Newsdeck
While you were sleeping: 22 March 2018
Facebook apologises over data breach, Australia doesn't apologise over racist immigration policy, and Austin bomber commits suicide, confesses.
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Thursday, 22 March 2018
“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world, For I would ride with you upon the wind, Run on the top of the dishevelled tide, And dance upon the mountains like a flame.”
WB Yeats
STORY OF THE DAY
TRAINSPOTTER: Landed Gentry – Can the DA’s polite land reform programme save the party from itself?
By RICHARD POPLAK.
Think of it as the “They’re gonna take your house! – but to fend them off, we’ll start handing out title deeds” land reform pitch. At the very least, it’s a strategy.
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING
Facebook apologises for
Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg announced his company’s remorse on Wednesday. Speaking to the media, Zuckerberg said that Facebook had a “responsibility to protect your data”. Cambridge Analytica’s harvesting of 50-million users’ data has sparked an uproar over the failure of Facebook to protect its users. Listening to Zuckerberg, one gets the feeling that the only one allowed to harvest your Facebook data is, well, Facebook.
Trump defends Putin call of praise
President Donald Trump has launched a fervent defence of his message of congratulations to Russian ruler Vladimir Putin. Putin won a not-so-contested election in a not-so-free voting process. Despite notes from advisers explicitly saying “DO NOT CONGRATULATE”, Trump did just that. The president argued that his overtures to Russia were a good thing. After all, it’s not as if an entire history of international relations has shown the dangers of appeasement.
Aussie minister defends racist immigration policy
Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has defended his “White farmers first” special attention programme. Dutton retorted that criticism from “lefties” “meant nothing” and that said detractors were “dead to me”. With the majority of the 500,000-odd white South Africans who left the country headed for Australia in the past 30 years, Dutton clearly would like a few more.
Austin bomber blows himself up
A man suspected of carrying out a series of bombings in Austin, Texas has killed himself. Police had surrounded Mark Conditt at a hotel, after which he detonated an explosive device in his car, killing himself. Conditt had left a recorded video “confession”. Not once did the bomber mention terrorism or hate, but rather a depiction of an individual talking about his very troubled life, leading to this point.
IN NUMBERS
5ft7″
Mark Zuckerberg’s actual height. Most of his photos are staged to hide his
FACTS OF THE DAY
Today is World Water Day. Cape Town is unlikely to be celebrating so much as mourning this event.
There are many depictions in medieval times of knights fighting snails. Nobody knows why.
FEATURED ARTICLES
Dikgang Moseneke: A colossus amid the tawdry scandals of everyday politics
A column by JUDITH FEBRUARY
From the Inside: Western Cape’s efforts not to repeat Life Esidimeni tragedy
A column by HELEN ZILLE
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