Starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain scooped four nominations from the Screen Actors Guild on Thursday. The tale of two gay cowboys tormented by lifelong love has its sights set on an Oscar.
Oil prices rose on Friday on worries about the Middle East and natural gas regained ground as well after a mild start to winter in the United States had pushed prices to a four-and-a-half-month low. Light, sweet crude for February delivery rose 76 cents to ,55 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Motorola will soon begin selling web-enabled cellphones that feature easy access to Google’s search engine by clicking on an icon, the world’s second-largest maker of cellphones said. The company said it will integrate a Google icon on to certain internet-optimised handsets that will be distributed starting in the first quarter of this year.
An ordinary fruit sticker that mysteriously ended up on a bill could spur currency collectors to bid up to 1 000 times the bill’s face value at an auction on Friday. The flawed bill bears a red, green and yellow Del Monte sticker next to Andrew Jackson’s portrait.
The death toll from the collapse of an ageing hostel in the holy city of Mecca rose to 53 on Friday, as Saudi rescue teams hunted through the rubble for survivors. The multistorey hotel collapsed on Thursday in the latest deadly tragedy to mark the hajj or annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest place in Islam.
The Inkatha Freedom Party on Friday promised an ”exciting” local government election campaign, saying it intends to take full advantage of the African National Congress’s troubles regarding former deputy president Jacob Zuma. ”The political situation in the ruling party is creating space for expansion in others,” secretary general Musa Zondi said.
A case of public violence brought against 23 Olievenhoutbosch residents after xenophobic clashes this week was postponed until January 13 in Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Friday. Two people died and 19 were injured in the clashes between South Africans, Mozambicans and Zimbabweans on Wednesday.
Just more than 21-million of a ”debatable” 27-million eligible voters are registered to vote in the coming local government polls, Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) chief electoral officer Pansy Tlakula said on Friday. Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi formally gazetted March 1 for the election.
"Today I might be reporting about a crime that happened across the street, and tomorrow about a car accident. I’ll report about everything that is newsworthy," says a Johannesburg security officer. Hold on a second — a security officer who reports on everyday news? What he will be doing is called "citizen journalism", and everyone can take part in it.
<b>MOVIE OF THE WEEK:</b> <i>Paradise Now</i> presents the human face of suicide bombers. While it makes no apologies for being firmly rooted in a Palestinian vantage point, it wisely avoids the self-righteous pontification, writes Kwanele Sosibo.