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/ 16 December 2004
The coming year puts peace deals to the test in Africa’s longest and deadliest wars — as entrenched enemies from Sudan to the Democratic Republic of Congo face tension-raising deadlines to put peace pledges into practice. Perversely, the peace accords of 2004, 2003 and 2002 make 2005 a year of enhanced risk as well as enhanced hope.
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/ 16 December 2004
The singer of the British pop group Erasure has said he is HIV-positive. Following a news report printed in Finland on Wednesday, Andy Bell made a statement on the band’s website revealing he has known for more than four years that he has the disease, which causes Aids.
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/ 16 December 2004
European Union leaders gather on Thursday to make a long-awaited decision on launching entry talks with Turkey. They are widely expected to give the green light despite last-ditch haggling over the exact terms of the offer. Turkey cautioned on the eve of the two-day EU summit that it will not agree to start negotiations ”at any price”.
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/ 16 December 2004
A British wildlife artist who made a career of depicting Africa’s fauna has been gored to death by a buffalo in Kenya, his family said on Wednesday. Simon Combes (64) was out on an evening walk in a reserve of the Great Rift Valley with his wife, Kat, and a friend, cheetah expert Mary Wykstra, when attacked.
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/ 16 December 2004
The safety of single-dose nevirapine is not in question, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) reiterated on Wednesday, following comments by the Department of Health. The Aids action group was concerned that ”misleading” comments by the department could result in people discontinuing their treatment, and suffering harm.
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/ 16 December 2004
Al-Qaeda supporters detained in Saudi Arabia have appeared in a television documentary about al-Haer jail, 40km south of the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and delivered rave reviews of life inside. ”I swear to God, they [the jailers] are nicer than our parents,” said Othman al-Amri, once number 21 on the kingdom’s list of most-wanted terror suspects.
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/ 16 December 2004
Going to the dentist can be a stressful enough experience. But patients in Italy now have to contend with a new concern: wondering if the dentist knows enough to tell a molar from a macaroon. The police have uncovered a ring selling dental qualifications. A degree cost 200Â 000 euros (about R1,5-million).
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/ 16 December 2004
A dispute over non-payment of the rental of a refrigerated container with medical waste inside on Wednesday caused a hospital group in East London, Afrox Healthcare, to end its medical waste-removal contract with a nationally based company. Last Friday, an electrician cut the power supply to a container in which medical waste had been stored.
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/ 16 December 2004
Survivors of this week’s horror smash in Flagstaff were still in shock on Wednesday after a runaway truck cut a swathe of destruction through the town, killing five and injuring at least 13 people. Speaking from his bed in the St Elizabeth hospital in Lusikisiki, Mphikelwa Mgoduka, a father of four, said he still cannot believe that he survived.
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/ 16 December 2004
The United States religious right, encouraged by the re-election of President George Bush, has launched a new offensive against secularism during this holiday season, with a campaign to put the Christ back into Christmas. The targets of the conservatives’ wrath include leading department stores and state schools.