Australia has decided that search results that Google publishes amount to content that the company “publishes”, and is therefore responsible for.
Over the past few weeks we’ve brought you several reports regarding the increasingly worrisome LIBOR scandal. The investigation into interest rate-rigging debacle is quickly snowballing and analysts have now begun wondering if “16 of the world’s largest banks have perpetrated the biggest fraud in history.”
This is what happens when you couple shoddy detective work with a good legal team. Auction Alliance has won its third straight victory in line with exonerating itself from any penalty relating to the Appelbaum auction rigging scandal.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA), the regulator of all providers of financial services in the UK, has today confirmed that Barclays was definitely not acting alone, nor was this an isolated case in the authorities’ probe of banks rigging a key interbank interest rate.
Talking and texting while driving is somewhat of a cultural phenomenon in South Africa. There are those that are law abiding, but there are also those that don’t seem to care, and throw caution to the wind. But now Capetonians will face a R5 000 fine, and have their phone confiscated for a day for transgressing the law, it was reported in the Cape Times this morning.
On the back of news that Barclays bank was punished with a record fine of £290 million by UK authorities for interest rate manipulation, comes the speculation that the crisis, said to involve numerous banks around the world, could help push investors toward South African shores.
Well this is terribly worrying. Yesterday, Barclays bank – one of the biggest banks in the world – was fined a record £290 million for attempting to manipulate the world’s benchmark borrowing rate – the Libor. This is a huge blow to the bank’s reputation and raises questions over the future of chief executive Bob Diamond. Up to 40 other global banks face being named and shamed too.
The Department of Environmental Affairs (read: the South African government) has welcomed (obviously?) the Council of the Global Environment Facility’s approval of R25 million worth of funding aimed at strengthening the current wildlife forensic capabilities in South Africa. The donation will help combat wildlife crimes like rhino poaching.
Judgement was handed down yesterday afternoon in the Cape High Court that means that the application for a warrant sought by the Estate Agency Affairs Board to search the offices of Auction Alliance in Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg, was temporarily rejected. The auction house won’t be counting its chicken before they hatch, though.
Fruit and Veg City has been taking a social media lambasting from irate consumers that caught the fresh food retailer selling endangered fish species in a few of their stores. Debate was intense, with both customers and Fruit and Veg City getting in on the action. The retailer has since issued an official statement detailing how they plan to handle the situation of endangered fish “slipping through their nets”.
Soon the South African Revenue Service will have the power to search and seize relevant material without the need for a warrant, a tax expert has today told the City Press. The Tax Administration Bill could “have serious and significant ramifications” for taxpayers, the expert continued. However, this doesn’t appear to be a bad thing, if you’ve got nothing to hide.
Yesterday, the Western Cape High court handed down a judgement that ruled that National Consumer Commissioner, Mamodupi Mohlala-Mulaudzi, acted outside of her powers when she summoned three Auction Alliance executives, including Rael Levitt, to appear before the National Consumer Commission earlier this year. It’s a notable victory for Auction Alliance, but doesn’t rule out a criminal investigation into possible fraud.
Things have been less than fun with respect to freedom of speech and freedom of expression in the landlocked central African country of Ethiopia in recent years. And they just got worse. Because now a simple 30-second Skype call could land you in jail.
Former T20 cricket enigma and ex-multi billionaire, Allen Stanford, has been sentenced to 110 years in jail for defrauding investors of $7 billion. Stanford was also ordered to pay back $5,9 billion, which he doesn’t have, because he lost everything.
Yesterday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international body that regulates the Internet, released its list of applicants for new .com alternatives. There are obvious ones like .amazon and .hsbc, but less obvious ones like .ninja have also crept in. A few South African companies also got involved.
Reports claiming 5FM DJ Euphonik assaulted his media personality ex-girlfriend, Bonang Matheba, last week, went largely unnoticed in the press. But we can now reveal that one of 5FM’s top-rated DJ’s has handed himself over to the police, following three criminal charges that have been laid against him by Matheba.
You might have picked up in the Morning Spice headlines that the Nasdaq stock exchange said it “owe[d] the industry an apology”. It’s gone a little further now, and says it will set aside $40 million to reimburse investors that suffered losses due to technical problems on Facebook’s first day of trading.
Are you fed up with your marriage? Well you can now check in to one of a number of Dutch hotels for a long-weekend and get your divorce sorted at the same time. A great idea, I call it the reverse-honeymoon.
More than R40 million worth of rhino horn, as well as elephant tusks and leopard skins were seized in two operations in Gauteng last week. Both operations are linked to a 40-year-old KwaZulu-Natal man, who was arrested, along with six foreigners, during the operations.
As Bloomberg pointed out the other day, South Africa’s credit rating may come under pressure as growth in Africa’s biggest economy slows and the government faces the prospect of bailing out the state-owned road agency. That prospect became more of a reality today when deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe said government is looking into a special appropriations bill to give Sanral a cash injection to allow it to service its R20 billion debt.
A mother caused chaos yesterday when she called the 1Time call centre to tell them there was a bomb on one of their aircrafts. The valiant woman didn’t want her daughter to board a flight from Jozi to George, but alas, it was too late, and the aircraft was already in the air by the time the threat was received.
The 64-year-old warlord-turned-president is the first former head of state to be convicted by an international war crimes court since the Second World War. He was found guilty last month of 11 counts of aiding and abetting war crimes, and crimes against humanity by supporting rebels between 1996 and 2002 in return for conflict diamonds.
On Saturday, the EU Cookie Directive goes into effect. It’s a European Union law governing the opting in and out of website cookies. The law was ratified in the name of privacy, but, the impact on the digital industry will be immense and, possibly, damaging.
A while ago a man named Arnold Prins was charged with sexual assault for forcibly fondling a woman. He was not sentenced, as the act of “fondling” has no penalty under the Sexual Offences Act. But a High Court ruling today has given the Western Cape’s National Prosecuting Authority leave to appeal the original judgment, because the act is flawed.
Finance Minster, Pravin Gordhan, has warned that South Africa would face a dark economic future if the interdict temporarily halting the e-toll project wasn’t set aside urgently. We’d have to brace ourselves for negative international credit ratings. And essential services to schools, hospitals and roads would also be adversely affected, he said.
This will surely go down as the most controversial IPL tournament thus far. South African bowler, Wayne Parnell, was among two IPL cricketers arrested and held for questioning after police in Mumbai busted a rave party in the city. Initially they detained about 100 people, officials said earlier. Police also confiscated 110 grams of cocaine, and ecstasy from the party.
Richard Mdluli, South Africa’s former crime intelligence boss yesterday “evaded” the serving of court papers by the legal rights group, Freedom Under Law (FUL).
Tomorrow, SA Maritime Safety Authorities will make another attempt to remove the stranded Eihatsu Maru from Clifton’s First beach. Last night, 2oceansVibe spoke to one of the men in charge, Samsa’s chief operations officer, Sobantu Tilayi. Many questions still remain about the reasons why the captain grounded the vessel, but Tilayi said the operation has now reached a critical stage.
Earlier we reported that Rebekah Brooks, the ex-News of the World editor, and her husband, Charlie Brooks, had been charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Another four people have also been charged. Rebekah and her husband have come out fighting however, and have called the charges “weak and unjust”.
News has just emerged that Former News Of The World editor, Rebekah Brooks, and her racehorse trainer husband Charlie Brooks, have been charged with perverting the course of justice in relation to the phone-hacking scandal.