Both James and Rupert Murdoch are due to give new evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards, starting today. James will appear first, followed by his father, tomorrow. The inquiry will now focus on the relationship between the press and politicians.
Interorbital Systems, an American aerospace company that constructs rocket and spacecraft, has announced an exciting product development: you can now very cost-effectively buy, and launch your own satellite into orbit.
Acting national police commissioner, General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, hinted on Thursday to MP’s that police had been instructed on which cases were “off limits” to them. He said this was something that was happening a lot “of late”, and that the instructions came from “powers beyond us”.
Google, Apple, Adobe and Intel – among other companies – have been accused of restricting salary increases and restricting career development by agreeing not to poach each other’s staff; California District Judge Lucy Koh has found that there’s enough evidence to support trial for antitrust injury. Intuit, Pixar, and Lucasfilm are also involved.
The City of Cape Town has released its official report on the fatal shark attack that claimed the life of bodyboarder, David Lilienfeld, 20, on Thursday at Kogel Bay, “Caves”, near Gordons Bay. In it, the City concluded that the tagging of False Bay sharks for a documentary could not be directly linked to the attack.
Wherever humans and wild animals come into close contact with one another, there will likely be negative consequences for one or the other, or both. 13-year-old Richard Turere, who lives in Empakasi, on the edge of the Nairobi National Park, just south of Nairobi, has invented a system that keeps his family’s cattle safe from lions that had previously sought an easy meal from their herd.
In what is a first for Boeing Commercial Aviation outside of the United States, it has been announced that the aviation giant will team up with a flying school in the Eastern Cape to meet increased demand for air crews across the continent.
And you people wonder why they tried to switch the internet off. Khosrow Zarefarid, an Iranian software manager, warned Iran’s banks’ CEOs of a security flaw in the banking system. When nobody responded, Khosrow hacked 3 million accounts across 22 banks, then dropped these details — including card numbers and PINs — on his blog.
A bodyboarder has suffered fatal injuries at popular surfing spot, Koeël Bay, near Gordons Bay, earlier today. Due to the nature of the location, medical air rescue services were still on their way to the scene, but members of the bodyboarding community were expressing their shock at the loss of the individual across social networks.
Signs suggest that Facebook is looking to have its initial public offering launch on on May 17th, assuming that the Securities & Exchange commission rubber-stamps all of the social network’s paperwork – including documents concerning Facebook’s recent billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram. Facebook is set to be initially valued at around $100 billion.
But the miners he left jobless at Aurora mines will not get a cent from him. The embarrassment for the Zuma and Mandela family names continues as Zondwa Mandela’s assets are expected to be attached next. Mandela has been charged with fraud, too.
Mitch Hurwitz, Arrested Development creator, has revealed that the long-mourned show will be premiering it’s 10-episode fourth season in one huge lump on Netflix’s Watch Instantly feature in 2013. You’ve got a year to come up with a plausible excuse to spend a day off from work to watch the entire season.
Capitec shares rose to close at a new high of R214,76 yesterday. The bank also recently announced a dividend of 300c per share, showing why it isn’t surprising that analysts have happily placed “buy” recommendations on the stock.
UC San Diego physicist, Dmitri Krioukov got ticketed recently for running a stop sign – which isn’t unusual. What is unusual is the fact that, rather than pay the $400 fine and move on, Krioukov wrote a mathematical paper proving that the cop who ticketed him had a “perception of reality that did not properly reflect reality.”
“People power has brought down governments in North Africa; it can surely stop this assault on our living standards.” Cosatu has shown it doesn’t mess around when it comes to voicing its opinion. But will the “mother of all protests” against e-tolls actually make any difference?
An art installation has caused outrage from the African community in Sweden. Supposedly highlighting the ordeal of female circumcision, the stunt involved a cake depicting a black African woman with minstrel-esque face. Everytime someone sliced a piece, the woman’s head screamed as if in pain.Video after the jump.
25-year-old South African serviceman, Private Jaco van Gass, lost his left arm to a rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan three years ago. Now he’s testing a prosthetic ice-axe – an invention of his own design – in preparation for an attempt at Mount Everest in May, alongside five other injured servicemen.
Further concerns over the potentially large number of jobs that could be lost as a result of government’s proposed booze advertising ban, have been aired. Government is still mulling over its draft bill – which has been labelled draconian – but either way, the health department is determined to clamp down on the industry.
Advice from the first official British government report into fracking has been published today. In it, British ministers have been informed that they should allow the controversial process of fracking for shale gas to be extended there, this despite the process having been blamed for causing two earthquakes.
It’s about monitoring and enforcing adherence to the “government brand”, Manyi says. The advertising of all government departments would likely be centralised in his office very soon. The predictable news emerged while Manyi was speaking at a community media indaba on Saturday.
Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder everybody keeps forgetting about except when he talks about stuff like this, has pointed to a handful of “threats to internet freedom” – Facebook, Apple, the entertainment industry, and governments that censor their citizens. By which I guess he means threats to Google.
King Juan Carlos of Spain is no stranger to controversial hunting. Six years ago, it was asserted that the 74-year-old shot a drunken Russian bear that had been lured with honey and vodka. Officials dismissed the allegations as ridiculous. The Spanish media have just had another field day though, after they learned he’d broken his hip hunting in Botswana recently.
Unfortunately we don’t speak enough Vietnamese around the 2oceansVibe Compound to know exactly what Lieutenant Nguyen Manh Phan was saying, but we understand that the Vietnamese policeman is very passionate about his job. He made the bus stop.
Cape Town’s film industry is about to get a real boost as the internationally renowned Tribeca Film Festival, started by Robert De Niro ten years ago, is set to come to Cape Town each year for the next five years.
A rather large group of former NASA scientists and astronauts have come together to express their distrust at the way NASA thinks about climate change. They’ve written a letter, in which they criticise the Goddard Institute For Space Studies for telling fibs about man-made carbon dioxide.
J.K. Rowling – author behind the Harry Potter series – is back with a new book. Not even remotely Potter-related, she calls this one a “blackly comic tale for adults.” Read more about the book’s title and plot details, after the jump.
For nearly a decade, one man has been working on an epic project that has the potential redefine how the world sees our country and our continent. This project has finally culminated in an amazing, entirely locally produced, graphic novel, but it needs your support if it is to continue. Click through for an inspiring sneak peak and to learn how you can help.
It was only going to be a matter of time before we started seeing the real impact of e-readers on paperback sales. On top of the figure quoted in the headline above, industry analysts, Nielsen BookScan, say that overall, total book sales are down by 11 per cent, according to their latest figures.
In another great instance of American judges believing that their jurisdiction has no limits, a U.S. judge has ruled that Motorola cannot enforce an injunction that would prevent Microsoft from selling Windows products in Germany, should a German court issue such an injunction next week.
The art of indulging in “num-num”, or free sex with a prostitute, may be news to you and I. But it isn’t to two members of Durban’s SAPS’s Port Security Services unit, commonly known as the harbour police. After a high-speed chase, gunshots, and a bite from a police dog, the two officers and their “partners”, were eventually apprehended.