toppled a massive Saddam statue with the help of an American tank, bystanders threw shoes and slippers at it - a gross insult in the Arab world.A crowd danced on the felled torso, tearing off the head and dragging it through the streets."Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed brutal dictators and the Iraqi people are well on their way to freedom," US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington.At the United Nations, Iraq's ambassador, Mohammed Al-Douri, acknowledged the regime's demise.

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  Saddam's fate unclear
  

US special operations forces scoured the site of a Baghdad building levelled by American bombs, searching for evidence Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was inside at the time of the blasts, officials. The team was looking for remains or other evidence to prove that the four tonnes of bombs dropped on the building hit the Iraqi leader, the officials said.Multiple intelligence sources put Saddam inside the building in the capital's upmarket Mansour neighbourhood before it was hit on Monday, other US officials said. Intelligence officials described the information that led to the strike as solid but did not provide details. One source was believed to be an eyewitness who watched Saddam go inside the building. No one would discuss the identity or characterise the credibility of the witness.

Russian school fire kills 28

Twenty eight people, mostly children, died early in a fire at a boarding school for deaf mute children in southern Russia, a spokeswoman for the Russian emergencies ministry said.More than 100 others were injured in the blaze in Makhachkala, the capital of the south Russian republic of Dagestan, the Interfax news agency quoted Marina Ryklina as saying.Sixteen people were also missing, Colonel Charak Charakov, the head of the emergencies ministry's local office, told the ITAR-TASS news agency.He said 122 people were rescued out of 166 who were inside the school when the fire broke out.The blaze almost totally destroyed the two-storey building, and firemen were still struggling to put it out, he said.

Soccer Australia board to step aside

Soccer Australia's board has agreed to stand down on May 3.In a statement, the board says it will stand aside for a new board to be led by Australia's second richest man, Frank Lowy.The board's move follows the findings of a federal government inquiry into the sport released on Monday Inquiry chairman David Crawford delivered a damning critique of Australian soccer's administration andmade 53 recommendations to fix the game.

The first was that the board stand aside for an interim board chaired by Westfield shopping centre tycoon Lowy and including Australian Grand Prix chief Ron Walker and advertising guru John Singleton.

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