On Monday, the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs in South Africa, Edna Molewa, met with the Minister of Tourism in Mozambique, Fernando Sumbana Junior. They met in Pretoria to discuss solutions to the rhino poaching epidemic occurring in the Kruger National Park. This is what they’ve concluded so far.
You may never have heard of TV celebrity and author Zanele Mbokazi. It would mean you’ve never watched SABC1’s Gospel Gold show, for which she used to be presenter, but anything’s possible. However all of that is beside the point. Because Zanele is now even more famous for something else: helping to bust some very naughty SAPS officers on Sunday.
This morning there was an explosion at the Mugg & Bean at the Festival Park in Kempton Park. 10 people have been reported injured, with three of them in critical condition.
Convicted murderer, Donovan Moodley has lost his application at the South Gauteng High Court to have his conviction for murder overturned. Now the man that kidnapped and murdered 21-year old Leigh Matthews, and then tried to extort money from her father, will return to jail to serve the rest of his life sentence.
It’s going to be harder and harder for people to believe that James Murdoch didn’t know how bad the phone and email hacking situation was at News International. New evidence has emerged showing that emails sent to James that said: “it is as bad as we feared,” were deleted days before a Scotland Yard investigation began.
Barely a month after Nolubabalo Nobanda made international headlines for trying to bring cocaine into Thailand via her dreadlocks, another South African has been caught smuggling drugs. Patience Monkei-Khame was arrested over the weekend in Malawi, after four kilograms of nose candy was found hidden in a baby pram she was pushing.
So! The shutdown MegaUpload and charging of founders with piracy ostensibly started with a copyright scuffle between the filesharing site and the Universal Music Group. Except the shut-down was also timed to scupper MegaBox, a venture to sell artist’s work directly to consumers while letting artists keep 90 percent of earnings. Raised eyebrows all around.
Greeks are amongst the most notorious tax dodgers in the world. Currently, Greece has about 60 billion Euros in unpaid taxes outstanding – a figure equivalent to about a quarter of its total economy. Athens decided to release a list on Sunday that published the names of some of the 4 000 known dodgers.
Members of “hacktivist” group Anonymous have denied that they’re planning an attack on Facebook, in spite of a video claiming to speak for the group that has declared that the social network will be brought down on January 28th. This would be the second fake Anonymous threat in some months.
Bryanston school kids and their parents may still be recovering from the drama on show this morning outside Bryanston Parallel Medium Primary. The school was the scene of a police shoot-out at around 07h20.
Man, Samsung, you guys have been losing pretty much everything against Apple in the past couple of weeks. Germany’s Mannheim Regional court reached a decision on one point of the continuing lawsuit between Apple and Samsung, rejecting the claim that Apple have infringed upon Samsung’s German 3G patents.
A new report indicates a worrying trend in security conscious South Africa: people by and large prefer relying on private security companies to keep them safe, which is bad news for our official protectors, the South African Polic Service.
Obviously. The credibility of Rupert Murdoch’s News International has been thrown into further disarray as the media giant finally admitted in the High Court that it had also illegally been accessing emails. This follows the emergence of some 36 hacking settlements yesterday.
Yesterday the popular file-sharing site, MegaUpload was taken down by the US government. In response, hackers aligned with the global cyber-collective known as Anonymous took down at least six prominent websites, including those of the US Department of Justice and Universal Music Group.
A British man has been arrested and questioned by UK police regarding his involvement in the alleged theft of a fragment of a statue of Saddam Hussein from Iraq in 2003, more specifically its ass.
A short while ago, Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper company agreed to pay damages to 36 high-profile victims of tabloid phone-hacking. On top of this, News Corp has acknowledged to victims that executives covered up the scale of the unlawful activity by destroying evidence and lying to investigators.
This is sort of like Robocop! Brazilian police forces are testing out glasses fitted out with cameras linked to a central computer network that stores a database of criminal suspects’ faces, so that they’ll be able to arrest people during the 2014 World Cup without having to ask them their names.
In what must be some of the creepiest news to emerge (this week) from what is admittedly a pretty weird place, a number of human body parts have been found scattered around the famous Hollywood Hills sign in Los Angeles. The LAPD says a severed human head was found in the area yesterday, and since then the discovery of “pairs of hands and feet” has also been reported.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has today written a letter published in The Star newspaper asking that we no longer refer to Johan Kotzé, the Limpopo rape and murder accused, as “the monster from Modimolle”. He says Kotzé is still one of God’s children “with the capacity to become a saint.”
A police investigation has been opened in Brazil after a Big Brother contestent was thrown out of the house for “inappropriate behaviour”. The 31 year-old male model was accused of sexually assaulting one of his housemates. A little tricky to dodge such allegations if the house you’re living in is filled with cameras.
In retaliation against Saudi Arabian hacker 0xOmar, who leaked the credit card details of 15 000 Israeli nationals and took down a secondary Tel Aviv stock exchange site last week, Israeli hackers calling themselves the #IDF-team have targeted stock exchanges in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates yesterday.
On Sunday a second set of nude pictures of Khanyi Mbau appeared on Twitter. The Film and Publication Board said yesterday that the police would be asked to help with investigations. They also warned that people who post such pictures on social networks might be held criminally liable. OFFICE WARNING: Nudity may appear after you click.
While the rest of the country was enjoying their New Year celebrations, a group of cyber hackers was also enjoying theirs. The National Intelligence Agency has launched an investigation after a cybercrime syndicate managed to steal R42 million from SA Post Office financial institution, Postbank.
A UK judge ruled this week that Richard O’Dwyer, an English university student, can be extradited to the United States to face charges of copyright infringement – O’Dwyer being the former administrator of TVShack, a website that linked to pirated content. This sets a dangerous legal precedent for anybody who does anything fun on the internet.
Morning spice reported that a dog attacked a two-year-old girl at Clifton’s first beach on Wednesday this morning. It turns out that the same dog whisperer, James Lech, responsible for a dog that mauled a girl in a similar attack last year, is responsible for this latest incident too.
Once only confined to smoky speakeasies and gambling halls, the Italian Mafia has now spread to every corner of Italy. A recent study has revealed that The Mafia is now the biggest business in Italy – with an annual turnover of €160 billion. Italy’s four Mafia groups also hold about €65 billion in cash reserves, effectively making them Italy’s biggest bank.
On the back of the dreadful news that eight rhino carcasses were found in the Kruger National Park within the space of 24 hours the day before yesterday, a South African columnist and well respected journalist has asked whether we should be farming rhino.
Cape Town police arrested an as yet un-named man today holding a virtual armoury of weapons, and a literal pharmacy of illegal narcotics in Woodstock. What was this man on a mission packing? We’ve got the whole list!
Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief, and News of the World editor, is enjoying a sabbatical in Cape Town. Cutting a notably different appearance from the fiery redhead we’re used to, the media mogul has been escaping the phone hacking and corruption scandal that’s followed her around for months.
As South African cricketing legend, Jacques Kallis makes his 150th Test match appearance during the third Test against Sri Lanka at Newlands this week, another international South African cricketer faces a court appearance in Australia for failing a roadside breath test on New Year’s Day.