The second largest train maker in China will recall 54 bullet trains which are used on the new impressive Beijing-Shanghai line for safety reasons, the company said today. The recall of the high-speed trains by China CNR Corp Limited comes three weeks after 40 people were killed in a high-speed rail crash.
A new National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme is currently underway. If you think this does not affect you because you already have medical aid, think again. The Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, said yesterday that the law, with no exceptions, would soon require us to contribute towards this scheme once it starts up. This is above and beyond the tax that everybody already contributes.
We all have our lapses of judgment. But some of us make such horrendously poor decisions that one simply has to ask, “What were they on?”. Every week we bring you three contenders in what can only be described as a battle of small wits. So, with great pleasure we present this week’s three La […]
You’ve probably wondered about this yourself. What would happen if you had access to a backhoe, and a swimming pool, and weren’t constrained by issues like the law, or those stupid labels saying ‘do not operate heavy machinery while intoxicated’? Well you don’t have to wonder anymore; these Hungarian folks have the answer.
Cruising around somewhere in Pretoria, is the unwitting winner of R30-million in the National Lottery. He or she has been going about their business every day, with no idea that they hold the ticket to the PowerBall jackpot drawn on 17 August last year. And there are only six more days until the winnings expire.
This year was my first Oppikoppi. I went as press, but I had a lot of fun. I can’t believe what I’ve been missing all these years. I know you’re dying to know, so these were the best performances that I saw: Bittereinder, Michelle Shocked, Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse, Not My Dog, and Mr Cat and the Jackal.
For Dutchman Jim Halfens, wasting time on lengthy divorce proceedings is simply not what life’s all about. He recently opened a hotel in Amsterdam that caters for couples looking for a speedy divorce by offering a convenient weekend marriage dissolution package.
It’s becoming a case of “your guess is as good as the next guy’s” in world financial markets now. Share prices are fluctuating like unseasonal temperatures and nobody can really predict what might happen next. French markets rallied earlier, but as soon as they did, rumours that BNP Paribas may face another €500 million loss on Greek debt surfaced.
Paul Snodgrass is back with his hit one-man show I’M SO LONELY from the 11th to 13th August 2011 at On Broadway. After a sold-out run at the Baxter Theatre, Snoddie will perform the show for the last time, before starting on his next one man show. For three nights only come and see the […]
USA’s heavyweight champion of the media and marketing world, Bob Garfield, will be stepping into the ring to inspire and incite a South African audience at the upcoming Digital Edge Live showdown on 14 October.
Lionsgate Films has announced plans to re-make everybody’s moms’ favourite film, 1987 classic Dirty Dancing. Kenny Ortega, the head choreographer on the original, is set to take the director’s chair this time.
Two Israeli scientists say they have developed a sensor that can accurately detect date-rape drugs in drinks 100 percent of the time – a tiny, drink-stirrer-looking device that, when dipped into your appletini or other refreshing beverage, can detect the presence of dissolved drugs. Nice job, science.
A company called Renova has released a special edition, perfumed toilet paper in the colours of the Vatican flag to ‘honour’ Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Spain next week. Moisturizer, paper towels and black toilet paper are among the other holy cosmetics the company has produced.
Not even security exchanges are immune to hackers these days. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, the world’s biggest security exchange operator by market value, suspended trading yesterday for companies including HSBC. This came after its website was hacked in what’s been described as a hack with malicious intent at a critical time.
Bongani Moyo, standing trial for more than 35 bank robberies, escaped from the Pretoria Regional Court yesterday. He found a pair of crutches and simply walked out the front door – along with the rest of the public. But how did he escape from his cell to begin with? No one locked it.
Dave MacKay, 53-year-old British pilot, will be the first captain of Virgin Galactic‘s commercial space fleet, taking up the role first with the maiden voyage of SpaceShipTwo, scheduled for 2013. MacKay has over 30 years of regular flying experience, but like pretty much everybody, he’s wanted to fly spaceships since he was a kid.
The mother of 10-year-old Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau is ok with the photo shoot which appeared in this month’s issue of French Vogue, depicting her pre-teen in some rather adult poses. It seems Veronika Loubry, a fashion designer, is more concerned with the materialism of the spread than its supposedly sexualised images of young Thylane.
More often than not these kind of feel-good stories seem to emanate from other parts of the world. Not this one however. This one is proudly South African and happened in Sandton City this past Saturday when a man cleverly orchestrated a flash mob to intercept his bride-to-be for a romantic proposal opportunity.
Angry youths are taking over the streets of London. But rioting is a profession rather best left to the professionals. The guy featured in this video hopefully learned a valuable lesson: if you can’t even throw an umbrella properly at the bobbies then you should rather go back to being on the dole. Because that move was well embarrassing, innit?
There is something encouraging coming out of the past three days of rioting and looting, even if it is a remote silver lining: the online mobilization of volunteer clean-up operations, mostly organized via Twitter and Facebook. By this time yesterday, #riotcleanup, was the second-highest trending topic worldwide.
So it looks like Brazil is at the forefront of drugvertising, and Amy is there number one brand ambassador. Apparently a gang has been using her likeness to market baggies of coke, inserting her picture inside and dubbing her as ‘Amy House’. Guess who they were putting in their bags of crack? Osama Bin-Laden.
Earlier this year 2oceansVibe reported about a tribe in western Brazil, living some 50 kilometres from the Peruvian border, that had until then, not been contacted by modern man. Sadly the tribe has gone missing after drug traffickers overran Brazilian guards posted to protect the area around which the tribe was living.
Nice one, guys! South Africa has the highest rate of strikes in the world, a labour analyst said yesterday. We’ve had 1 000 working days per 1 000 workers lost in 2010 – and it is expected to be even worse at the end of this year.
Souveneir t-shirts handed out at a rock festival in Gera, eastern Germany, were decorated with skulls, right-wing flags and the words “hardcore rebels,” to appeal to the vaguely neo-Nazi crowd the festival attracts. Except when the shirts got washed, the douchey decorations faded, replaced with anti-extremist slogans.
Sinatra. Ol’ Blue Eyes. The Chairman of the Board. It’s hard to know where to start with Frank Sinatra. There’s the young Frank of the 1940’s, the Oscar winning movie star, The Rat Pack years, with his old pals Sammy Davis, Dean Martin and the boys. Then there’s the manic depression, the equal rights activist […]
Rick Mereki and two of his friends traveled the world in 44 days. Their trip included 11 countries, 63 000 km covered, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage featuring Rick walking! They took 1 second clips from all the locations visited, and compiled it into this must see video. It is nothing short of brilliant.
Australian artist and ‘body architect’ Lucy McRae, in collaboration with Harvard biologist Sheref Mansy, is releasing these little digestible capsules that make human skin emit perfume scents. Which is nice and futuristic, I think. And by futuristic I mean I have no idea how this thing works.
As lawmakers await a verdict on the controversial Dräger breathalyser test, expected next month, the Western Cape government is still cracking down on drunk driving. Hard. No less than 65 drunk driving arrests were made over the weekend in Cape Town alone.
I’m quite sure this new resort won’t pull the usual folk that hang out in Sandy Bay. They have their vibe. This resort will have its vibe. Anyway, a report in the Weekend Argus has said that so far, Somerset West residents (where the resort will be situated) have expressed mixed reactions, but a summer 2011 opening is definitely on.
“There was a lot of screaming.” The BBC is reporting that Zimbabwean police and military are recruiting civilians to illegally dig for diamonds for them. The report also mention a torture camp, run by Zimbabwe’s security forces, operating in the country’s rich Marange diamond fields.