Julia Child, the chef who brought the intricacies of French cuisine to American home cooks through her television series and books, has died in her sleep. She was 91. ”America has lost a true national treasure,” Nicholas Latimer, director of publicity for Alfred A Knopf Publishing, said in a statement on Friday.
A French arms company has applied to the Pietermaritzburg High Court to have charges of corruption relating to the controversial multibillion-rand arms deal withdrawn. The charges relate to an alleged attempt by Deputy President Jacob Zuma to solicit a R500Â 000-a-year bribe from Thomson CSF, now known as Thint.
Nigeria’s oldest newspaper, the Daily Times, did not appear on Friday as more than 1 000 workers protested the non-payment of their salaries and allowances over the past 15 months, workers and unions said. Nigeria’s state-run privatisation agency recently sold off the newspaper group to a private firm.
The Roman Catholic Church said on Friday that an Australian community centre did not commit fraud or gain financially from a weeping-statue hoax that drew worshippers from around the world. Thousands flocked to the Vietnamese Community Church after several religious statues were reported to be weeping tears and bleeding.
An electricity blackout left much of Georgia in darkness on Friday, stranding thousands of people in subway cars and cutting off water supplies in the capital of one of the world’s poorest countries. A break in high-tension wires cut off power at 1.30pm local time.
Legal questions about an interview that Google’s founders gave to Playboy magazine are the latest in a string of developments that have clouded the search engine’s initial stock offering. The interview threatens to delay the offering because securities regulations restrict what executives can say while preparing to sell stock for the first time.
An agreement to end days of fighting in the holy city of Najaf is imminent, Iraq’s government spokesperson said on Friday, confirming that ministers are working in the holy city to end the standoff. Meanwhile, Unites States warplanes attacked several targets in Fallujah on Friday. Witnesses said several buildings were struck in three suburbs.
Polish police said on Friday they have arrested a man on suspicion of stealing a 200m-long, 360-ton bridge, which had then been sold to a scrap-metal yard. The bridge disappeared earlier this month and was found by police at the scrap-metal yard, cut into metre-long pieces.
The Republic of Congo denied on Friday that President Denis Sassou Nguesso had declined an invitation to visit France this weekend because he has been named in a lawsuit there over the disappearance and alleged murder of 353 Congolese refugees.
Punting female power, two action fantasies with girls in the lead grace our screens this week. The graceful Halle Berry is more girlish than all woman, but the titular girl in the fun French computer-animation <i>Kaena</i>, by comparison, really is a girl — there’s no hint of the former’s sexuality here, writes Shaun de Waal.