Last night: Kan rules Japan, BP tops (but doesn't cap) well, Bangladesh fire, Jupiter explosion, Proteas make a clean sweep. Coming up today: SA gets trophy, Fifa gets SA, minister play soccer, Madiba bridge makeover, Gautrain launch, Pope in Cyprus.
First Thing is an e-mail we make sure lands in your inbox well before 7am every weekday morning. Signing up is quick, free, and easy, and you can do it right now.
As expected, Japan’s ruling Democratic Party elected former finance minister Naoto Kan its new chief, which should now allow him to become prime minister and choose a new cabinet over the next couple of day. Kyodo, CNN
BP managed to cut off a riser pipe at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, using a pair of giant shears after saws failed, and positioned a funnel over the pipe, as planned. However, it was not immediately clear whether the cap could be sealed effectively to the pipe, and how much oil is still escaping. That will be known only during the course of the weekend. AP, UKPA
A fire in an apartment building district of the capital of Bangladesh left 108 people dead, with several more in critical condition. A wedding party on the roof of one of the seven buildings engulfed contributed to the high death toll. BDNews24, Reuters
Two amateur astronomers independently recorded a flash of bright light on Jupiter, thought to be an asteroid strike, and made video of the event available online. That triggered intense, professional observation of the planet in the hopes of gathering more data. Anthony Wesley’s website, SpaceWeather.com
The Proteas made a clean sweep of a third test series against the West Indies in a row, though not with any great margin for error. The Proteas won the fifth match by one wicket, in the last over. Sky, Cricket365
Vladimir Arnold, arguably the most important Russian mathematician of the 20th century, died on the operating table in France. He was 73. RT, AFP
In a hugely symbolic action, Fifa President Joseph “Sepp” Blatter will today hand acting South African President Kgalema Motlanthe the solid gold World Cup trophy. While Motlanthe will, implicitly, hand Blatter control of the country in return. Though it’s not like either of them get to keep what they get for very long, so it’s less of a big deal than it may seem at first glance.
With that out of the way, those cabinet ministers who are around (and not, say, in India) will play a game of six-a-side soccer on the lawns of the Union Buildings. We suspect this too will be purely symbolic, because there is not a man or woman among them we rate able to go two minutes in a real soccer game.
You can already drive across the Nelson Mandela bridge between Newtown and Braamfontein in Johannesburg, and as of recently you drive across Mandela’s face doing so. Today Joburg mayor Amos Masondo will unveil some more posters of Madiba on the bridge, absolutely guaranteeing that it will be unusable for being thronged by foreigners taking pictures of one another over the next six weeks.
There’s a big media launch for the Gautrain this morning, or the Airport-to-Sandton train, as it is more accurately known, so if you go anywhere near the tracks you should see it zipping up and down. But mere mortals only get to ride it from Tuesday.
And just in case you don’t yet get the sense that this is a Gauteng World Cup rather than a South African one, the ANC is closing down the streets around its downtown Joburg headquarters for a street party this afternoon. It has promised diski dancers and, if you can stand the excitement, speeches by various leaders.
The Pope starts a visit to Cyprus today, where he promises to do some exciting stuff. He’ll be staying in a monastery right in the middle of the buffer zone that separates the two parts of the island. He also has a meeting scheduled with the the Orthodox Archbishop, His Beatitude Chrysostomos the Second, which, if his life were a graphic novel scripted by the Vatican, would have been his evil arch-nemesis.
The wife, the bodyguard and the cuckolded president. President Jacob Zuma, that is It would have been funny, the fact that polygamist Jacob Zuma apparently got cheated on by wife number two, and that his next child may actually have been fathered by one of his bodyguards. But with at least one death apparently involved, and the spectre of the president being more than a little distracted by his personal troubles, it really doesn’t seem all that amusing.
WikiLeaks, scourge of governments and banks, goes mainstream The latest issue of the New Yorker magazine contains an in-depth and first-of-a-kind feature on the inner working of WikiLeaks, the Website that publishes the most confidential documents of your friendly government or bank. But is this stamp of approval from mainstream society necessarily a good thing?
Analysis: Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama falls on his own sword As if Japan didn’t have enough on its plate trying to re-energise its stagnant economy, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has resigned. Like politicians the world over, he’s found out the hard way that voters really do listen to those campaign promises – and punish their popularity ratings once they don’t keep them. In this case, the voters’ sense of betrayal revolved around the little matter of a US military base in Okinawa.
Liquid mountaineering – extreme sport & undercover marketing All the cool kids in Europe are taking up liquid mountaineering (that’s walking on water if you’re unfamiliar with the craze). There’s only one snag to attaining prophet-like superpowers: it seems you’ll need a pair of Hi-Tec shoes first.
Larry King’s ratings are dead, long live the King CNN, which turns 30-years-old this year, appears to have an identity crisis – and Larry King is at the heart of it. How does the news network regain its place atop the ratings when it doesn’t sell sex or opinion?
It’s not rocket science, just Coke and Mentos Shopping list: 108 2-litre bottles of Coke Zero, 638 Mentos. Just add two mad scientists and you have (most of) the ingredients you need to propel a rocket car.
Motoring – New BMW 5-Series: Does Five count for more than Seven? It was inevitable. The new BMW 5-Series was always going to be bigger, better engineered and more advanced than its predecessor. But does that make it a superior product? And to what extent is it encroaching on the territory occupied by the flagship 7-Series?
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
__cfduid
1 month
The cookie is used by cdn services like CloudFlare to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not correspond to any user ID in the web application and does not store any personally identifiable information.
_GRECAPTCHA
5 months 27 days
This cookie is set by Google. In addition to certain standard Google cookies, reCAPTCHA sets a necessary cookie (_GRECAPTCHA) when executed for the purpose of providing its risk analysis.
cid
1 year
This is an important cookie in making credit card transaction on the website. It allows the online transaction without storing the credit card information.This service is provided by Stripe.com.
connect.sid
1 month
This cookie is used for authentication and for secure log-in. It registers the log-in information.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
elementor
never
This cookie is used by the website's WordPress theme. It allows the website owner to implement or change the website's content in real-time.
JSESSIONID
session
Used by sites written in JSP. General purpose platform session cookies that are used to maintain users' state across page requests.
PHPSESSID
session
This cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed.
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Cookie
Duration
Description
__atuvc
1 year 1 month
This cookie is set by Addthis to make sure you see the updated count if you share a page and return to it before our share count cache is updated.
__atuvs
30 minutes
This cookie is set by Addthis to make sure you see the updated count if you share a page and return to it before our share count cache is updated.
__cf_bm
30 minutes
This cookie is set by CloudFlare. The cookie is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management.
__pvi
1 day
This cookie is used for the implementation of the news content from other sites.
bcookie
2 years
This cookie is set by linkedIn. The purpose of the cookie is to enable LinkedIn functionalities on the page.
lidc
1 day
This cookie is set by LinkedIn and used for routing.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Cookie
Duration
Description
d
3 months
This cookie tracks anonymous information on how visitors use the website.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Cookie
Duration
Description
__gads
1 year 24 days
This cookie is set by Google and stored under the name dounleclick.com. This cookie is used to track how many times users see a particular advert which helps in measuring the success of the campaign and calculate the revenue generated by the campaign. These cookies can only be read from the domain that it is set on so it will not track any data while browsing through another sites.
_ga
2 years
This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_ga_Y7XD5FHQVG
2 years
This cookie is installed by Google Analytics.
_gat_UA-10686674-1
1 minute
This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites.
_gid
1 day
This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visted in an anonymous form.
ajs_anonymous_id
never
This cookie is set by Segment.io to check the number of ew and returning visitors to the website.
ajs_user_id
never
The cookie is set by Segment.io and is used to analyze how you use the website
ANON_ID
3 months
This cookie is provided by Tribalfusion. The cookie is used to give a unique number to visitors, and collects data on user behaviour like what page have been visited. This cookie also helps to understand which sale has been generated by as a result of the advertisement served by third party.
jam_heavy_ga_session
5 years
This cookie is installed by Google Analytics.
UserID1
3 months
The cookie sets a unique anonymous ID for a website visitor. This ID is used to continue to identify users across different sessions and track their activities on the website. The data collected is used for analysis.
uvc
1 year 1 month
The cookie is set by addthis.com to determine the usage of Addthis.com service.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Cookie
Duration
Description
__tbc
2 years
This cookie is used for measuring the efficiency of advertisement by registering data on visitors from multiple website.
_cc_aud
8 months 26 days
The cookie is set by crwdcntrl.net. The purpose of the cookie is to collect statistical information in an anonymous form about the visitors of the website. The data collected include number of visits, average time spent on the website, and the what pages have been loaded. These data are then used to segment audiences based on the geographical location, demographic, and user interest provide relevant content and for advertisers for targeted advertising.
_cc_cc
session
The cookie is set by crwdcntrl.net. The purpose of the cookie is to collect statistical information in an anonymous form about the visitors of the website. The data collected include number of visits, average time spent on the website, and the what pages have been loaded. These data are then used to segment audiences based on the geographical location, demographic, and user interest provide relevant content and for advertisers for targeted advertising.
_cc_dc
8 months 26 days
The cookie is set by crwdcntrl.net. The purpose of the cookie is to collect statistical information in an anonymous form about the visitors of the website. The data collected include number of visits, average time spent on the website, and the what pages have been loaded. These data are then used to segment audiences based on the geographical location, demographic, and user interest provide relevant content and for advertisers for targeted advertising.
_cc_id
8 months 26 days
The cookie is set by crwdcntrl.net. The purpose of the cookie is to collect statistical information in an anonymous form about the visitors of the website. The data collected include number of visits, average time spent on the website, and the what pages have been loaded. These data are then used to segment audiences based on the geographical location, demographic, and user interest provide relevant content and for advertisers for targeted advertising.
_kuid_
5 months 27 days
The cookie is set by Krux Digital under the domain krxd.net. The cookie stores a unique ID to identify a returning user for the purpose of targeted advertising.
_rxuuid
1 year
The main purpose of this cookie is targeting, advertesing and effective marketing. This cookie is used to set a unique ID to the visitors, which allow third party advertisers to target the visitors with relevant advertisement up to 1 year.
ANON_ID_old
3 months
This cookie helps to categorise the users interest and to create profiles in terms of resales of targeted marketing. This cookie is used to collect user information such as what pages have been viewed on the website for creating profiles.
bscookie
2 years
This cookie is a browser ID cookie set by Linked share Buttons and ad tags.
CMID
1 year
The cookie is set by CasaleMedia. The cookie is used to collect information about the usage behavior for targeted advertising.
CMPRO
3 months
This cookie is set by Casalemedia and is used for targeted advertisement purposes.
CMPS
3 months
This cookie is set by Casalemedia and is used for targeted advertisement purposes.
CMST
1 day
The cookie is set by CasaleMedia. The cookie is used to collect information about the usage behavior for targeted advertising.
DSID
1 hour
This cookie is setup by doubleclick.net. This cookie is used by Google to make advertising more engaging to users and are stored under doubleclick.net. It contains an encrypted unique ID.
google_push
5 minutes
This cookie is set by the Bidswitch. This cookie is used to collect statistical data related to the user website visit such as the number of visits, average time spent on the website and what pages have been loaded. This collected information is used to sort out the users based on demographics and geographical locations inorder to serve them with relevant online advertising.
i
1 year
The purpose of the cookie is not known yet.
id
3 months
The main purpose of this cookie is targeting and advertising. It is used to create a profile of the user's interest and to show relevant ads on their site. This Cookie is set by DoubleClick which is owned by Google.
IDE
1 year 24 days
Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
IDSYNC
1 year
This cookie is used for advertising purposes.
KADUSERCOOKIE
3 months
The cookie is set by pubmatic.com for identifying the visitors' website or device from which they visit PubMatic's partners' website.
KTPCACOOKIE
1 day
This cookie is set by pubmatic.com for the purpose of checking if third-party cookies are enabled on the user's website.
ljt_reader
1 year
This is a Lijit Advertising Platform cookie. The cookie is used for recognizing the browser or device when users return to their site or one of their partner's site.
loc
1 year 1 month
This cookie is set by Addthis. This is a geolocation cookie to understand where the users sharing the information are located.
mc
1 year 1 month
This cookie is associated with Quantserve to track anonymously how a user interact with the website.
mt_mop
1 month
Stores information about how the user uses the website such as what pages have been loaded and any other advertisement before visiting the website for the purpose of targeted advertisements.
personalization_id
2 years
This cookie is set by twitter.com. It is used integrate the sharing features of this social media. It also stores information about how the user uses the website for tracking and targeting.
suid_legacy
1 year
This cookie is used to collect information on user preference and interactioin with the website campaign content. This cookie is used for promoting events and products by the webiste owners on CRM-campaign-platform.
TDCPM
1 year
The cookie is set by CloudFlare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.
TDID
1 year
The cookie is set by CloudFlare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.
test_cookie
15 minutes
This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
tluid
3 months
This cookie is set by the provider AdRoll.This cookie is used to identify the visitor and to serve them with relevant ads by collecting user behaviour from multiple websites.
tuuid
1 year
This cookie is set by .bidswitch.net. The cookies stores a unique ID for the purpose of the determining what adverts the users have seen if you have visited any of the advertisers website. The information is used for determining when and how often users will see a certain banner.
tuuid_lu
1 year
This cookie is set by .bidswitch.net. The cookies stores a unique ID for the purpose of the determining what adverts the users have seen if you have visited any of the advertisers website. The information is used for determining when and how often users will see a certain banner.
uid
5 months 27 days
This cookie is used to measure the number and behavior of the visitors to the website anonymously. The data includes the number of visits, average duration of the visit on the website, pages visited, etc. for the purpose of better understanding user preferences for targeted advertisments.
uuid
1 year 27 days
To optimize ad relevance by collecting visitor data from multiple websites such as what pages have been loaded.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
5 months 27 days
This cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website.
wfivefivec
1 year 1 month
The domain of this cookie is owned by Dataxu. The main business activity of this cookie is targeting and advertising. This cookie tracks the advertisement report which helps us to improve the marketing activity.
xbc
2 years
This cookie is used for optmizing the advertisement on the website more relevant by analysing the user behaviour and interaction with the website.
YSC
session
This cookies is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos.
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
Cookie
Duration
Description
__cflb
23 hours
This cookie is used by Cloudflare for load balancing.
ajs_group_id
never
This cookie is set by Segment.io. The purpose of the cookie is currently not identified.
revengine-browser-token
session
RevEngine Data Tool.
UserMatchHistory
1 month
Linkedin - Used to track visitors on multiple websites, in order to present relevant advertisement based on the visitor's preferences.
vicinity_id
1 year 10 months 24 days 11 hours
Vicinity Advertising.
Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted
Become an Insider
There are many great benefits to being a Maverick Insider. Removing advertising from your browsing experience is one of them - we don't just block ads, we redesign our pages to look smarter and load faster.
Click here to see other benefits and to sign-up to our reader community supporting quality, independent journalism.