The main topic of sartorial debate inside the courtroom at the Michael Jackson trial came not with the king of pop’s unlikely arrival in a pair of blue pyjama bottoms, but a few days earlier. The whisper rolled through the 30 or so reporters squeezed into the small municipal court as Jackson strode in on the sixth day of the trial.
At the same time that Sergeant Kevin Benderman’s unit was called up for a second tour in Iraq with the Third Infantry Division, two soldiers tried to kill themselves and another had a relative shoot him in the leg. Seventeen went awol or ran off to Canada, and Benderman defied nine years of military training and followed his conscience.
Washington’s nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as the World Bank’s next president has triggered an outcry among the bank’s staff, who have demanded the right to have a say in his confirmation, it emerged on Friday. The staff association has met with the bank’s executives to voice its concerns after it was swamped with complaints.
The first European Union citizen to be accused of involvement in genocide appeared in court on Friday in The Netherlands in a case that is being closely watched by war-crimes experts and human rights activists. Frans van Anraat is a Dutch businessman who is alleged to have helped Saddam Hussein to gas the Kurds of Halabja in 1988.
Situated in a large, old, red two-storey Victorian mansion in the Cape Town suburb of Claremont, the world’s only college of magic may lack the flying broomsticks of Harry Potter, but the school still evokes the atmosphere of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Dozens of children gather at the college each week to learn about magic.
Thierry Henry’s suggestion was pounced upon, and now everyone finally seems to agree: Arsenal need surgery. Thus far, the surgeon has escaped lightly. Having given his all to the cause, Henry questioned this season’s lack of spending to strengthen the squad amid the recriminations that followed Arsenal’s Champions League exit.
One of the downsides of being consistently brilliant is that people start to expect it all the time. Since arriving at Stamford Bridge eight months ago, Petr Cech has produced so many match-winning moments that our amazement is in danger of dissipating. For every outstanding save he makes, he causes us to raise our eyebrows a little less.
A former housekeeper for Michael Jackson testified at the entertainer’s molestation trial that she called his Neverland ranch ”Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island” because children were allowed to run wild without adult supervision. Kiki Fournier said on Thursday that on several occasions she saw children who appeared to be intoxicated.
The decision by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) this week to close M-Net’s two-hour open time diminishes competition in the sector, M-Net said on Friday. ”Closing open time will force M-Net to re-evaluate the programming it currently schedules in the two-hour slot,” M-Net chief executive Glen Marques said.
An outbreak of an unidentified haemorrhagic fever has claimed the lives of 87 people in northern Angola over the past four months, health ministry spokesperson Carlos Alberto said on Friday. The ministry is awaiting the results of samples sent to Senegal and the United States to identify the strain of the fever.