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Legal
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Barclays Fined £290 Million Over Libor Fixing
28 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Well this is terribly worrying. Yesterday, Barclays bank – one of the biggest banks in the world – was fined a record £290 million for attempting to manipulate the world’s benchmark borrowing rate – the Libor. This is a huge blow to the bank’s reputation and raises questions over the future of chief executive Bob Diamond. Up to 40 other global banks face being named and shamed too.
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SA Government Receives R25 Million Donation For Wildlife Crime Fighting
27 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The Department of Environmental Affairs (read: the South African government) has welcomed (obviously?) the Council of the Global Environment Facility’s approval of R25 million worth of funding aimed at strengthening the current wildlife forensic capabilities in South Africa. The donation will help combat wildlife crimes like rhino poaching.
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Auction Alliance Wins Second Court Victory In A Week
22 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Judgement was handed down yesterday afternoon in the Cape High Court that means that the application for a warrant sought by the Estate Agency Affairs Board to search the offices of Auction Alliance in Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg, was temporarily rejected. The auction house won’t be counting its chicken before they hatch, though.
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Fruit And Veg City Responds To Public Outcry Over Selling Endangered Fish
21 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 7 Comments
Fruit and Veg City has been taking a social media lambasting from irate consumers that caught the fresh food retailer selling endangered fish species in a few of their stores. Debate was intense, with both customers and Fruit and Veg City getting in on the action. The retailer has since issued an official statement detailing how they plan to handle the situation of endangered fish “slipping through their nets”.
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SARS To Get The Power To Search And Seize Without A Warrant
20 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Soon the South African Revenue Service will have the power to search and seize relevant material without the need for a warrant, a tax expert has today told the City Press. The Tax Administration Bill could “have serious and significant ramifications” for taxpayers, the expert continued. However, this doesn’t appear to be a bad thing, if you’ve got nothing to hide.
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Auction Alliance Wins Court Case Against NCC
19 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
Yesterday, the Western Cape High court handed down a judgement that ruled that National Consumer Commissioner, Mamodupi Mohlala-Mulaudzi, acted outside of her powers when she summoned three Auction Alliance executives, including Rael Levitt, to appear before the National Consumer Commission earlier this year. It’s a notable victory for Auction Alliance, but doesn’t rule out a criminal investigation into possible fraud.
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A Skype Call In Ethiopia Now Carries A 15 Year Jail Term
15 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Things have been less than fun with respect to freedom of speech and freedom of expression in the landlocked central African country of Ethiopia in recent years. And they just got worse. Because now a simple 30-second Skype call could land you in jail.
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Former T20 Billionaire Allen Stanford Sentenced To 110 Years In Prison
15 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Former T20 cricket enigma and ex-multi billionaire, Allen Stanford, has been sentenced to 110 years in jail for defrauding investors of $7 billion. Stanford was also ordered to pay back $5,9 billion, which he doesn’t have, because he lost everything.
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Reveal Day: The New .Com Domain Names Are Coming
14 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Yesterday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international body that regulates the Internet, released its list of applicants for new .com alternatives. There are obvious ones like .amazon and .hsbc, but less obvious ones like .ninja have also crept in. A few South African companies also got involved.
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5FM DJ Euphonik Hands Himself Over To Police
07 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Reports claiming 5FM DJ Euphonik assaulted his media personality ex-girlfriend, Bonang Matheba, last week, went largely unnoticed in the press. But we can now reveal that one of 5FM’s top-rated DJ’s has handed himself over to the police, following three criminal charges that have been laid against him by Matheba.
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Nasdaq To Reimburse Facebook Investors $40 Million
07 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
You might have picked up in the Morning Spice headlines that the Nasdaq stock exchange said it “owe[d] the industry an apology”. It’s gone a little further now, and says it will set aside $40 million to reimburse investors that suffered losses due to technical problems on Facebook’s first day of trading.
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Getting Divorced? Check Into A Divorce Hotel
05 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Are you fed up with your marriage? Well you can now check in to one of a number of Dutch hotels for a long-weekend and get your divorce sorted at the same time. A great idea, I call it the reverse-honeymoon.
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R40 Million Worth Of Rhino Horn Seized In Huge Sting
04 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
More than R40 million worth of rhino horn, as well as elephant tusks and leopard skins were seized in two operations in Gauteng last week. Both operations are linked to a 40-year-old KwaZulu-Natal man, who was arrested, along with six foreigners, during the operations.
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Government Considering Special Appropriations Bill To Bail Sanral Out
31 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
As Bloomberg pointed out the other day, South Africa’s credit rating may come under pressure as growth in Africa’s biggest economy slows and the government faces the prospect of bailing out the state-owned road agency. That prospect became more of a reality today when deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe said government is looking into a special appropriations bill to give Sanral a cash injection to allow it to service its R20 billion debt.
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Mom Too Afraid To Let Daughter Fly 1Time, Issues Fake Bomb Scare
31 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
A mother caused chaos yesterday when she called the 1Time call centre to tell them there was a bomb on one of their aircrafts. The valiant woman didn’t want her daughter to board a flight from Jozi to George, but alas, it was too late, and the aircraft was already in the air by the time the threat was received.
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Charles Taylor Sentenced To 50 Years For War Crimes
30 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The 64-year-old warlord-turned-president is the first former head of state to be convicted by an international war crimes court since the Second World War. He was found guilty last month of 11 counts of aiding and abetting war crimes, and crimes against humanity by supporting rebels between 1996 and 2002 in return for conflict diamonds.
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EU Cookie Privacy Law Will Heavily Impact Digital
24 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
On Saturday, the EU Cookie Directive goes into effect. It’s a European Union law governing the opting in and out of website cookies. The law was ratified in the name of privacy, but, the impact on the digital industry will be immense and, possibly, damaging.
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Sexual Offences Act Flawed, NPA May Appeal Fondling Case Judgment
24 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
A while ago a man named Arnold Prins was charged with sexual assault for forcibly fondling a woman. He was not sentenced, as the act of “fondling” has no penalty under the Sexual Offences Act. But a High Court ruling today has given the Western Cape’s National Prosecuting Authority leave to appeal the original judgment, because the act is flawed.
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Finance Minister Fights E-Toll Ruling In Concourt
23 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Finance Minster, Pravin Gordhan, has warned that South Africa would face a dark economic future if the interdict temporarily halting the e-toll project wasn’t set aside urgently. We’d have to brace ourselves for negative international credit ratings. And essential services to schools, hospitals and roads would also be adversely affected, he said.
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Wayne Parnell Arrested At Drug Fuelled Rave
21 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
This will surely go down as the most controversial IPL tournament thus far. South African bowler, Wayne Parnell, was among two IPL cricketers arrested and held for questioning after police in Mumbai busted a rave party in the city. Initially they detained about 100 people, officials said earlier. Police also confiscated 110 grams of cocaine, and ecstasy from the party.
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Former Crime Boss Mdluli Avoids Serving Of Court Papers
16 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Richard Mdluli, South Africa’s former crime intelligence boss yesterday “evaded” the serving of court papers by the legal rights group, Freedom Under Law (FUL).
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Clifton Trawler: Make Or Break
16 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 6 Comments
Tomorrow, SA Maritime Safety Authorities will make another attempt to remove the stranded Eihatsu Maru from Clifton’s First beach. Last night, 2oceansVibe spoke to one of the men in charge, Samsa’s chief operations officer, Sobantu Tilayi. Many questions still remain about the reasons why the captain grounded the vessel, but Tilayi said the operation has now reached a critical stage.
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Updated: Rebekah Brooks And Five Others Charged Over Hacking Scandal
15 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Earlier we reported that Rebekah Brooks, the ex-News of the World editor, and her husband, Charlie Brooks, had been charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Another four people have also been charged. Rebekah and her husband have come out fighting however, and have called the charges “weak and unjust”.
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BREAKING: Rebekah Brooks Charged Over Hacking Scandal
15 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
News has just emerged that Former News Of The World editor, Rebekah Brooks, and her racehorse trainer husband Charlie Brooks, have been charged with perverting the course of justice in relation to the phone-hacking scandal.
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Clifton Trawler: Grounded On Purpose?
14 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 11 Comments
Various officials are currently meeting with the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) to establish a salvage operation for the stranded trawler on Clifton’s First Beach. A source familiar with the maritime industry believes it’s quite unlikely that the vessel wouldn’t have known what it was doing, and that fog would not have played a role in the grounding.
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Millions Of Rands Worth Of Textbooks Dumped At Eastern Cape Warehouse
14 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
After receiving a tip-off, the Sunday Times on Friday discovered that millions of rands worth of school textbooks had simply been dumped at a warehouse in King William’s Town, in the Eastern Cape.
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Racist Ranting Itumeleng Mabeba Says He Was Hacked
10 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
A short while ago, Jessica Leandra dos Santos and Tshidi Thamana seemed to try to apologise for their recent actions, as well as form some kind of friendship. But Itumeleng Mabeba, a man at the centre of hate speech allegations for sending a very disturbing tweet, has claimed his Twitter account was hacked. His employer is also instituting an internal disciplinary process against him.
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Shifting Mdluli Simply Not Good Enough
10 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Politicians reacted angrily at the decision to move Lieutenant-General Richard Mdluli out of his crime intelligence position yesterday. A collective feeling amongst opposition parties was that this was simply not good enough, and that Mdluli should be suspended again.
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Sexwale Affidavit On Mdluli Amongst Stolen Documents
09 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
We had been wondering what might have been stolen from advocate Muzi Sikhakhane’s home in Northcliff, Jozi, last month. Sikhakhane is acting in a matter against controversial police crime intelligence boss, Lieutenant-General Richard Mdluli. Turns out, one of the documents stolen was an affidavit penned by Tokyo Sexwale, which accused Mdluli of abusing state resources.
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EXCLUSIVE: 2oceansVibe Speaks To Racist ‘Model’ Tshidi Thamana’s Ex-Agent
08 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
By now, many people within South Africa’s news-following public are familiar with the recent burst of racism that took place on South Africa’s twittersphere involving a model and a “model”. Mistakes were made, but the backlash and long-term effects from a social and mainstream media clamouring may have devastating consequences on the individuals involved. Things begin to go pearshaped when the media is inaccurate with information that disperses frantically when a news story of this nature breaks.
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