SONY Corporation has declared an annual loss of 457 billion yen ($5,7 billion) in 2011, its fourth straight year of hemorrhaging money, and the worst in its 66-year corporate history. In spite of which, the company – which appointed a new president, Kazuo Hirai last month – is predicting return to profit by the end of 2012.
News has recently come to light revealing disturbing details of a 16-year old boy who was raped while on a school rugby tour. The incident was part of an elaborate initiation process which clearly went horribly astray, all of which was recorded on cellphones.
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.
South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation, and state-owned lender, has a plan to sell about 15 billion Rand’s worth of investments it currently holds over the next five years. The initiative is part of its divestment plan, Chief Financial Officer, Gert Gouws said in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, today.
In a slightly surprising move, given the extent to which Google and Facebook have been compliant in handing data over to government enquiry, Twitter filed a motion (PDF) yesterday to block a subpoena that would force the company to turn over the data of one of its users, an arrested Occupy Wall Street protestor.
If I was a racist, I would NEVER get caught. And I think that is the difference between me and the real racists out there – they don’t have brains. Only a MORON would apologise and explain that the reason they used the K word was because they were angry. That ALWAYS results in people […]
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.
Fancy embossed invitations to attend a preview of The Dictator, Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film, are being sent around Washington D.C. – ostensibly from “President Robert Mugabe and the Ministry of Education, Sport, Art, and Culture.” Zimbabwe’s art ministry has assured reporters that it hasn’t come from them.
US President Barack Obama has never fully backed gay marriage, having said for the last 18 months that his personal views on the matter have been “evolving”. However, with Vice President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan both having recently expressed unequivocal support for gay marriage, Obama’s vagueness on the issue is squarely under the spotlight at the moment.
One of President Jacob Zuma’s many sons, Edward, is being sued for R1,5 million by Functions for Africa CC. The company says Edward still owes them the shortfall from his lavish wedding that cost R2,5 million at Tala Game Reserve in KwaZulu Natal last year.
The SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) has confirmed that CEO, Nazir Alli has resigned. Even though they did not provide more details, Alli’s resignation comes close on the heels of the recent Gauteng e-toll system disaster.
King Mswati III is down another wife, leaving him only 12 to make do with. She is the second to have left in recent months, and cited “physical and emotional abuse” as the reason for her exit.
The DA’s National Spokesperson, Mmusi Maimane has penned an open letter, to Jessica Leandra Dos Santos, and Tshidi Tamane, who earned infamy last week by stinking up twitter with their respective outbursts of racist vitriol. Maimane offers to host both of the racist models at his home, for dinner. Read the whole thing, after the […]
Divisive comments on same-sex relationships and homosexuality by ANC MP and Head of the Congress of Traditional Leaders, Patekile Holomisa have drawn criticism from defenders of same-sex equality and caused the ANC caucus in Parliament to issue a statement distancing itself from Holomisa’s words.
For a political party that prides itself on being squeaky clean, it was only a matter of time before something emerged. It’s not the Arms Deal, but having child p0rn on your office computer is probably not the smartest thing to do – especially if the p0rn involves kids.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, along with three other Frenchmen, have been accused of gang rape. Judges in charge of the investigation into a prostitution ring involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn now face two options: dismiss the new allegations, or bring charges of gang rape against them. It’s likely that the charges will stick.
Mark Zuckerberg officially filed its IPO with Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday afternoon, announcing its intention to sell 337 million shares at between $28 and $35 a pop – in the biggest Internet stock offering since Google went public in 2004. They’ll be going roadshow for the next two weeks to let big investors see what they’re buying.
See, this is what happens when you’re a rock star who fails to die young: you end up doing something in aviation, or in Wales. Or, if you’re Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, I guess you do both, and depress everybody who remembers when you were still cool.
On World Press Freedom Day, the highly acclaimed writer, and Nobel Prize winner for literature, Nadine Gordimer, called for the Protection of Information Bill to be “rejected in its entirety.” She launched the scathing rebuttal in an article entitled, “South Africa: The New Threat to Freedom”, on the New York Review of Books website.
One of the positive things to emerge from the Kony 2012 saga was the fact that discussion around some of Africa’s many problems increased. One could say that more people know about some of the things we deal with, than before Kony 2012. Charity organisation, Mama Hope, has since released a response video, seeking to break what it calls stereotypes of black African men.
Derided or not, proponents of the KONY2012 campaign have managed to make Kony famous, or at the very least a topic of conversation. And now it would seem authorities are close to capturing him as well. There are three international armies hunting him, and according to Uganda’s army chief Aronda Nyakairima, Joseph Kony is currently operating in volatile border areas between Sudan and South Sudan:
Oh awesome, this makes total sense. The UK’s Ministry of Defense is planning to install surface-to-air missiles on top of residential flats in east London for the duration of the Olympic Games. The bulk of the missile array is intended for the Lexington Building Water Tower, which has about 700 people living in and around it.
Troubled former South African Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Sicelo Shiceka, passed away in an Eastern Cape hospital this morning after a long illness, according to an ANC press release.
Comedian Jimmy Kimmel spoke at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner yesterday. Amongst the issues he got off his chest was the legalisation of marijuana. See him tell Barack Obama that “pot smokers vote too” after the jump.
CISPA – the ugly cousin of other internet-crippling bills SOPA and PIPA, whether Facebook admits it or not – passed late last week in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. Worse, the bill was amended before it passed to allow even more types of private information to be tapped and shared by government agencies in the US.
The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies has approved contentious new legislation that eases rules on how much land farmers must preserve as forest. Environmentalists are up in arms, and say the new forest legislation will be a disaster, and lead to further destruction of the Amazon.
Egyptian-American writer, Mona Eltahawy, has penned a controversial cover article for the latest Foreign Policy magazine, entitled: “Why Do They Hate Us?” In it, she argues that women must finish the revolutions started by the Arab Spring, and a semi-nude woman models a body-paint niqab.
“Hit me presidential style!” croons Jimmy Fallon as The Roots ease into a beat smoother than a wet dolphin’s back and President Obama breaks into song. This isn’t a parody or a spoof, this the President of the United States slow jamming the news. Click through for the amazing footage.
We all knew that they were going to be bad, but to be told that one in four of Jozi’s drivers were asked for a bribe in 2010 is quite something. 154 440 motorists were asked to pay a bribe, but only 184 cases of corruption were reported.
Yesterday comedian Russell Brand gave evidence to British MP’s about his battle with addiction during a renewal of the government’s current drugs policy. True to his style, Brand sported a sleeveless t-shirt that showed off his heavily tattooed arm, copious jewellery, cowboy boots and hat, and a long trenchcoat. His colourful speech included a description of how emotional and psychological difficulties led to him becoming addicted to drugs.