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.
This must be one of the most unnerving things I’ve seen in a long time! A Chinese teenager recently (and luckily) escaped with only minor injuries after falling into a sinkhole in Xi’an, northern China. The girl was walking on the sidewalk when the ground swallowed her up. She fell six metres! See the incident after the jump.
Hey there, people who like free online storage. As expected, Google’s potential Dropbox-killer, Google Drive, has gone live – offering users 5GB of free online storage, with the potential to upgrade to 25GB for $2,50 per month. The service is available on PCs, Macs, Android phones – and is coming soon to iOS.
“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.
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.
Forbes.com released a list of Africa’s 20 most powerful business people yesterday (they do like a list over there at Forbes) and it wasn’t too hard to pick up a trend on the list of the continent’s commercial high flyers – no less than 12 of them are South African. Are we awesome, or what? We’ve got the full list, including our Mzansi business powerhouses, after the jump!
SABC Radio and The New Age newspaper have reported that Julius Malema’s expulsion from the ANC has been upheld. As from today, 24 April 2012, Julius Malema is no longer a card-carrying member of the ANC, and holds no office in the party, or any of it’s organs.
It’s Mount-Everest-climbing season, apparently – with the National Geographic team attempting to recreate the route used in the first American ascent of the mountain, the 1963 NG-sponsored American Mount Everest Expedition. The team is live-updating their progress online, with a live stream of photos, blog posts, and twitter updates. I think one of them’s using Instagram, too.
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.
This weekend, Indian authorities announced that they planned to establish Assam tea as the national drink, celebrating the life and work of the man who introduced tea farming to Assam state, and also died trying to boot the British out. More of this hot cup of history, after the jump!
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.
Time-tested wisdom says the sky’s the limit. However, a group of billionaires are looking to change that as they launch the first ever venture to mine asteroids, in space. For real. Click through for the details.
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 group of scientists in South Korea has developed the world’s first completely autonomous prison guard. Far from being a glorified Roomba, the robo-guard was “designed to study human behavior, the robot is able to detect abnormal prisoner activity and report back to its controllers.” Click through for the video.
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.
Oscar Pistorius has been named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2012. He is the only South African on the list. See who he shares it with, and what the magazine had to say about him, after the jump.
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.
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.
Are you a really good illustrator? Does your mind overflow with creativity? Not afraid to have your work judged by literally millions of people? Your dream job is waiting at Google, click through for details.
This morning we told you about the horrible incident that saw a group of boys in Soweto kidnap and gang-rape an underage girl on camera. Concerns were even higher, as the girl featured in the video was reported missing as well. The good news is that she has reportedly been found alive and is currently at the Dobsonville police station.
Yesterday NASA managed to capture the clearest-yet footage of a solar flare in process after magnetic fields on the Sun’s northeastern curve exploded in huge streams of plasma and sun stuff. The footage only accounts for about five seconds of explosion, but it’s very, very cool, both in and out of time-lapse.
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.”
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.
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.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s controversial new talk show is set to drop today at 13h30 South African time on a Russian digital news channel. Nothing this man does is not bent on overthrowing the way we look at our society and the world around us, so the first episode of The World Tomorrow should be a hefty serving of global illuminati conspiracy cray-cray realness. Check out Episode One, 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.