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/ 14 December 2004
The body of the woman who was swept away by a swollen Braamfonteinspruit in Parkhurst on Monday was recovered in Bryanston, Johannesburg, early on Tuesday afternoon. Two police sniffer dogs located the body of 36-year-old Jennifer Manale 15km down the spruit a day after she was overwhelmed by floodwaters.
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/ 14 December 2004
The Democratic Alliance, the official opposition, has asked that Parliament be reconvened in a special session to debate what it calls the ”secret arms deal”. On Tuesday, DA leader Tony Leon said: ”DA chief whip Douglas Gibson, MP, has written to the Speaker of Parliament to ask that Parliament be reconvened.”
Suspend ‘secret’ arms deal, says DA
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/ 14 December 2004
Danish users of third-generation cellphones have been advised to consider precautions to avoid being harassed by flashers using the new technology, the Danish National Consumer Agency said on Tuesday. The new high-speed technology that allows users to send and receive video clips also attracts abuse.
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/ 14 December 2004
Internet search giant Google announced plans on Tuesday to digitise the contents of millions of library books and make them searchable online. The Silicon Valley firm said it is working with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan and the University of Oxford, as well as the New York Public Library.
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/ 14 December 2004
Scores of Egyptians protested across the country on Tuesday against the signing of a strategic trade and industry accord between Egypt and Israel, slamming the agreement as a form of colonialism. In Cairo, an estimated 50 protesters gathered at the headquarters of the journalists’ union to denounce the agreement.
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/ 14 December 2004
Zimbabwe’s official inflation rate dropped to 149,3% last month, down from 209% in October, the state Central Statistical Office said on Tuesday. The new rate still leaves Zimbabwe with the highest inflation in the world. The troubled Southern African country is in the midst of its worst economic crisis since independence.
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/ 14 December 2004
It’s the literary award no author wants to win, and this year it has gone to Tom Wolfe.
The Literary Review gave Wolfe its annual Bad Sex Award on Monday for his bestselling novel I Am Charlotte Simmons. Judges said the book’s sex scenes were ”ghastly … inept … [and] unrealistic”.
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/ 14 December 2004
An 80-year-old diver, Ignacio Siberio, was rescued after spending about 20 hours clinging to a buoy after his boat went adrift off the Florida Keys. Siberio, a Cuban-born lawyer, was spear-fishing on Saturday, as he has done most weekends for six decades, when his boat’s anchor line broke and drifted away.
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/ 14 December 2004
There is the Scarsdale diet … the Atkins diet … and now: the diet of pig whipworms. The parasite known as Trichuris suis has been given the okay in an unconventional experiment to tackle inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Twenty-nine people with a mild form of an IBD were asked to swallow 2 500 worm eggs every three weeks for six months.
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/ 14 December 2004
A white judge who wore blackface make-up, handcuffs and a jail jumpsuit at a Halloween party will be suspended for six months, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled on Monday. The justices voted 5-2 to suspend Judge Timothy Ellender for a year without pay for dishonouring his position, but to defer half of that penalty.