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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.
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/ 14 December 2004
Of the seven women claiming to be the mother of twin baby boys found abandoned in a minibus taxi in central Johannesburg, only two have come forward with documentation, the police said on Tuesday. The other five women had contacted police telephonically and had not identified themselves, Constable Sefako Xaba said.
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/ 14 December 2004
African Union mediators worked on Tuesday to break a Sudan rebel boycott of Darfur peace talks, meeting separately with the warring parties at talks thrown into chaos by rebel allegations of a new government offensive. The rebels announced a boycott of peace talks on Monday, alleging a government offensive and saying a return to talks isn’t possible until the government promises to cease attacks.
Murders stop aid work in south Darfur
Govt seeks to extend emergency laws
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/ 14 December 2004
A United Nations team set off on Tuesday for the town of Kanyabayonga in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to investigate two days of fighting there between the DRC army and dissident troops, a UN official said. Kanyabayonga was the scene of clashes on Sunday and Monday between government forces and army rebels.
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/ 14 December 2004
At least 38 people died on Tuesday when two trains collided in northern India, officials said, revising downwards a previous death toll of 50. Rescue workers used gas-powered cutters to reach passengers trapped inside in the trains, and authorities appealed to villagers to donate blood. At least four carriages were badly damaged in the collision.
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/ 14 December 2004
Eastern Cape emergency workers struggled to clear a scene of carnage on Tuesday after a runaway truck ploughed through a taxi rank in the town of Flagstaff, instantly killing four and injuring 10 others, two critically. It appears the articulated truck was speeding through the town centre when it lost control.
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/ 14 December 2004
Responding to a Pretoria High Court judgement on Tuesday awarding limited legal costs to the organisation, the Treatment Action Campaign said the court’s decision sends a ”very strong signal” that the government should ”act in a constitutional manner” and not ignore calls for access to information.