About 11 000 people turned out on Friday to feast on an attempt by 250 chefs and culinary students to set a new record for making and eating the region’s renowned nutty spiced chocolate garnish, known as <i>mole</i>. The chefs spent days preparing the famed Puebla sauce, a traditional Mexican food.
Hundreds of posters advertising the upcoming final instalment of the <i>Star Wars</i> film saga have been stolen from bus stops across Mexico City, 20th Century Fox officials said. The posters are made with a glow-in-the-dark material and cost about $6 (R38) each to make.
”You get respect with this,” says Gennadi Lazuein, an aviation millionaire, as I drive his Kombat armoured tank-ette along the roads of St Petersburg. As frightened faces stare at me and our looming vehicle from their greying, battered Ladas, I see what he means. The Kombat T-98 closely resembles a large security van with lots of extra shiny knobs and lights.
A British hospital has asked for help from the public in determining the identity of a distressed man who has been unable to utter a word since being found on a beach more than a month ago and who has turned out to be a piano virtuoso. The man was found soaking wet on the beach, dressed in a smart black suit and tie.
Europe has never been so strong, safe or united, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski told leaders from across the continent as he opened the Council of Europe’s ”unity” summit at Warsaw’s Royal Castle on Monday. ”Never before has Europe been so strong, so safe, so close to being united,” Kwasniewski said.
Lesotho is facing a fourth successive year of severe food insecurity, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). Early assessment of the 2004/05 harvest has shown there will be some improvement in the cereal yield, although it is expected to be below the five-year average.
The Inkatha Freedom Party has cracked the whip following a public debate about its leadership, with its national chairperson swearing allegiance to 76-year-old party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi. There is tension in the party, with persistent talk that Buthelezi is being challenged for his position by the party’s traditionalist guard.
Protests over municipal service delivery and lack of housing in the Eastern Cape has entered its second week, with dissatisfied residents on Monday blockading roads and burning tyres near Port Elizabeth. There were unconfirmed reports of motorists being stoned along the M14 and Uitenhage roads, police said.
Holding vigil at the gates of Neverland, fans wait for a glimpse of Michael Jackson, horrified at the child-sex charges against the star they say is just a boy who wouldn’t grow up. A wave from their idol out of a car window stirs a frenzy of excitement, but the hardcore supporters insist they have not come to star-gaze.
Twelve Algerian troops were killed and a number wounded in a weekend ambush by armed Islamist rebels, Algerian media reported on Monday, indicating that despite official statements the unrest is far from over. A bomb exploded as the troops’ convoy was travelling on Sunday near Khenchela, a city about 540km east of the capital, Algiers.