Africa

President Jacob Zuma has condemned the practice of using his name and that of Cabinet Ministers to secure privileges or flout government procedures.

Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz just announced that it invested $60 million in a startup called Zimride. Zimride makes a car-sharing/semi-pro taxi service called Lyft. How it works: You open an app on your smartphone to summon a driver to take you somewhere. A car with a big, fuzzy pink mustache affixed to its front arrives to pick you up. The person who picks you up is not a professional driver, but another Lyft user. Zimride, which is only a year old, plans to use the $60 million to expand beyond its current markets. The funding enters Lyft into more serious competition with Uber and GroundLink, another two startups with apps people can use to summon taxi rides. Uber has raised the most capital of the three, and has the lead in terms of adoption. Andreessen Horowitz partner Scott Weiss, who is leading the deal for his firm, wrote a blog post about it. It's a worthwhile read, as it gets into the interesting story of how Zimride's cofounders came up with the idea… It’s Time for Lyft off!When I first met Logan Green and John Zimmer nearly a year ago, I was struck by the authenticity of Lyft’s founding. Originally called Zimride, everyone assumed the company was named after John but it’s actually a much better story: When Logan was traveling in Africa — Zimbabwe, to be exact — he noticed that despite the lack of infrastructure, people were able to get around efficiently thanks to a vibrant ridesharing movement. Every car, van and bus was full and people would literally stand on the side of the road waving money instead of sticking out their thumbs. [picture] At nearly the same time, John was sitting in a college course exploring the history of transportation: canals, trains, and then roads and planes. He wondered to himself, what would be the next big innovation in transportation? He thought, “I’ll bet it’s about using information to fill seats — especially all those empty seats i n cars.” I’m acutely aware of John and Logan’s observations when I’m sitting alone in my 7-passenger minivan on the 101 inching along while others are zooming past me in the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane. These are times when I really wish I had a few extra people in the car! But it’s just not that simple — I don’t want to go way out of my way and I want to feel comfortable picking up someone new. With this unique vision in mind, John and Logan went about launching Zimride and Lyft. The information technology problem was essentially solved with the proliferation of GPS-enabled smartphones. If they could get a critical mass of people on the same network with information about when and where people wanted to go, it would be relatively easy to pair up drivers and riders that were headed in the same direction. But how to get it started? And what about safety? The first incarnation, Zimride, launched in 2007, tackling these issues by targeting college students headed home on holiday. Logan and John’s big insight was that by using Facebook profile information via Facebook Connect, both the drivers and the riders could find out about each other to develop enough trust to get into a car together. As a driver, you’d post the where and when details of your trip and then passengers would apply for a ride with a predetermined chip-in. Over the years they have showed steady and solid growth and built a real community of people making friends and sharing rides. Last June, they launched Lyft in San Francisco, a made-for-mobile, ridesharing app that was geared towards ridesharing within a city as opposed to between cities. Since its launch, Lyft has absolutely exploded and is now doing over 30,000 rides per week! Now active in four major cities and expanding at a blazing pace to meet demand, the key for Lyft has been the community. Lyft has a very different offering and experience than anything else in this space. To be

Build-A-Bear Workshop and Guests Send Hugs to Children and Families Affected by Oklahoma Tragedy ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Build-A-Bear Workshop® announced today initiatives to provide support for children and families affected by the tornado that devastated Moore, OK and surrounding areas earlier this week. The company is inviting its Guests to share the hug of a teddy bear through several initiatives. Nationally, Guests can donate $1 or more to the American Red Cross at Build-A-Bear Workshop stores or online at buildabear.com. In Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Guests can make bears for local children affected by the tornado. Additionally, the Build-A-Bear Workshop Foundation has contributed $2,500 to DonorsChoose.org for a specially directed teacher program to rebuild the schools in Oklahoma that were hit hardest by the storm and replenish classroom supplies in the upcoming months of recovery. Beginning Friday, May 24, the company is launching this special effort to help the families and children affected by the storms. Through June 2, Guests can donate $1 or more at checkout in any United States Build-A-Bear Workshop retail location or online at buildabear.com to benefit the American Red Cross. A gift to the American Red Cross will help people affected by the Oklahoma tornado and other disasters around the country. "Our hearts and hugs go out to the victims and their families affected by this terrible tragedy," said Maxine Clark, Build-A-Bear Workshop founder and chief executive bear. "It is during these most difficult times that we are reminded of the comfort a teddy bear can bring. We would like to thank the many Guests who have contacted us to support Oklahoma with their contributions and efforts. We are proud to work together to make a difference and provide relief where it is needed the most during this difficult time." Build-A-Bear Workshop is hosting Stuffed with Hugs® (SWH), its signature bear-making event, for those in need of a teddy bear hug at its stores in Penn Square Mall, Oklahoma City and Woodland Hills Mall, Tulsa Saturday, May 25 through Monday, May 27. The first 250 Guests in each store will have the opportunity to make special bears for free to be donated to the children and families affected by the tornado. In addition, anyone who wishes to purchase a stuffed animal to donate to the SWH effort will be given a 10% service project discount. The company will continue collecting bears at these locations through Memorial Day, May 27. Build-A-Bear Workshop believes in the teddy bear philosophy of being good people and good bears. Since its inception in 1997, the company has shared the hug of a teddy bear wherever needed in local communities and abroad. Build-A-Bear Workshop gives Guests opportunities to support the causes that are important to them and through its corporate donations and foundation grant programs, has given more than $40 million to children's health and wellness, animals, literacy and other important causes. About Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc. Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc. is the only global company that offers an interactive make-your-own stuffed animal retail-entertainment experience. There are more than 400 Build-A-Bear Workshop stores worldwide, including company-owned stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and franchise stores in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, the Middle East, Mexico and South America. Founded in St. Louis in 1997, Build-A-Bear Workshop is the leader in interactive retail. Brands include make-your-own Major League Baseball® mascot in-stadium locations, and Build-A-Dino® stores. Build-A-Bear Workshop extends its in-store interactive experience online with its award winning virtual world website at bearville.com™. The company was named to the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® list for the fifth year in a row in 2013. Build-A-Bear Workshop

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 269 1535 Rubypseudo 12 3 1885 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;} Ruby:Last summer, we took Nate, who's Nigerian, to uh, Nigeria. He'd never been before... Whilst I prepared by reading Noo Saro-Wiwa's 'Looking For Transwonderland' book [it's amazing, read it], Nate had essentially been prepared his whole life... [If you'd seen him laughing so much he couldn't breathe in the office watching this, you'd have laughed too]... When we got there, along with Australian Jimmy, Rosie, Ben, Tamika and I, we'd get cut off by the time we tried to introduce Nate: 'He's Nigerian, we know', they'd say, before saying 'he's like Lost and Found' [it became the nickname the sassy translators used for him too...] Here, he gives his views on youth culture out there and how things aren't as different as you might think... It's a point we're gonna keep making huh ;)Pseudo. xNate:Having never travelled to Nigeria before - yet being raised in a Nigerian household - is a funny thing... You hear about the customs of the country, the attitude of the people, you eat the food, learn some Yuroba and hear stories about the strict schooling system and police corruption. It all kind of leaves you with a pixilated view of country that you have vast attachment to... As I said, it’s weird...This pixilated view didn’t allow me any understanding of what you youth would be doing out there though, you'd think it didn't exist... My mothers/aunts/uncles/whomever's stories didn’t leave me with any inkling of an insight either... I had no idea what the latest trends and influence would be that'd be popping in 2012...During my time there, and through the hundreds of conversations I found myself in, I found that the young aren’t up to stuff too dissimilar to the young people here... They hang out... They watch sports... They play football, play pool, play around... They smoke, drink, do drugs, laugh... all that stuff. They may have to travel further to actually get to the TV station in town, yea, and they may not be able to afford the same amount of drinks as we thirstily [dumbly] do and the green they are smoking is definitely brown, but still... It ain't that different... There's definitely a Western influence thing going on yea, but the kids there are still very attached and proud of their countries own output, and damn, they should be... Nollywood movies, watched all over Africa, is now an industry worth around $250m that churns out 200 home movies every month... Their hip-hop and R'n'B continues to hold it's own too, with artists like Dbanj, P-Square’s and WizKid all making it big across the rest of Africa too and even infiltrating our radios making sound-waves... P-Square's infectious [to the point of it being annoying] 'Chop My Money' song with Akon has a video to match any of those coming out of America; white expensive car? Check. Pretty girl spending [chopping] all your money? Check. You and your friends laughing it off in a club? Check... Diamonds, in ears, on fingers, on handbags? Check. Dance move anyone can mimic across the world? Yea, course... And then there's WizKid, who has a deal with Pepsi, if you were having trouble getting away from Chop My Money, getting away from WizKid's face was just as hard... Naturally, the guys I was chatting to were telling me they liked his 'swagger' [yea, really], and had started copying his 'carrot jeans' or 'swagger trousers' [trouser

Thandora, the elephant re-introduced into the wild in late April, has finally ditched her human helpers, and joined up with a group of elephants at the Gondwana Game Reserve.

Scientists have discovered a 10-metre-high rock of granite deep in the Atlantic, more than 8,000 feet beneath the sea in a region known as the Rio Grande Elevation (Google auto-translation; original Portuguese webpage). It is believed that this formation could be part of a lost continent, something formed when South Africa split from Africa, around 100 million years ago. The formation was found by an Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC; mentioned previously) expedition, dubbed QUELLE2013. "Quelle" means "roots" or "origin" in German, and stands for "Quest for the Limit of Life." The project is a yearlong mission involves exploring hydrothermal vent fields, submarine seepage sites, deep-sea trenches and other extreme environments to explore the habitable limits of life and its unique survival strategies. According to a JAMSTEC official, the finding was "not totally a coincidence." They had been aware that Brazilian scientists had collected what appeared to be granite in the area, but it remained a mystery whether the granite was intrinsic or whether it had been dropped by ships passing through, the official said. Scientists plan to drill for more samples later this year, as further conformation is needed. Geology Service of Brazil (CPRM) geology director Roberto Ventura Santos said If it is the case that we find a continent in the middle of the ocean, it will be a very big discovery that could have various implications in relation to the extension of the continental shelf. As is the case with any mysterious, submerged "lost continent," (previously) talk of Atlantis gets bandied about. "We speak of Atlantis more in terms of symbolism," Santos noted. "Obviously, we don't expect to find a lost city in the middle of the Atlantic."

Springbok captain Jean de Villiers is set to eclipse Corné Krige as the most capped Stormers captain in Super Rugby.

Ajax Cape Town have confirmed that striker Mabhuti Khenyeza has agreed to terms for a two-year contract with the club.

Two Northern Cape opposition parties have stayed away from a provincial budget sitting in Kimberley because it was being attended by two MECs accused of fraud.

The deaths of young initiates after circumcision ceremonies cannot be tolerated, President Jacob Zuma says, following the deaths of 30 boys at initiation schools in Mpumalanga.