Spain’s King Juan Carlos finally issued an apology this morning for the hunting trip he took to Africa recently where he shot live game on a private reserve in Botswana, including elephants. The scandal might never have come to light if he hadn’t had an accident during the trip and had to be taken back to Spain for emergency hip surgery.
Earlier this year Apple opened the doors to their manufacturing plant, Foxconn, to the public for the first time. It wasn’t pretty. Now, they’re being dragged into the spotlight again by none other than Greenpeace. Apparently their amazing iCloud isn’t all that amazing for the environment.
Seismic instability continues on the Pacific Rim this week with a magnitude 7 earthquake recorded off the coast of Papua New Guinea early this morning (just after 05h00 Australian Eastern Standard Time). The tremor struck at a depth of 202km and was centred 137km north of Lae, Papua New Guinea’s second-largest city.
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.
Earlier this month we told you about National Geographic shooting a shark documentary in Cape Town – with the support of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. But yesterday Dirk Schmidt, author of “White Sharks”, has called for the immediate issuing of a high shark alert – saying the filming is attracting sharks to Cape Town’s popular beaches.
The Grand National horse race in England has been heavily criticised after two horses had to be put down this weekend. They were euthanised because they each broke a leg after falling after a fence jump. The event’s winning horse’s trainer had the following to say: “…a lot of people need to grow up, and realise that it is life”. Pics of both incidents inside.
Recently published photos have revealed what is believed to be the world’s first “strawberry” leopard. The big cat was discovered in South Africa’s Madikwe Game Reserve and is an incredibly rare find.
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.
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.
While the sea bed around Indonesia’s Aceh region seems to have settled, and the aftershocks of yesterday’s massive earthquakes tailed off, locals returning home are still vigilant and cautious of more seismic disturbances that could cause tsunami to devastate their coastal settlements.
It seems summer’s lease has all too short a date for the Cape as the earliest snowfall in three years signals the seasonal start of winter. Where did the powder fall? Only the highest point in our province. More of this winter wonderland, after the jump.
An earthquake with an initial magnitude of 8.9 has struck under the sea off Indonesia’s northern Aceh province near the island of Sumatra this morning. The quake triggered a tsunami warning across the Indian Ocean region. The tremor was felt as far away as Singapore, Thailand and India.
Back in 1925, Dayton, Tennessee was home to the famous Scopes “monkey trial”, which saw teacher John Scopes violating a state statute by teaching evolution in biology. Almost a century of science, research and cultural development later they’re still dealing with the same problems.
Paintball guns were the weapons of choice for eight Scarborough residents who were among a group of 35 individuals that battled two troops of baboons in and around the sleepy coastal Cape village on Easter Monday. They fought for hours, but the baboons had the last laugh by returning later in the evening.
Chris Fischer is an American documentary maker whose program, Shark Men, is in the Cape tagging Great White sharks along our coastline. A group opposed to this have lodged a complaint with the Department of Environmental Affairs, claiming the “research” Fischer conducts might make good TV, but is damaging to the sharks. Both sides of the story, after the jump!
Over the weekend, roughly 300 dogs were rescued from secret woodland kennels just south of Manila. They were part of an illegal online gambling operation in which players outside the Philippines bet on dogs fighting at a clandestine compound. But this is not the animals’ happy ending, as many of them are too injured or too wild to rehabilitate.
Yesterday, between six and 12 tornadoes hit Dallas County, Texas, throughout the day. That estimate alone is enough reason to rejoice that twisters are not a regular phenomenon in South Africa. Add to the equation that they’re powerful enough to fling 18-wheeler trucks like toys, and you’ve got a legitimate reason to break into song and dance down the main street.
The owners and employees of Lombardini Game Lodge near Jeffrey’s Bay in the Eastern Cape were left somewhere between surprise, anger and hilarity when they arrived at work yesterday to discover that one of the lodge’s precious (though not living) inhabitants had been brutally attacked overnight.
During a time where we really cannot afford to lose anymore rhinos, another one has passed away – this time after being hit by a lorry outside Pretoria. Pics of the incident can be seen after the jump.
A Joburg woman was sliced in half on Monday when a light aircraft struck her at a small airfield in Ermelo. Three woman, who improperly gained access to the airfield, were running across the runway as the plane came in to land. The Central Aviation Authority is busy looking into the matter.
It seems the debate surrounding the ability to properly domesticate all kinds of dogs is far from over. A three-year-old girl in London had her ponytail ripped off her head after a South African Boerboel dog in a public park mauled her. The dog in question has since been put down and its owner reported to the procurator fiscal.
Here’s some great news for the swimmers amongst you. The City of Cape Town is about to launch a first-of-its-kind initiative to clean up the water running into three popular bathing areas. The project aims to improve the quality of storm water at two outlet sites in Three Anchor Bay and another at Rocklands, between Sea Point and Mouille Point.
Green, a female orangutan, is the subject of a powerful new documentary. She was rescued after deforestation in Indonesia left her without a home – and paralysed down her left side. Green’s last couple of hours on earth was filmed and included in a documentary by Patrick Rouxel for Al Jazeera. His aim is to highlight the extent to which deforestation is “raping our planet.”
By now, most of you would be aware of what wingsuit flying is, thanks to Jeb Corliss. But, quietly over the years, others have joined in on the rather crazy hobby too. Take Roberta Mancino, for instance. She’s an Italian model and has skydived naked a few times. Then she met Jeb. She absolutely kills it in this video.
Zimbabweans will be reminded of the previous times the country has declared a state of disaster as food shortages threatened widespread starvation. A third of Zimbabwe’s current maize crop has just been written off due to a prolonged dry spell, according to reports.
Before you begin to make fun of the headline used for this article, we must tell you that the vermin extractors will also be serving an educational purpose. Johannesburg’s general owl population has been in decline for years as a result of urbanisation, but new owl projects are helping to combat this.
Yesterday fury broke out across social networks over surfaced photos of Donald Trump’s sons on a safari killing spree in Zimbabwe. Taken last year, the pictures show Eric and Donald Trump proudly posing next to animals they’ve killed. The list include an elephant, leopard, crocodile, kudu, civet cat and water buck. Full gallery of the boys’ hunting achievements – after the jump.
He’s eaten from a zebra carcass, swum across freezing lakes in just his undies to see what it’d be like, and he once slept in a dead sheep’s carcass for warmth. Sadly, it might be a while before we get to watch any of Bear’s antics again. The Discovery Channel set him free for good yesterday by announcing their relationship is over.
Hectique. This is not the way you want to end your school skiing trip. A bus full of kids, travelling through a Swiss tunnel, hit a kerb and crashed face first into a wall inside the tunnel. A full gallery of the disaster is inside.
While the rest of Cape Town took part in yesterday’s Argus, a group of hipsters understandably felt that this event was way too commercial. So 100 of them shed their clothes instead, and cycled naked around the Prestwich Memorial. They raising awareness of the fact that the city has one of the highest carbon emissions per capita ratings in the world. Pictures taken of all the…action…after the jump.