Beyoncé Had a Miscarriage Before Blue Ivy

Arriving two days after the birth of his first daughter with wife Beyoncé Knowles,Blue Ivy Carter, who has been the object of months of anxious speculation by celebrity watchers, the song contains a striking personal revelation. Amid rhyming couplets about paternal pride and spiritual gratefulness—basically a paean to his newborn—Jay-Z drops the bombshell that he and Beyoncé had lost an earlier pregnancy.

“Last time, the miscarriage was so tragic,” he raps on “Glory.” “We was afraid you would disappear. But nah, baby, you magic.”

And with the force of a roadside bomb, word of the miscarriage blasted across the celebrity news cycle—“Beyonce had miscarriage before Blue Ivy,” blared a headline on TMZ, while Radar Online weighed in with “Jay-Z reveals Beyonce’s miscarriage before Blue Ivy was born”—startling fans of both the notoriously guarded rapper and his superstar wife on several front. [thedailybeast]

Court orders Khulubuse Zuma to pay R10m

A Pretoria High Court judge has granted default judgment against the chairman of the liquidated Aurora Empowerment Systems, Khulubuse Zuma, for the payment of more than R10 million.

Judge Ben du Plessis granted the order after security services company Protea Coin Group brought the application when the mining firm defaulted on a settlement deal.

Apart from being ordered to pay R10 034 198 to Protea, Zuma – a nephew of President Jacob Zuma – was also ordered to pay 15.5 percent interest on the amount dating back to November 24, 2010, and the costs of the application. [IOL]

Is OJ Simpson Khloe Kardashian's Dad?

A new bombshell has dropped about Dallas' newest celebrity resident, Khloe Kardashian. Or is it Khlo-J?

A tabloid magazine says OJ Simpson is really Khloe Kardashian's father.

According to the National Enquirer, Simpson used to tell friends that Khloe was his child. And Khloe looks physically similar to Simpson's daughter, Sydney. [Foxnews]

Ship's captain accused of 'showing off'

The death toll in the Italian cruise liner disaster has risen to six as investigators looked into reports that the ship's captain might have been "showing off" when he steered the vessel too close to rocks.

As another body was found on the partly-submerged Costa Concordia, Captain Francesco Schettino's behaviour was under close scrutiny.

He faces accusations that he abandoned the vessel before ensuring that all of the 4,200 people aboard were safely evacuated after the vessel crashed into rocks off the Tuscan coast on Friday night. [Yahoo]

Game rangers kill 2 poachers

 

Game rangers have shot dead two suspected poachers in the Kruger National Park, an official said on Thursday.

 

"During the confrontation, that happened at night, two suspected poachers from Mozambique were fatally wounded," SA National Parks (SANParks) spokesperson Reynold Thakhuli said in a statement.

The rangers were conducting an anti-poaching operation on Wednesday night after eight dehorned rhino carcasses were found on Tuesday. [iafrica]

Mark Zuckerberg’s Outrageous Week in Uruguay

At work, Mark Zuckerberg is the one trying, and often failing, to meet the demands of his 800 million users. But on vacation in Uruguay for eight days, the Facebook CEO gets to be the one issuing requests. And he's a rather insane customer.

The local press is full of stories about the visit by Zuckerberg, his girlfriend, and seven other friends to Punta del Esta, a resort town on the South American country's southeastern coast. The changes demanded by the 27-year-old billionare to the house he's been lent, apparently by a fellow businessman, give a sense of how obsessive-compulsive he can be. [Gawker]

Woman's body discovered on Queen's Estate

A murder investigation has been launched after the discovery of a woman's body on the royal family's estate in Sandringham.

Norfolk police said they did not yet know the identity of the woman, whose remains were found in a copse by a member of the public on New Year's Day.

Police have said that the body had been at that site for between a month and four months.

The area was sealed off as forensic officers carried out a detailed examination of the area.

A spokesman said: "The pathologist believes it is highly unlikely the death was through natural causes. There is no evidence of accidental injury, damage due to firearms or bladed weapon. [Guardian]

Bloggers Paid To Promote Google Chrome

Earlier this week it was revealed that there are literally hundreds of bloggers who were bribed to promote Google Chrome and to claim that their blog’s were “sponsored by Google”. Google’s response has been to point the finger at ad agencies.
Google prides itself on its business integrity, particularly the fact they will not promote links which have been bought or sold that pass PageRank (their in-house algorithm which assigns numerical weighting to links), regardless of quality. However, it seems that that is exactly what the internet giant is guilty of.
Aaron Wall, of SEO Book revealed that a quick search for “This post is sponsored by Google” returned over 400 pages potentially written as part of a Google marketing campaign. Apart from the discovery that a large number of the posts were seemingly written by a computer, they seem to have influenced search results, and in that case would have directly violated Google’s own policies. [2Oceansvibe]

Shell Is Refusing To Clean Up Its African Oil Spill

We covered the Shell Oil Spill when it happened almost two weeks ago. The facts are this: Royal Dutch Shell operates an offshore barreling facility 120km from the Nigerian coast. This was shut down by a spill on the 20th of December. Shell sent out five ships to contain the spill. Oil is now washing up on the Nigerian coast. [2oceansvibe]

Long-awaited Facebook IPO

Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has deflected talk of going public for years but it looks like it is finally going to happen in 2012.

"The Facebook IPO will be the biggest financial event in the tech industry for 2012," Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff said, and one of the biggest initial public offerings ever in the United States.

Nick Einhorn, an analyst at Renaissance Capital, said he expects Facebook to file its IPO paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the first quarter and start trading on Wall Street later in the year.

With an expected deal size of $10 billion, Facebook would slip into sixth place on the list of largest US IPOs between AT&T Wireless Group ($10.62 billion) and Kraft Foods ($8.68 billion), according to Renaissance Capital. [Google]

Hundreds expected at ANC's 100th anniversary

The ruling ANC marks its 100th anniversary this week with a huge celebration attended by dozens of heads of state and buoyed by an unbroken 17 years in power since the end of apartheid.

More than 100 000 people are expected in the central city of Bloemfontein, where the South African Native National Congress was founded on January 08 1912. It was renamed the African National Congress in 1923. [News24]