Second Big Mine Shut In Platinum Slowdown – Royal Bafokeng Platinum and Aquarius Platinum yesterday announced huge curtailments of their platinum operations as the sector battles high costs, labour unrest, stagnant prices and an oversupplied market. [businessday]

Velvet Sky Liquidated – The troubled Velvet Sky airline, which owes R100-million to creditors, has been liquidated by the Pietermaritzburg High Court. [mail&guardian]

Apple Takes On Google Search – Yelp and a handful of other major consumer content sites, including movie reviewer Rotten Tomatoes and restaurant reservation service OpenTable, will be helping to power Apple’s Siri, the voice-activated iPhone personal assistant, in the new mobile operating system iOS6. [news24]

Syrian Pilot Defects – Takes Plane With Him – Since the uprising in Syria began 15 months ago tens of thousands of army soldiers are said to have defected to the rebels’ side – often taking their rifles and other weapons with them. Now an air force pilot has taken a Russian fighter jet out of the country into Jordan. [abc]

Ai Weiwei Threatened With Pornography Charges – Chinese police told dissident artist Ai Weiwei on Thursday he could face bigamy and pornography charges and barred him from travel, despite lifting strict bail conditions imposed after his detention. [reuters]

Skateboarder Goes 128km/h – Standing – One of the craziest guys on Earth has officially gone faster on his skateboard than I could ever go in my first car. World champion downhill skater Mischo Erban set a Guinness record for fastest standing skateboard speed, clocking in at an utterly insane 80.74 mph. [wired]

Espionage Virus Sent Blueprints To China – Computer security experts have uncovered an industrial espionage virus designed to steal blueprints for buildings, machinery and other products, and deliver them to China. [telegraph]

Guess Who Johnny Depp Is Tapping? – Evidence that Johnny Depp left his partner of 14 years for a bisexual actress grow as he is reported to have made his ex-partner a $125 million payment. Amber Heard, who co-starred with Depp on last year’s movie The Rum Diary, are said to be very close and he he has even bought her a horse… [dailytel]

Internet Raises R2.3 Million For Bullied Bus Monitor – Yesterday we told you (here) about the video footage of the grandmother who was bullied on a school bus. Since then the internet has been raising funds to send her on holiday. Now it looks like she will be going into retirement! [bristimes]

Golden Arrow Buses Not Digging MyCiti Buses – Golden Arrow Buses said on Thursday it had filed legal action against the City of Cape Town over its plans to introduce extended MyCiti bus services. [news24]

The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia – How America’s biggest banks took part in a nationwide bid-rigging conspiracy – until they were caught on tape. [rollingstone]

William at Thirty – Diana’s inheritance, which William receives full control of on Wednesday, is just one of the reasons why the Prince is opting for a meditative 30th, not a mad one. [dailybeast]

Twitter Suffers Sustained Outages During Hacker Attacks – Two service outages within the course of several hours rocked microblogging platform Twitter on Thursday, as users worldwide reported significant down-time and slow service across both Twitter’s website and mobile applications. [reuters]

John Edwards And Mistress Are Now A Couple – Despite the fact that her new book provides intimate details about their sex life and refers to his wife of 33 years as a “witch on wheels,” Edwards is apparently still dating the woman who helped ruin his political career. [poponthepop]

Added Sage: Kris Humphries Claims Kris Jenner Planned Kim’s Sex Tape – Kris Humphries trashed Kim Kardashian and her family in conversations and text messages to his former girlfriend, Myla Sinanaj … telling her Kris Jenner not only directed Kim to shoot her sex tape, but to re-shoot because Kris J didn’t think the first one was pretty enough. [tmz]

LADIES: Win Jo Carlin Designer Outfit And Styling – Support Blankets for Cape Town and stand to win a designer garment from Jo Carlin Design, who will also treat you to a hair, make-up and glamour photoshoot session, before they send you out into the night! [jocarlin]

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COMING UP TODAY

The Premier Show – Friday Done Jack’s Way is BACK! With Cape Town firmly in the grip of winter, there is NO better way to spend a Friday afternoon than at one of the country’s hottest restaurants, eating and drinking like a king. Tune in from 10h00-13h00 where Seth and Bruce will be broadcasting from SA’s number 2 restaurant, the Test Kitchen at The Old Biscuit Mill. [2ovfm]

2 girls, 1 mic –  Stuart Taylor, Siv Ngesi and Martin Evans joins the show to chat about their upcoming showcases at the Grahamstown Festival, and it’s the Shift_Ctrl Session, powered by moneysmart.co.za shifting control of your finances, back to you. [2girls1mic]

FRESH PODCASTS

Jane Raphaely On HardWilli In The Morning – Jane Raphaely’s name is well known in South Africa and as Chairman of Associated Magazines, she is an inspiration to people everywhere. Now, for the first time, she has released her life story in book format. She joined HardWilli and chatted extensively about her autobiography, JANE RAPHAELY unedited. [podcast]

Why Your Budget Is Going Up Higher Than The Inflation Rate – This week, inflation numbers came out lower than expected at 5.7%, but our budgets are going up by much more than 5.7% a year. Find out what’s actually causing your basket of goods to increase at a much higher rate and what exactly is used to measure our inflation rate. Maya On Money, brought to you by 10x.co.za. [podcast]