The filming of Aftermath — a two-part miniseries produced by the BBC and United States cable channel HBO, shot along Thailand’s tsunami-battered coast — has set off a debate over the merits of bringing the tragedy to the screen so soon after the disaster.
A local council in Sydney, Australia, will find out on Friday whether playing a tape loop of Barry Manilow’s hits in a car park will get rid of the drag racers who congregate there at the weekend. ”We’re giving the Barry Manilow music a go because it’s been tried elsewhere and been a success,” said a local councillor.
Zambia President Levy Mwanawasa declared himself fit on Thursday to run for a second five-year term in elections later this year despite suffering a mild stroke, state-run radio reported. Opposition leaders have argued Mwanawasa, who has a history of hypertension, should step down because of poor health.
Government armed forces in the divided Côte d’Ivoire on Thursday rejected rebel demands for the loyalist and rebel forces to be integrated and the rebels to be paid wage arrears. Disarmament talks between government and rebel forces follow four years of division in the West African country.
The fizz went out of the Coca-Cola Cup competition on Thursday when the international soft-drink giant elected not to renew a lucrative five-year sponsorship contract with the Premier Soccer League (PSL). The tournament had already been penned in on the PSL’s fixture list for the 2006/07 season.
It has all the ingredients for a classic match-up. Two of the biggest names in tennis. The ageing former champion playing in his final Wimbledon versus the young dynamo trying to make his breakthrough on grass. The bald, pigeon-toed American versus the long-maned, biceps-bulging Spaniard.
A man who had 1 300 rats removed from his home by animal-control officers said that he originally bought several as pets, but that they were ”a force of nature” that soon bred out of control. Roger Dier said depression and loneliness kept him from controlling his fast-breeding population of pet rats.
Officers who went to a Cleveland, Ohio, home to serve a search warrant found a skeleton in the bed where an 80-year-old woman said her mother was sleeping. Police believe the remains belong to the woman’s 98-year-old mother, who had not been seen in at least three years.
Osama bin Laden has defended attacks by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi against civilians, saying in a taped web message on Friday that the Jordanian militant was acting under al-Qaeda orders to kill anyone who backs the Americans in Iraq. Bin Laden paid tribute to the slain leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq in the 19-minute videotape.
The attractive three-storey flats, with their landscaped gardens and paved walkways, stand empty almost two months after completion. They stand in stark relief against thousands of tin and wood shanties. The strange contrast on view in Cape Town’s Joe Slovo settlement epitomises the controversy that has beset the N2 Gateway housing project.