South Africa, World
While you were sleeping: Tuesday 2nd May 2017
May day marches turn violent, THAAD goes online, and Fyre Festival has a massive lawsuit slapped on them.
Tuesday, 2 May 2017
“I don’t know, it is a very quiet rebellion. (…) I don’t get angry. I sit quietly in the corner and say ‘no’.”
Bobbie Ann Mason
In a year of turning points, the booing of President Jacob Zuma by some parts of Cosatu, and the subsequent decision by the federation’s leadership to simply cancel all of the planned National May Day rally speeches on
Routine May Day marches were marred by violence worldwide. In Paris youths threw Molotov cocktails at police, injuring six officers. In Portland, suspected anarchists assaulted police with soda cans, rocks, and began setting fires ablaze throughout the city. In Paris, protesters were demonstrating on the platform of “fascists out!” Opposing far-right candidates evidently required violence to get the message across.
THAAD missiles now operational in Korea
The installation of several Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) batteries in South Korea has now been declared operational. Designed to intercept ballistic missiles, the deployment of the systems has upset the Chinese apple cart, for whom the missile shield represents a threat to their own ballistic missile capability. Because evidently having the threat of constant missile attack by China is a good enough reason to pull down anti-North Korean missile defences.
Twitter and Bloomberg to launch streaming news
Hold on to your fibre optic cables, streaming news just moved forward a bit. Bloomberg and Twitter announced the launch of a streaming news service later this year. Combining Bloomberg news and info from the social media giant, the service is expected to be launched later this year. Although Bloomberg already has a streaming news channel, this collaborative effort will probably be a lot more user-friendly in its approach.
Fyre Festival to get their pants sued off
Organisers of the shambolic Fyre Festival have been hit with a $100-million lawsuit. Promoted as an event boasting super-luxurious treatment while attending a world-class event, the Fyre Festival was plagued from day one with strong winds destroying the high-end campsites, poor catering, traffic jams, and a general sense of hopeless incompetence. With festival-goers spending up to $100,000 a ticket, a little indignation at such a failure was an inevitability.
IN NUMBERS
38
The percentage of vehicles in 1900 that were electric.
FACTS OF THE DAY
Today in 2011 Osama bin Laden is killed during a US Special Forces raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Babies can support their own weight while hanging from a bar for up to two minutes.
FEATURED ARTICLES
OPINIONISTAS
Does Zuma
A column by SIYA KHUMALO
Lawfare – the ‘Separation of Powers’ will soon come under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons
A column by OSCAR VAN HEERDEN
Weather
BFN: min: 13° max: 26°, sunny
CPT: min: 15° max: 26°, cloudy
DBN: min: 19° max: 26°, sunny
EL: min: 19° max: 25°, cloudy
JHB: min: 9° max: 24°, cloudy
KIM: min: 15° max: 25°, cloudy
NLP: min: 10° max: 25°, cloudy
PMB: min: 10° max: 27°, sunny
PE: min: 18° max: 23°, cloudy
PTA: min: 8° max: 25°, cloudy
Financial Data
Oil=$51.39
Gold=$1,256.14
Platinum=$931.10
R/$=13.42
R/€=14.63
R/£=17.33
$/€=0.91
JSE All Share=53,817.31
DJIA=20,928.93
FTSE 100=7,203.94
Become an Insider