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.
Earlier this month Vision Of Humanity released its latest Global Peace Index of 158 countries, on it South Africa place 127th. SA dropped 29 places from when it sat at 98 in 2007. Conversely, the world has become more peaceful for the first time in three years.
2oceansViber, Fred, got in contact with us recently about his stolen MacBook Pro, which was grabbed by a thief as Fred confronted him in his bedroom. The thief and the MacBook got away, but Dropbox remained installed. Imagine the surprise when pictures from his stolen Mac started appearing in his DropBox. They tell quite a story. Full (hilarious) gallery inside.
A Cape Town woman has accused four members of New Zealand’s under-20 team, the Baby Blacks, of gang rape at the Southern Sun Hotel Newlands on Friday night.
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”.
Somalia’s Defense Minister announced today that a South African man and woman, who were captured by Somali pirates 20 months ago, have finally been released.
Over the weekend, an American aircraft carrier group recovered close to 19 000 pounds of marijuana that had been dumped in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California.
Lee Dyer, one of six men caught on tape in a violent altercation at the Top Gear festival this last weekend, has approached 2oceansvibe with his version of how events unfolded. Dyer insists that he and a friend, Trevor, the two tattooed men standing in the clearing visible in the video, defended themselves against three drunk men […]
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.
Glow sticks burned brightly all over Canada yesterday as optimistic ravers partied at the thought of being able to pick up doses of MDMA at their local government run ecstasy shops. Dr Perry Kendall said that pure MDMA is “safe” when consumed responsibly by adults.
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.
Within the next few days, every single Facebook user will be met with a request for a verified phone number, which will apparently help users “stay in control” of their accounts. This is partially a response to security breaches at LinkedIn, Last.fm and eHarmony, but it’s also because Facebook wants to know more stuff about you.
This is just insane! Police in Texas have released this video of an 18-month-old girl being flung from a getaway car during a high-speed chase. Luckily she escapes unharmed, stands up, and runs after the vehicle through the broken glass and metal scraps.
Headlines like this make me little bit sick, and leave me worrying about the state of tolerance and transformation in South Africa. Thapelo Makutle, a homosexual and transgender man living in Kuruman, was brutally attacked and beheaded in the Northern Cape. Words fail me.
And this, friends, is why you don’t date multiple women. Things can get a little, well, complicated. Thinking he could have it all, a Cape Town man has met his fate. The result comes after an overreaction from one of the ladies who walked in on him with the other. It got messy.
Trolls, a uniquely 21st-century phenomenon, have always enjoyed the privilege of anonymity. Abusive internet users have been allowed to hide behind made-up usernames while they went about trolling whom, when and where they please. That’s about to stop, in Britain at least.
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.
LinkedIn has confirmed via its blog that more than 6,5 Million user passwords had been “compromised”. That is a nice way of saying a Russian hacker stole, and then downloaded them. If you have an account with LinkedIn, now would be a great time to change your password.
South Africa’s elite police unit, the Hawks, have opened an investigation into allegations of corruption at MTN. This follows news reports yesterday of a senior former MTN Group executive admitting to bribing South Africa’s former ambassador to Iran following a successful license purchase.
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.
Now, I’m not saying that this story is in anyway related to Mark Keohane’s resignation, but these things happen. Reuters reports that Diego Perez Henao, the leader of the “Los Rastrojos” gang in Columbia, was arrested on Sunday morning near the Venezuelan-Colombian border. Read more about this modern-day Escobar inside.
Two of the three advocates responsible for assessing evidence before the arms deal commission have been removed from the case. Apparently they are “no longer available to serve” for “reasons that cannot be disclosed”. Make of that what you will.
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.
Police commissioner Bheki Cele is currently suspended. It is also recommended that he be fired and that a criminal investigation be launched into his involvement regarding the irregular awarding of police headquarter leases worth R1,7bn. But Cele has now allegedly written to President Jacob Zuma, asking to be reinstated. As easy as that.
The board of inquiry has turned in it’s 113 page report whether or not Cele is fit to hold office. The report was handed to the Office of the Presidency on Sunday, but has now been leaked to the media.
If you’ve gone through security at an airport recently, and I mean it real security, not the quick glance-and-pat that we have here in SA, then you’ll know that sneaking anything onto a plane is damn near impossible. Even a bottle of water. Which is why this woman’s threat was so unique.
A number of commenters have expressed the opinion that the scene of the defacing of Brett Murray’s The Spear in the Goodman Gallery was a set up. Citing the inch-perfect framing of the camera, as well as the fact that the camera was trained on the painting at the exact moment of its vandalism, commenters […]