Maybe the recession hasn’t quite made it across the ocean. Former reality star of Big Brother, 27-year-old Jade Goody managed to auction off the rights to her wedding over the weekend for the bargain price of $1.4 million. That cake must have been delicious.

Goody, who transformed herself from villain to valiant after being diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer, had no problems selling out her big day.

"People will say I'm doing this for money," she was quoted as saying by The Sun tabloid. "And they're right. I am, but not to buy flash cars or big houses. It's for my sons' future."

With only a few weeks left to live, Goody married 21-year-old Jack Tweed … with painkillers stashed inside her dress.
 

The death mask of Oliver Cromwell is up for auction.

He loathed vanity so much that he insisted his portraits depict him faithfully, 'warts and all'. And even after his death, Oliver Cromwell's instructions were followed to the letter.

This death mask shows the puritanical Lord Protector of England in all his grizzled, lumpy glory. There has been no attempt to conceal the growth on his lower lip or straighten his crooked nose.

All in all, the mask doesn't make an attractive artwork ... though that probably won't bother the person who buys it this week.

The plaster cast, made around 350 years ago, has been put up for sale at auction by a private collector. It has an estimated value of £1,000, even though experts can't be sure exactly when it was made.

Roy Butler, of Wallis and Wallis auctioneers in Lewes, East Sussex, who is selling the mask, said: 'It is clearly a very old cast.

'I think six were made after Cromwell's death and this is either one of those originals or a copy made shortly afterwards.'

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WINDHOEK, Namibia (Rodrick Mukumbira/AP) — The first ivory auction in a decade sold over 7 tons of tusks to Chinese and Japanese bidders Tuesday, raising more than $1 million for elephant conservation.

The sale took place under a special exemption to the international ban on trade in ivory.

Last year the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species ruled that Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe could make a one-time sale of 108 tons of government ivory stocks.

Some environmentalists have condemned the sales, fearing it will encourage smuggling and poaching.

Tuesday's auction, held behind closed doors in the capital, was monitored by Willem Wijnstekers, CITES Secretary General. In all, 7.2 tons of ivory were sold, fetching a total of $1.3 million at an average price of $164 per kilogram (2.2 pounds).

Proceeds will go to the Game Product Trust Fund created in 1999 to promote conservation in communities where elephants range. Most of Namibia's elephants are found outside protected areas and have to compete for land and resources with communities, which often leads to conflict between people and the animals.

"Without a way of benefiting from elephants, elephants can only be seen as a liability or loss to rural communities, who lose significant subsistence crops and even human lives," Leon Jooste, deputy minister of environment and tourism, told reporters.

The two Chinese and two Japanese buyers were not named.

Most of the tusks came from elephants who died of natural causes. Southern Africa is home to about 300,000 elephants — half of all the giant creatures on the continent.

Namibia had expected to sell over 9 tons of ivory and the remaining tusks will be distributed to communities involved in making traditional jewelry.

Over 44 tons will be sold in Botswana on Friday, while auctions next month will see 51 tons being offered in South Africa and almost 4 tons offered in Zimbabwe.

No new sales from the four southern African countries will be allowed for the next nine years.

Ivory trade was banned globally in 1989, but reviving elephant populations allowed African countries to make a one-time sale a decade later to Japan, the only country which had previously won the right to import.

In July, CITES said China should also be allowed to bid for ivory as it had dramatically improved its enforcement of ivory trade rules. The organization said it will monitor Chinese and Japanese domestic trade controls to ensure traders do not use this opportunity to sell ivory of illegal origin.

The auctions have prompted widespread protests by animal rights activists, leading online auction giant eBay Inc. to say it would ban ivory sales.

"The elephant ivory trade is responsible for the slaughter of at least 20,000 elephants a year," Christina Pretorius of the International Fund for Animal Welfare said.

"Relaxing the current international ivory trade ban, such as these stockpile sales, will signal to poachers that it is open season on elephants and provide them means to launder their illegal ivory stocks," she said.

But CITES' Wijnstekers disputed this.

"There is no proven scientific explanation that ivory sales lead to poaching," he told The Associated Press.