theSun | THURSDAY JANUARY 29 2009 5

news without borders

PARIS: A top doctor who is also a
member of Britain’s House of Lords
has admitted to a prank 34 years ago
– inventing an oddball medical condi-
tion called “cello scrotum.”
In May 1974, Elaine Murphy – now
Baroness Murphy – joined with John
Murphy in submitting a hoax letter to
the British Medical Journal (BMJ), which
often publishes correspondence from
doctors about unusual cases.
Their letter was in response to a
doctor’s missive about a condition
‘Cello scrotum’ was just a test tickle
called “guitar nipple.” It described a
painful irritation among three young
classical-guitar players, which hap-
pened when the edge of the guitar
was pressed against the breast and
eventually inflamed a nipple.
“We thought it highly likely to be a
spoof, and decided to go one further
by submitting a similar phenomenon
in cellists,” Murphy and Murphy admit
in the latest issue of the BMJ.
“Anyone who has ever watched a
cello being played would realise the
physical impossibility of our claim.
Somewhat to our astonishment, the
letter was published.” Baroness Mur-
phy is a former professor at Guy’s and
St Thomas’s hospital in London and
is a member of an oversight board of
Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).
She was made a life peer in 2004, and
is active on mental health and ageing
issues in the House of Lords.
The 1974 letter was intention-
ally signed only by John Murphy, her
husband at the time, as he was not
a doctor and so would not get into
trouble with medical watchdogs.
The two admitted they had been
dining out on the hoax for years, but
decided it was time to confess when
“cello scrotum” was cited as a refer-
ence in a paper about music-related
disorders last month, a sign that an
impossible condition was being taken
seriously. The affair has been light-
heartedly dubbed “Scrotumgate” by
the BMJ. The original letter said: “Sir,
Though I have not come across ‘guitar
nipple’ as reported by Dr P. Curtis, I
did once come across a case of ‘cello
scrotum’ caused by irritation from the
body of the cello. J.M. Murphy.” – AFP

REUTERSPIX

briefs
Russia offers Obama olive
branch on missiles: Report
MOSCOW: Russia has halted plans to deploy
missiles near the Polish border, a Russian news
agency quoted the military as saying yesterday,
in what could be a sign Moscow is seeking bet-
ter ties with US President Barack Obama.
But there was no official confirmation and
a Kremlin official said its position had always
been that it would only deploy the missiles if
Washington defied Moscow by implementing its
plan for a missile shield in eastern Europe.
The report that the Russian deployment has
been suspended follows a phone conversation
this week between Obama and Russian Presi-
dent Dmitry Medvedev. Analysts said such a
move could open the way for dialogue on other
disputes between their countries. – Reuters

22 killed in surging wave

US envoy tries to shore up of violence in Mexico

MONTERREY (Mexico): Twenty-two people
were found shot dead late on Monday and
Tuesday in Mexico, including four found on
property belonging to the state-run oil giant

Gaza ceasefire
JERUSALEM: President Barack Obama’s
Middle East envoy called yesterday for a
Gaza ceasefire to be consolidated, holding
talks in Israel and Egypt and promising a
vigorous pursuit of peace under the new
US administration.
A surge of violence has threatened the
fragile separate truces that Israel and the
Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers put into effect
on Jan 18 after a 22-day Israeli offensive.
Israeli aircraft bombed smuggling
tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border in
a response to the killing on Tuesday of
an Israeli soldier on patrol along Israel’s
frontier with the coastal enclave.
Former US senator George Mitchell,
Obama’s envoy, said it was “of critical
importance that the ceasefire be extended
and consolidated, and we support Egypt’s
continuing efforts in that regard”.
He was speaking at a Cairo news con-
ference after talks with Egyptian Presi-
dent Hosni Mubarak, whose country is
trying to mediate a long-term truce.
Mitchell, who helped to resolve the
Northern Ireland conflict and headed a
commission that made Israeli-Palestin-
ian peace recommendations in 2001, said
Washington was “committed to vigor-
ously pursuing lasting peace and stability
in the region”.
Mitchell later held talks in Israel with
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, making
no public comments at the meeting,
and planned to see Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas today.
Western diplomats said Mitchell would
not meet officials of Hamas. The group is
shunned by the West over its refusal to
recognise Israel, renounce violence and
accept existing interim peace deals.
In a report that coincided with the
US envoy’s mission, Israel’s Peace Now
group said construction in Jewish set-
tlements – which the Mitchell report
eight years ago recommended should be
halted – was stepped up last year.
According to Peace Now, 1,257 new
structures were built in West Bank settle-
ments in 2008, a 57% increase over 2007.
“This is the virus of peace,” Palestin-
ian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said,
calling on the Obama administration to
press Israel to halt the expansion.
In defiance of the Mitchell recommen-
dations and a 2003 peace “road map” that
serves as the basis for Palestinian statehood
talks, Israel has said it would continue to
build in existing settlements to meet the
“natural growth” of their populations.
Mitchell’s week-long mission follows a
call by Obama for a return to Israeli-Pal-
estinian peace talks. The new US leader
has made clear the Middle East conflict
will be a high priority as he tries to repair
a US image battered by the war in Iraq.
Citing “security incidents in the
south”, a senior Israeli official said De-
fence Minister Ehud Barak cancelled a
planned visit to the United States, where
he was to have held talks today with
Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
While Israeli leaders weighed more
military action, Palestinian work crews
used giant yellow bulldozers and backhoes
to repair tunnels damaged by bombing dur-
ing the Gaza war and in the latest attack.
Israel fears Hamas could rebuild the un-
derground network to replenish an arsenal
of rockets used in cross-border attacks on
its southern communities. –Reuters
Pemex, police said. The killings are likely the
result of the ongoing war between drug car-
tels for control of lucrative access corridors
to the United States, officials said.
Petroleos de Mexico workers found the
bodies of the four men piled up in a well
on company property 150km northeast of
A Palestinian Monterrey. The men had all been shot in the
woman head. Meanwhile to the west in the state of
prepares Chihuahua, police found 18 bodies. Among the
lunch for her dead were three men found on Tuesday in the
family near state capital Chihuahua with their hands and
the ruins of feet tied. Police said that witnesses saw how
her destroyed the victims were forced out of a vehicle and
house in Gaza riddled with bullets on the spot. Other bodies
on Tuesday. were found in different state cities. – AFP
Boy who shot
mother to face jail till 18
PHOENIX (Arizona): A 12-year-old Arizona
boy convicted of killing his mother after an
argument about chores will be held in the state
correctional system until he’s 18, court records
showed on Tuesday. Cochise County Superior
Court Judge James Conlogue confirmed the
sentencing in the small southern Arizona town
of Bisbee, according to a court clerk.
The boy was found guilty on Jan 2 after Con-
logue ruled that prosecutors had proven the boy
acted intentionally and with premeditation in the
shooting. He is not being identified because of his
age. On Aug 1 the boy and his mother, Sara Madrid,
34, had an argument over his chores. After she left
the home, the boy retrieved a semi-automatic pistol
from her bedroom closet, waited for her to return

Sri Lankan troops hammer rebels

home, and then shot her eight times. Madrid’s live-
in boyfriend witnessed the shooting. – AFP

MULLAITTIVU (Sri Lanka): Sri
Lankan troops on Tuesday battled
Tamil Tigers for control of the last
stretch of rebel-held coastline,
as international fears mounted
for 250,000 civilians caught in the
conflict.
Soldiers backed by tanks and
air cover fought to capture 30km
of seafront, the only territory still
controlled by the retreating rebels,
Brigadier Nandana Udawatte told
reporters taken to the area.
As the government said its offen-
sive to end the separatists’ decades-
long campaign was entering its final
stages, UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon expressed strong concern
over the fate of civilians trapped in
the war zone.
At least 178 have been killed and
another 725 wounded in fighting
during January as Sri Lankan forces
made rapid progress against the
rebels, local health official T. Satya-
murthy said.
“We don’t have any staff or medi-
cine. Security is a major problem, so
we an’t work properly,” Satyamurthy
said. The International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) in a statement
from its Geneva headquarters said
a major humanitarian crisis was un-
folding in northern Sri Lanka where
about 250,000 people were trapped.
Medical facilities there were over-
whelmed by “hundreds of dead and
scores of wounded,” it said.
“It’s high time to take decisive
action and stop further bloodshed
because time is running out,” said
Jacques de Maio, ICRC head of opera-
tions for South Asia. He said people
were being caught in the crossfire.
Sri Lanka has dismissed charges
of widespread civilian deaths, with
military spokesman Brigadier Udaya
Nanayakkara saying any such claims
were part of a “cheap propaganda
exercise” by the Tigers.
Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Ro-
hitha Bogollagama said on Tuesday
Colombo was doing its utmost to
spare civilians in the fight against
Tamil Tigers. Saying the government
could “absolutely” guarantee civilian
safety, Bogollagama said Tamil Tiger
(LTTE) rebels operating in the north
of the country were using civilians
as human shields.
“They (Tigers) may want to target
the military but they may not mind
the civilian suffering because that
prevents the civilians from moving
beyond, fearing the artillery attacks
on them,” he said.
Bogollagama, who met EU and
Belgian officials in Brussels, said the
LTTE had even started targeting the
army from no-fire zones set up to
allow civilians to escape to safer
areas. – AFP
Seven dead in suspected
LA murder-suicide: Police
LOS ANGELES: A father apparently upset over
the loss of his job shot dead his wife and five
young children before killing himself, police
said on Tuesday.
A Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD)
spokeswoman said the family of seven
was found dead at a home in the suburb of
Wilmington south of Los Angeles at around
8.30am. Police believe the man killed his
family and then committed suicide.
Garner said police were originally con-
tacted by a local television station, which
apparently received a telephone call and a
fax from a man saying he was going to kill
his family and himself. – AFP