Balotelli Shows His Class – A touch of star quality from Mario Balotelli plus a familiar mixture of experience and canny defending saw Italy quash a young Germany side 2-1 on Thursday and book a place in the Euro 2012 final against holders Spain. The semi-final victory thanks to Balotelli’s first-half double extended Italy’s unbeaten run against Germany in major tournaments to eight games and Mesut Ozil’s late consolation penalty only disguised what was a comprehensive success. [IOL]

The Great SA Internet Radio Mystery – The growth of South African streaming internet radio in the last few years has been touted as a major success story, with online stations boasting listeners in the tens of thousands. Now one man in the IT sector has become a whistleblower on what is, he claims, a big old con. [Daily Maverick]

News 24 Gets A Dose Of Internet Radio – Before you start tensing up again, relax. This isn’t a new episode in the internet radio stats row that’s been raging over the last couple of days. News 24, which is a major part Africa’s largest online publishing group 24.com today unveiled a “strategic collaboration” with South African internet radio station 2OceansVibe Radio. [Memeburn]

Chrome Browser For iPhone, iPad Released – Google’s Chrome browser can now be used to surf the web on the iPhone and iPad. The Chrome application released on Thursday is the latest volley in the escalating rivalry between Google and Apple, the maker of the popular mobile devices.[News24]

Talisman Pulls Plug On Sasol Project – CANADIAN energy explorer Talisman has backtracked on participating in the “front-end engineering and design” phase of a planned 48000-barrel-per-day gas-to-liquids plant it intended to build with Sasol in Canada. Sasol chief financial officer Christine Ramon said yesterday Talisman had decided not to participate in the phase “for their own internal reasons”. [Business Day]

RIM Will Lay Off 5,000 Employees – Research in Motion will lay off some 5,000 employees as it restructures itself this year. The announcement comes as the tech giant reports an adjusted loss per share of $0.37 for the quarter ended May 31, missing analyst expectations for a loss of $0.07. [Business Insider]

Asian Stocks, Euro Surge On EU Bond Support – Asian shares jumped and the euro surged more than 1 percent on Friday after European leaders agreed that euro zone banks could be recapitalized without adding to government debt, soothing fears over growing credit strains in Italy and Spain. As the dollar retreated on the back of the euro’s sharp rebound, dollar-based oil, copper and gold also recovered. [Reuters]

Turkey Warns of Retaliation Against Syria – Turkey warned of possible military retaliation against any threat by Syrian forces near its border in the latest escalation of hostilities between the neighbors since Syria shot down a Turkish military jet on Friday. Opening a potentially dangerous phase in relations with his onetime ally, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Damascus now represented a clear threat to Turkish national interests, and said the Turkish army had changed its rules of engagement to reflect that stance. [WSJ]

Chinese Astronauts Parachute Land After Mission – China’s first female astronaut and two other crew members emerged smiling from a capsule that returned safely to Earth Friday from a 13-day mission to an orbiting module that is a prototype for a future space station. The Shenzhou 9 parachuted to a landing on the grasslands of the country’s sprawling Inner Mongolia region at about 10 a.m. [Yahoo!]

Julian Assange Will ‘Almost Certainly’ Ignore Surrender – Julian Assange will ‘almost certainly’ ignore surrender notice ordering him to police station as he spends 9th day holed up in Ecuadorian Embassy. Assange has been inside the Embassy of Ecuador in London for nine days since seeking political asylum as part of his bid to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning about alleged sex offences. [Daily Mail]

Israel Crowns ‘Miss Holocaust Survivor’ – Grinning and waving, 14 women who survived the horrors of World War II paraded Thursday in an unusual pageant, vying for the honor of being crowned Israel’s first “Miss Holocaust Survivor.” Billed by organizers as a celebration of life, the event also stirred controversy. In a country where millions have been touched by the Holocaust, many argued that judging aging women who had suffered so much on physical appearance was inappropriate, and even offensive. [Time]

Want To Know How Google Did Its Glasses Skydiving Stunt? – SAN FRANCISCO–Sergey Brin stormed on the stage in his Google Glasses like Ironman Tony Stark, prepared to give the crowd of 5,500 developers what he called an “awesome” display of technology and daredevil live action. He gave the play-by-play as a troop of skydivers, bikers, and rope rappelers converged on the Moscone convention center, in a scene that could have been the opening sequence of a “Mission: Impossible” movie (if it wasn’t part of Brin’s Google I/O Glass demo). [CNET]

Amy Winehouse’s Boyfriend Charged With Rape – The former boyfriend of the late British soul singer Amy Winehouse has been charged with two counts of rape, state prosecutors said on Thursday. Reg Traviss, a film director who was in a relationship with Winehouse when she died, was arrested in April by London’s Metropolitan Police.[Channel24]

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COMING UP TODAY

The Premier Show With Seth And Bruce 10h00 to 13h00 – Easing you into your Friday, Seth and Bruce discuss the topics of the day, with a smattering of sport, entertainment and finance. Powered by Jack Daniels! [2ovfm]

2 Girls 1 Mic – Tumi from Tumi And The Volume will be in to chat about his CT gig this weekend and debuting a few new tracks. Egon Seconds and Conrad Jantjies join the show in the second half. We’ll be talking life, rugby and everything in between. This is followed by the Shift_Ctrl Session by moneysmart. Tune in from 13h00-15h00. [2girls1mic]

FRESH PODCASTS

Master Of The Trade Routes Culinary Challenge – This winter, the V&A Waterfront is serving up something different by challenging 27 restaurants to come up with an affordable fusion dish. Mark and Jess was joined by Chantel Kidd, Head of Marketing at the V&A Waterfront, who explained exactly how participating and voting works by using their app on Facebook, as well as prizes that are up for grabs. [podcast]