No image available
/ 24 December 2004
With 2004 in the bag, South African arts scene has been through it all. Mike van Graan dishes out the dirt and the gold, giving the arts’ top "achievers" some very special awards.
No image available
/ 24 December 2004
Suspended Western Cape leader of the Independent Democrats (ID), Lennit Max, on Thursday afternoon said he had not done anything to deserve the suspension. In a statement Max said he became aware of his ”alleged suspension” on Wednesday when members of the media contacted him for comment. ”To date I have only received a very vague formal notification about it [the suspension] and I still don’t know what it really means,” he said.
No image available
/ 24 December 2004
Insurgents have been able to ”operate at will” in Mosul, where 22 people died in a bomb attack this week, because the United States forces and the Iraqi authorities have failed to tackle them, an intelligence assessment by senior US officials in northern Iraq concludes.
No image available
/ 24 December 2004
A little flying saucer not much bigger than a washing machine will separate from its mother ship early on Saturday morning on the last stage of a long journey to oblivion. If all goes to plan, the European lander Huygens will ease away from a lorry-sized Nasa orbiter called Cassini for a date with death and glory.
No image available
/ 24 December 2004
Fox TV is under pressure to abandon a scheduled adoption gameshow, Who’s Your Daddy?, after thousands of people protested at the programme in which children try to identify their father for a 000 prize. The mother of a five-year-old adopted daughter has led the grassroots campaign that prompted 5 000 people to complain to the network that the programme, due to be screened in the new year, is insensitive and offensive.
No image available
/ 24 December 2004
Ukraine’s opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko is on course for a clear victory in a Boxing Day repeat of the run-off vote for the country’s presidency, according to an opinion poll released on Thursday. Yushchenko has increased his lead over the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, to 14 percentage points, leaving Yanukovich trailing with 37% of the vote, a poll by the Social Monitoring centre said.
No image available
/ 24 December 2004
The former British foreign secretary Robin Cook is backing a Europe-wide petition to help children orphaned by Aids in Africa by switching to them â,¬5bn in subsidies from rich European Union farmers. The petition, also backed by the former British culture secretary Chris Smith, comes as 2005 is designated a year for Africa.
No image available
/ 24 December 2004
A cat lover in Texas has become the world’s first owner of a cloned-to-order feline, paying 000 for a genetic duplicate of her dead pet. Now eight weeks old, Little Nicky was produced by a California company, Genetic Savings & Clone. The creature’s owner, a woman in her 40s who works in the airline industry, said she was delighted with the result.
No image available
/ 23 December 2004
The battle over the government’s medicine pricing regulations will almost certainly end up on Constitution Hill. But whatever the highest court in the land decides about dispensing fees and single exit prices, the legal community will be watching for clues to the state of relations between the executive and the judiciary.
No image available
/ 23 December 2004
People in Hong Kong and Malaysia are the world’s biggest consumers of fast food with six in 10 people eating fast food at least once a week, according to a survey on Thursday. Sixty-one percent of Hong Kong adults and 59% of Malaysians go to a fast-food restaurant once a week or more, compared with just 35% of Americans and 11% of Europeans.