Moscow’s mighty 10-lane Ring Road is famous for rather large volumes of traffic, and this morning was no different, except that this morning, fake money was responsible for the chaos. Russian radio station Echo Moskvy reported that scores of drivers hurriedly left their vehicles during peak hour traffic to gather what looked like 1000-ruble notes.
A fair portion of the smartphone market in this country belongs to BlackBerry, because unlike the rest of the world, we still pay rather exorbitant data fees to the carrier firms that run the market. And free messaging is like, so cool. Not internationally though, where BlackBerry maker, RIM, is in a serious make-or-break space.
Come on, you all know what we’re referring to in that headline. It’s just a little bribe and you’re done. In there. RICA sorted. It’s actually hardly surprising, but it deflates the high we all experienced with the relatively hassle-free event that was reported in a lot of the mainstream media.
The South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) is seriously considering expanding the taxi industry to cover further modes of transport, including buses, trains and aeroplanes. There is no word on what the airline, due to take to the skies in November, would be called, but there is the very obvious question of: “Where would the gatjie sit?”
The economic dilemma facing Greece and and the European Union is reaching a head as Greece threatens to default on its debt to the European Union. The outcome of the crisis, whether positive or negative, will have a substantial effect on the health of the global economy. So it’s an important issue. And yet, discussion […]
This week we have seen two interesting reasons why the information bill, in its current form, needed amending. We learned of South African sniper weapons in Libya, and we have now learned of the many millions Gauteng tax payers will likely fork out for the lack of passengers using the Gautrain.
You may by now be aware that Greece is in some deep financial trouble at the moment. Pretty much everyone knows a Greek too, so we should spare a moment for all Greeks, as Greece prepares to sell off airports, highways, state-owned companies and prime sections of Mediterranean real estate.
The Australian government appears to be seriously considering a culling-for-carbon-credits plan to reduce the methane emissions from the estimated 1.2 million wild camels roaming the outback. Earlier today we reported that domestic cats in parts of Sydney have a curfew. Now camels are in trouble for burping and farting too much.
2oceansVibe staffer and avowed earthchild, Bearded Wiseman, sinks his teeth into the weighty issue of hotel development in the Kruger National Park, and nails his colours firmly to the mast of the godless neo-conservative capitalists who critics say want to turn the Kruger National Park into Disney Land. Notes from the thinking man’s greeny – here’s […]
It has been confirmed that the Hawks and the South African Revenue Services have raided the home of the controversial Durban tycoon Sbu Mpisane and his wife Shaun on Wednesday morning. You’ll know the guy that I’m speaking about. The dude who’s wife bought him a Maserati GranCabrio for his 40th recently.
South African police commissioners have notably enjoyed the odd perk here and there when it comes to matters of their private lives. It has emerged that Gauteng police commissioner, Mzwandile Petros, is no exception to this common occurrence and has a new two year lease costing R30 000 a month.
In a statement titled “Red Card for FIFA”, independent senator Nick Xenophon has urged the federal government to ask for a refund from FIFA of the A$45.6 million spent on the failed bid to host the 2022 World Cup, saying the bid could not succeed because of corruption within football’s world governing body.
Cape Town traffic fine dodgers are in for a surprise, and not one of the good variety either. You may have heard about, or even gone through the rather large roadblock that spanned the Buitengracht exit from town before the N1 and N2 split on Sunday. Operation Reclaim intensifies: officers are planning a crackdown in the next few weeks.
Wow. Alright. Apple gave the the green light to a mobile app that promises to connect rich old dudes with young women. Sugar daddies with gold diggers. Seriously. They call themselves SugarSugar, “the world’s most effective and discreet place for finding Sugar Daddy and Sugar Baby relationships.”
Goldman Sachs employees were told yesterday that Richard Gnodde is the new co-head of investment banking along with David Solomon and John Weinberg. Gnodde, who was born in Johannesburg, joined the firm back in 1987 and is said to have been critical to Goldman’s European acquisitions and mergers business.
Billionaire co-founder of Galleon Group, Raj Rajaratnam, has been convicted in what prosecutors called the largest insider trading case ever involving hedge funds. He remains free on $100 million bail and was placed under house arrest at his Manhattan home to await sentencing on July 29.
Some years ago I made my way over to mud island, London specifically, and one thing I always appreciated was not having to rush to the bank on a Saturday morning just because that was the way things were. This is surely good for banking in South Africa and a giant leap toward getting Saturday mornings back.
You may or may not be aware of television programmes like Trawlermen or Deadliest Catch. Times can be more than just physically and emotionally tough aboard these fishing vessels, they can go ages without catching anything substantial too. Now the EU is planning to offer the fishermen an alternative income stream. And hopefully curb pollution obviously.
The recession is serving up another good deal, friends. For about R5,4 million you can buy the historic village of Valle Piola in Italy. It’s surrounded by wild and mountainous terrain, and is set in the heart of one of the country’s biggest national parks, Gran Sasso.
On Monday NASA announced it was distributing $269 million to four companies for them to develop spacecraft to take astronauts into orbit. The investment is an Obama administration gamble that will enable commercial companies to get people to and from orbit in quicker time and with less cost.
Just when it looked as if the commotion over Facebook’s early days might be about to disappear, the long-running legal shenanigans over the rightful ownership of the online social network has sprung another surprise. Paul Ceglia has submitted a complaint with e-mails that he claimed would support his case for a share in the company.
It seems it’s all the rage to voice ones displeasure with how one finds things are going in court these days. Instead of it being an advocate this time, it’s a 71 year old “Brett Kebble-type character” from the Strand near Cape Town facing fraud charges. He had recently celebrated his 71st in Pollsmoor too.
South Africa’s only ski resort is due to go under the hammer in May. The resort was embroiled in a long and shady financial scandal that began in 2007 and was eventually forced to close the slopes indefinitely in 2009. But now you can own it!
This, apparently, is what happens when you let Zack Snyder write his own script without any male genitalia to jiggle in slow-motion – $19 million on the opening weekend of an $89 million film. This means Sucker Punch opened behind ‘Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules,’ the sequel to a film nobody watched.
The government is going to be launching its own printed propagand… err newspaper, and it will be published by the head of government communications, Jimmy Manyi. Yes, Jimmy who doesn’t like coloured people that much. Basically we shouldn’t get our hopes up and expect much investigative journalism.
At the beginning of this month a story caught our eye that almost seemed too shocking to be true. We can now happily report back to you that the lunacy surrounding these pricey renovations has been met with trepidation by Public Works Minister Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, and for the most part, been put on hold.
A report about a month ago attributed that South Africa indeed stared a water crisis directly in the eye. Experts told the inaugural South African Water and Energy Forum in Johannesburg that we even face the possibility of chronic water shortages as early as 2020. Now Eskom-esque tariff hikes loom too.
On Friday we discussed what the no-fly zone over Libya meant and how it would be placed into effect by the international community. “But the UN resolution is limited in its scope. It explicitly does not provide legal authority for action to bring about Gaddafi’s removal from power by military means,” explained UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
Gauteng’s top brass are being flushed out again for misappropriation of taxpayers’ money. This time it’s totalling a little over R12 million since 2005 on lavish refurbishments and renovations to the official Bryanston residence of the Gauteng Premier.
Links between these two high rollers have been gossiped about and reported on before. It’s no big secret that shortly after his 2006 arrest on rape charges, JZ made a shimmy over to Tripoli for five days where he met with Colonel Gaddafi. Now JZ and the Colonel have had a little phone conversation.