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/ 4 December 2007
When it comes to truly deplorable writing, not even death, it seems, lets you off the hook. This year’s Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction award has gone to the late Norman Mailer for a description of oral sex in his final novel, The Castle in the Forest, in which a male member is likened to a ”coil of excrement”.
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/ 4 December 2007
Hacking his way through the lush forest with a machete, his rubber boots sinking into the moist earth, Lambert Kwame surveys the plot of land that his family has worked for more than 30 years, harvesting cocoa. ”We know that the national price for cocoa is very high,” Kwame says as he stands under a fecund canopy about an hour north of Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital, Abidjan.
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/ 3 December 2007
Hello kitty kitty kitty … Are you an orphan? Are you Sudanese? Chadian? Are you a sub-Saharan African suffering from mild mental retardation? Are you an African woman suffering from the African male? Would you like an Oxfam biscuit? Organic antiretrovirals? Have you been raped? You might not know it, but you are an orphan, a refugee.
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/ 3 December 2007
The world’s first self-tuning guitar was unveiled to the public in London on Monday — an instrument that automatically detects when a string has fallen out of pitch and corrects it. The Gibson Robot Guitar was unveiled to the public by Mike Peters, lead singer and guitarist from the Alarm, the biggest band to come out of Wales in the 1980s.
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/ 3 December 2007
Higher inflation and deterioration in South Africa’s current account over the past year highlight the need for more balanced growth, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Monday. But it appeared that growth was becoming more balanced, with tentative signs that consumption was easing on higher interest rates, he said in a written reply to a parliamentary question.
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/ 3 December 2007
The South African Police Service (SAPS) has declined to discuss the withdrawal of its protection services for South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande. ”It’s not something we can discuss in the public domain,” said national police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Vish Naidoo on Monday.
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/ 3 December 2007
Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in two tests of short-term memory. Overall, the chimps won. That challenges the belief of many people, including many scientists, that ”humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions”, said researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa, of Kyoto University.
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/ 3 December 2007
More than 400 Palestinian prisoners came home to a heroes’ welcome on Monday after the latest Israeli release aimed at boosting President Mahmoud Abbas during the revived peace process. Thousands of singing and dancing well-wishers waving Palestinian flags gathered to greet the buses filled with the smiling ex-detainees.
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/ 3 December 2007
The introduction of prepaid water meters in Phiri, Soweto, was unlawful and violated the residents’ constitutional right to equality, the Johannesburg High Court heard on Monday. Court 6F was filled with members of the Inner-City Resource Centre and the Coalition against Water Privatisation — all in support of the Phiri residents.