Phuza Thursday

2 June 2011

Eight Million SA Cellphones To Be Switched Off - In November Cabinet approved a six-month extension of the deadline for operators to register their customers’ details including identity numbers and addresses. SA mobile operators MTN, Vodacom and Cell C now face the daunting prospect of switching off approximately eight million SIM cards at the end of the month in order to comply with Regulation of Interception of Communication Act. [businesslive]

Sepp Blatter Re-Elected, Calls For Reform – Sepp Blatter has been re-elected as Fifa President – before promising to reform the organisation in the wake of damaging corruption allegations. Just 17 of the 203 voting members failed to cast their ballot for the incumbent, who was the sole candidate after his only opponent pulled out amid an alleged vote-buying scandal. [skynews]

The New Age Loses Second Editor – NEW media daily The New Age yesterday confirmed that its editor, Henry Jeffreys, had resigned, making him the second editor to leave the publication in its six-month history. The pro-government newspaper has had a short and chequered history, failing to meet its October launch date last year after a walkout by five of its senior staff, including editor Vuyo Mvoko. [businessday]

New York Hotel Maids Get Panic Buttons - The Pierre hotel has suspended a supervisor and agreed to equip all room attendants with panic buttons in the wake of two alleged sexual attacks on Manhattan hotel housekeepers in about as many weeks. The decision came after meetings with union officials, who pressed for strengthened protection for workers. [wallstreetjournal]

Swazi Teachers Demand King Mswati Asset Freeze - About 3 000 Swazi teachers marched to the South African and American embassies on Wednesday to appeal for an international asset freeze against King Mswati III, Africa’s last absolute monarch. The royal family’s budget allocation this year (excluding overseas trips) was $30-million — 20% more than last year. [mail&guardian]

World’s First BMX Triple-Backflip - Jed Mildon, 24, became the first person to to do a triple backflip on a BMX bike at the weekend despite believing he was going to die doing it. The New Zealander performed three full backwards rotations on his bicycle after riding down a 20-metre ramp and then up a 3.6-metre ramp to get airborne. [telegraph]

Lance Amstrong’s Lawyers Want Apology - Attorneys for Lance Armstrong demand an on-air apology from “60 Minutes” after the head of Switzerland’s anti-doping laboratory denied allegations he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs at the 2001 Tour de Suisse. [timeslive]

South Korea Troops Told To Stop Using Kim Jong Il For Target Practice – South Korea will tell army training centres to stop using pictures of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and his son as targets on rifle ranges, the defence ministry said. Several training centres for marines, ground troops and army reservists, including those in Gyeonggi province surrounding the capital Seoul, have been using the pictures as targets. [yahoo]

‘Rocky’ Musical On The Cards - What rhymes with “Yo, Adrian!”? The answer may lie with Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, a Tony Award-winning songwriting team (“Ragtime”), who along with the book writer Thomas Meehan are deep into a stage musical adaptation of the boxing-cum-romantic drama “Rocky,” the winner of the 1976 Academy Award for best picture. [newyorktimes]

Shaquille O’Neal Retires - Shaquille O’Neal, the man with four rings, 28,596 career points and scores of nicknames, has finally decided to call it quits, ending one of the most colorful careers in NBA history that will surely culminate with a Hall of Fame induction. Surely. [espn]

Google Admits They ‘Screwed Up’ With That ‘Friend Thing’ – In a wide-ranging keynote interview at the D9: All Things Digital conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., Tuesday, Mr. Schmidt said Google had missed on “the friend thing”—including valuable information about who users and their friends are, which can be used to improve the information delivered to them. “In the online world you need to know who you are dealing with,” said Mr. Schmidt. [wallstreetjournal]

Naomi Campbell In Chocolate Race Row With Cadbury – Cadbury is facing the prospect of a black consumer boycott after it compared Naomi Campbell to a chocolate bar in a new advertising campaign. The supermodel is incensed that Cadbury used her name in the strap line to promote its new chocolate bar called Bliss, accusing the company of racism. [independent]

Woman Develops Foreign Accent Syndrome – When Karen Butler went in for dental surgery, she left with more than numb gums: She also picked up a pronounced foreign accent. It wasn’t a fluke, or a joke — she’d developed a rare condition called foreign accent syndrome that’s usually caused by an injury to the part of the brain that controls speech. [npr]

Steve Martin Art Scandal - It sounds like a case for Inspector Clouseau. The actor Steve Martin has been named as a victim in one of the great art scams of recent times, after it emerged that he spent 700,000 euros on a modernist painting which turned out to be faked. The Pink Panther star was among dozens of collectors who unwittingly purchased artworks from a prolific group of suspected conmen. [independent]

Is Love The Antidote For Addiction? - While love doesn’t always conquer all, it can be a potent antidote to addiction, according to a growing body of research. The latest study on the matter examined male prairie vole (a small rodent similar in stature to a hamster) behavior, finding that those that had bonded to a female partner were less interested in taking amphetamine than bachelor voles. [time]

Cliff Huxtable’s Mother Has Died - Clarice Taylor, known for her role as Bill Cosby’s mom on “The Cosby Show,” died of heart failure on Monday. The actress gained an Emmy nomination in 1986 for her role as Anne Huxtable on the famous sitcom. In addition to The Cosby Show, Taylor also made frequent appearances in the 80′s as the country-loving grandmother “Harriet” on “Sesame Street”. [tmz]

Thursday Is “Vote For Table Mountain” Day - Table Mountain is at the bottom of the final 28, in the running to be one of the new seven wonders of nature. Table Mountain needs YOU to vote at least every Thursday. We need 30 million votes to make the final 7.  You can vote on the website or by SMSing the word ‘table’ to 34874 (SMS cost R2). You can vote once on the website and as many times as you want on SMS. come on, gang, let’s do this thing!  [votefortablemountain.com]