MILAN (AFP) –
Inter Milan will take a slender lead to the Luzhniki Stadium next Tuesday after beating CSKA Moscow 1-0 at the San Siro here on Wednesday in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final.

‘Il Principe’ Diego Milito scored the only goal of the game during an Inter siege in the second half after a thoroughly forgettable first 45 minutes.

Jose Mourinho’s team, listless in the first period, were unrecognisable after the break and will be disappointed to have managed only the one goal.

That it stayed 1-0 was thanks largely to goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev, a reported target for Manchester United who will have bolstered his burgeoning reputation with this performance.

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NAIROBI, Kenya – Somalia’s president wants thousands of troops trained in Kenya to be deployed to Mogadishu for an upcoming offensive against Islamist militants, but Kenya has denied the request — yet another complication for a military campaign that has already been delayed several times, officials said Tuesday.

The fact that Kenya could veto Somali wishes for the deployment of its own troops underscores that the Kenyan government wields power in the neighboring country, which has a weak, U.N.-backed government.

In a March 21 letter that The Associated Press obtained a copy of, Somali President Sharif Sheik Ahmed asked Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki for Kenya’s support for a plan to transfer control of 2,500 Somali troops trained in Kenya over the last several months to the current defense minister.

That would mean the troops would be moved from the Somali-Kenya border to the Somali capital, Mogadishu, large parts of which are controlled by al-Shabab, a militant group linked to al-Qaida.

Kenya’s president rejected the plan based on fears that if the troops are sent to Mogadishu, Kenya’s porous frontier with Somalia would be vulnerable to cross-border incursions, said a Somali government official who spoke on condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

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NEW YORK – With a podium flown in from France and his fingers firmly entwined with those of his smiling wife, French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a splash Monday even before he opened his mouth for a no-holds-barred speech at Columbia University.

Amid tabloid reports of strains in their marriage, Sarkozy and ex-supermodel Carla Bruni-Sarkozy made every effort to appear the happy couple, walking closely together and clasping hands as they mounted a staircase into an auditorium packed with students, faculty and other spectators.

The French first lady, elegant in a swept-up chignon and form-fitting black top with gray skirt, at times threatened to upstage her husband, who scolded his American hosts about health care and for not paying enough attention to the rest of the world.

French Web sites immediately picked up on the message. “Carla Bruni et Nicolas Sarkozy amoureux a New York” read a headline on the online site of entertainment magazine Voici, which mentioned the “electric atmosphere” of the Big Apple and its effects on the French presidential couple.

Sarkozy is in hot water at home. His poll ratings are at record lows of around 30 percent and there are widening cracks in his conservative party. In New York, though, he basked in the rapt attention of hundreds of Columbia students and even jettisoned a prepared speech.

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