South Africa

On Monday morning it was revealed that Tim Connelly, former assistant general manager of the New Orleans Hornets, would be the Denver Nuggets’ new Vice President of Basketball Operations. Not much is known about Connelly at this time in terms of his abilities. Those talents can only be revealed after he has assumed his (somewhat titular) GM position in Denver and made moves that can be analyzed. Here is what we do know about his background… From Benjamin Hochman of the Denver Post: Connelly, like Ujiri, is known for his international scouting abilities and has a vast basketball background… “His reputation around the league as a front-office rising star is spot-on,” said Chicago Bulls assistant general manager Brian Hagen, who worked with Connelly in New Orleans. “I think the world of him. He’s a class act who is hard-working, smart and will have a plan and process in place for the Nuggets’ continued success.”… Connelly, 36, joined New Orleans in 2010 after working as the director of player personnel for the Washington Wizards. In New Orleans he worked under Dell Demps. Connelly first got his first NBA experience in 1996, working as an intern for the Wizards. After graduating from Catholic University in Washington D.C. in 1999, he was hired by the Wizards as the assistant video coordinator. He became a scout the following season. From the Nuggets homepage on NBA.com: Connelly, 36, joins the Nuggets front office after three seasons as assistant general manager of the New Orleans Pelicans, where he worked closely with general manager Dell Demps. Connelly’s duties included scouting, draft preparation, trade negotiations and player contracts… Prior to his time in New Orleans, Connelly spent 10 years with the Washington Wizards organization, rising to director of player personnel. His role included overseeing scouting, salary cap and database management, player evaluation and assisting the vice president of player personnel with all front office duties… A native of Baltimore, Connelly began working with the Wizards as an intern in the basketball operations department in 1996 and joined the team full-time as the assistant video coordinator in 1999. He became a full-time scout in 2000 and spent four years in that role before becoming the director of player personnel… Connelly has strong international connections, having traveled globally to identify talent around the world. He currently serves on the board of the GEN Basketball Academy, a Sarajevo-based academy funded by NATO, and has assisted with their youth camps… In addition, Connelly has also worked as an instructor at the NBA’s “Basketball Without Borders” program in Moscow, Russia, last year. His first experience with the program took place in South Africa in 2006. That same summer, he was involved with the Seed Academy in Dakar, Senegal. From Yahoo!Sports.com’s Adrian Wojnarowski: Connelly, 36, has been considered one of the league’s rising young executive stars and will move immediately into the Nuggets’ search for a coach and preparation for the NBA draft and free agency… Nuggets CEO Josh Kroenke plans to work closely with Connelly in reshaping the Nuggets’ front office and building upon a 57-victory team that earned the third seed in the Western Conference playoffs… Connelly is part of a younger generation of league executives moving into top management positions and has been compared favorably to Orlando’s Rob Hennigan and Phoenix’s Ryan McDonough as part of the league’s next crop of bright young minds… After learning that his best internal candidate, Pete D’Alessandro, had left to take the Sacramento Kings GM job late last week, Kroenke targeted Connelly and moved quickly to hire him over the weekend, sources said. And lastly, from Scott Hastings’ Twitter account: Reaction: All signs point to this being a good hire

The advent and continuous expansion of Google Street View has made it possible to explore far off places that we may never be able to visit in person. But where exactly does Google’s reach end? One person deigned to find out. Inspired in part by the online game GeoGuessr, Alan Taylor over at The Atlantic’s In Focus blog set out to find “the ends of the road” — although, in truth, it’s a lot less philosophical than it might sound. What he did was spend some serious time on Google Street View, attempting to find the borders of its coverage. At the top we have the end of Google’s ability to follow the Kaimu-Chain of Craters Road in Hawaii. Over time, lava from eruptions of the Kilauea volcano has covered the road and made it impossible to follow any further. Both the photo above and below show a southernmost point, although one is much better marked than the other. Above we have the southernmost point buoy in Key West, Florida. Below, the southernmost point of Africa — no, not The Cape of Good Hope, though that’s a common misconception — The Cape Agulhas, South Africa. From the south, we go east, to two of the easternmost points on their respective continents. Above is Lighthouse Road, Byron Bay, New South Wales, which is located on Australia’s easternmost shoreline. Below is one of the easternmost points Google has managed to map along Brazil’s Atlantic shoreline. Finally, the last two photos we’ll show you here take you in opposite directions. Above, we have a photo of the Chilkat Range, across Lynn Canal from Juneau, Alaska. This point is about as far north of Juneau as Google (or anyone) can drive. And below is a point about as far south as one can go on the South Island of New Zealand. These are only a few of the pictures that Taylor collected over the course of his digital travels. To see all 26 “ends of the road” for yourself, be sure to follow the link below to the original In Focus article. The Ends of the Road [The Atlantic via kottke.org]

This weekend, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said that more leaks were coming and they “couldn’t be stopped”. Today, The Guardian ran a story based on information from Snowden that the UK GCHQ (Government Communication Headquarters), Britain’s NSA, set up extensive electronic surveillance, wiretapping and other espionage directed at Britain’s allies during the 2009 G20 Summit in London. Foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by British intelligence agencies to read their email traffic. The revelation comes as Britain prepares to host another summit on Monday – for the G8 nations, all of whom attended the 2009 meetings which were the object of the systematic spying. It is likely to lead to some tension among visiting delegates who will want the prime minister to explain whether they were targets in 2009 and whether the exercise is to be repeated this week. The disclosure raises new questions about the boundaries of surveillance by GCHQ and its American sister organisation, the National Security Agency, whose access to phone records and internet data has been defended as necessary in the fight against terrorism and serious crime. The G20 spying appears to have been organised for the more mundane purpose of securing an advantage in meetings. Named targets include long-standing allies such as South Africa and Turkey. There have often been rumours of this kind of espionage at international conferences, but it is highly unusual for hard evidence to confirm it and spell out the detail. The evidence is contained in documents – classified as top secret – which were uncovered by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and seen by the Guardian. They reveal that during G20 meetings in April and September 2009 GCHQ used what one document calls “ground-breaking intelligence capabilities” to intercept the communications of visiting delegations. This included: •?Setting up internet cafes where they used an email interception programme and key-logging software to spy on delegates’ use of computers; •?Penetrating the security on delegates’ BlackBerrys to monitor their email messages and phone calls; •?Supplying 45 analysts with a live round-the-clock summary of who was phoning who at the summit; •?Targeting the Turkish finance minister and possibly 15 others in his party; •?Receiving reports from an NSA attempt to eavesdrop on the Russian leader, Dmitry Medvedev, as his phone calls passed through satellite links to Moscow. The documents suggest that the operation was sanctioned in principle at a senior level in the government of the then prime minister, Gordon Brown, and that intelligence, including briefings for visiting delegates, was passed to British ministers. Via

This summer, Idris Elba sees summer blockbuster action in Pacific Rim, and he just landed a role alongside Javier Bardem and Sean Penn in The Gunman. But later this fall, Elba might be entering awards consideration territory with Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. The film from Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl) has been in the works ever since Mandela himself granted the rights to his life story to producer Anant Singh fifteen years ago. The movie follows Mandela's life from his childhood in a small village all the way up to his inauguration as President of the South Africa, and now the teaser poster is here. ››› Continue reading Idris Elba Makes Trouble on 'Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom' Poster

From a humbling at the hands of North Korea to John Aloisi's famous strike, our pick of Australia's attempts at the World Cup1) North Korea 6-1 Australia (Phnom Penh, November 1965)Australia's multifaceted World Cup story kicked off in suitably peculiar fashion. Having finally been dragged out of an all-amateur era, Australia's first tilt at qualification was, somewhat appropriately given the game's historical ties, for the 1966 World Cup in England. The route was set to be arduous with Africa, Asia and Oceania all vying for a lone ticket. However, African nations withdrew en bloc in protest at not being granted an automatic continental berth, South Africa were banned because of apartheid, and South Korea ultimately elected not to participate. A gruelling campaign had become seemingly straightforward. That just left North Korea. Finding a venue, however, proved troublesome. Cambodia, an ally of Pyongyang's leadership, came to the rescue and the newly built Phnom Penh National Olympic Stadium – a classic Communist style concrete structure - was the venue for a contest to be played over two matches. In truth, one match would prove more than enough to demonstrate the gulf between the teams.A four-week boot camp in North Queensland and a scratch match against local opposition was deemed to be enough preparation for the Socceroos' World Cup campaign. Most of the squad had not travelled internationally for football, let alone to such a foreign environment. But the Aussies were unprepared off the field as well as on it, and by the time the match came around many were ill after consuming the local water. The fleet-footed and skilful Koreans went one up early although Australia held firm until the hour mark. Then injuries, a noisy 60,000 crowd, and of course, a vastly superior opponent, took their toll. The North Koreans were easy 6-1 victors with Les Scheinflug's penalty on 70 minutes a lone, though historic, consolation. Johnny Warren later aptly described the match as "Australia's sporting Gallipoli", and it was hard to argue with the analogy.Remarkably, goal aggregate was not taken into consideration, and thus a victory for Australia in the return would have meant a third and deciding match. That was never likely, and despite an improved display for Australia, and another goal for Scheinflug, they lost 3-1. The Koreans famously proved their quality on a far bigger stage, notching an unthinkable group stage win over Italy before they narrowly failed to reach the 1966 World Cup semi-finals.2) Australia 1-0 South Korea (Hong Kong, November 1973) For decades it was an achievement that stood out as a singular beacon on a desolate landscape. Qualification for the World Cup. It was the end product of a marathon 11-match operation for Australia's battle-hardened amateurs. So too an equally epic globe-trotting campaign four years earlier had indirectly laid the platform for success. Earlier in the year Australia had seen off New Zealand, Indonesia and, in their first ever meeting, Iraq. Then came a backs-to-the-wall aggregate win over Iran. The final hurdle was home and away against South Korea. The first leg in Sydney was a scoreless stalemate, and the return an action-packed 2-2 draw in Seoul. Australia had to come from two goals down to earn a share of the spoils, but unlike the Iran tie some 24 years later, away goals were not considered. Thus a hastily arranged third match took place in Hong Kong. Remarkably, the match was played just 72 hours later. Korea had enjoyed the better of the first two encounters yet had nothing to show for it. The teams shared the same flight to Hong Kong and crafty Scottish-born midfielder Jimmy Rooney described the Koreans as looking broken.In truth, the decisive match was relatively unremarkable in terms of incident. Despite Australia turning in one of their most fluid performances of the era, the deadlocked remained. Finally on the hour mark came the decisive moment. An unconvincing clearance fell to Roo

(Reuters) - A list of the last 19 major championship winners after England's Justin Rose became the 18th different champion when he clinched the 113th U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pennsylvania on Sunday. 2013 June - Justin Rose (England), U.S. Open April - Adam Scott (Australia), Masters 2012 August - Rory McIlroy (Northern Ireland), PGA Championship July - Ernie Els (South Africa), British Open June - Webb Simpson (United States), U.S. ...

Rather than pay thousands of dollars to hunt on one of the world's private game reserves—and thousands more for bagging the rare game—some frequent hunters with the means may choose to secure some private hunting grounds. The Double X Ranch, near Steamboat Springs, Colo., is a good place to start. The exceptionally beautiful 2,300-acre property is home to a variety of of big game—"trophy-caliber elk, mule deer, antelope and black bear," according to the listing—but skimps on creature comforts. The only shelter currently constructed on the giant property is a two-bedroom cottage with wood paneled walls and a "man cave" aesthetic. Given that the ranch is asking $6.325M and sits just a half hour from Steamboat Springs, a mansion is probably in order as soon as this property finds a buyer. ↑ The lack of a grand home is decidedly not the problem at this 2,500-acre hunting estate in the Andelucia region of Spain. Though it looks much older, the white-walled 32,000-square-foot compound was actually built in the 1970s by, Fernando Chueca Goitia, the architect of the La Almudena cathedral in Madrid. The estate, complete with horse stables, orchards, a swimming pool, and 25 bedrooms, is listed for an undisclosed—and undoubtedly astronomical—price. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ This 7,000-acre spread in the highlands of New Zealand isn't short on gorgeous vistas or generous stocks of deer and chamois, but it is lacking in habitable structures. Bordering a pair of clear alpine lakes and set between two national parks, the property also includes the 4,500-foot Isthmus Peak. The only trouble might be the challenge of building roads and buildings to service the remote parcel, that and the unknown listing price. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ The Southern Hemisphere delivers another stunning property in this game farm in the semi-arid Klein Karoo region of South Africa, this time with a house in place, albeit a bunker-like version. Listed for $1.52M, the game farm includes some 7,000 acres and is stocked with "40 zebras, 10 red hartebeest, 40 eland, 30 kudu, 10 gemsbok," plus "some springbok, leopard, steenbok, duikers and klipspringers." Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ By comparison, the Texan game farm of Ney Ranch doesn't seem like much of a deal. Listed for nearly $3M, the 884-acre ranch boasts a beautiful 90-acre lake, four fenced plots for game, and picturesque rolling hills. Unfortunately, the land is all that's included with the list price, save for a "old wood frame cabin, a metal utility shed," and roads that are described as in "fair condition." That means any buyer will have to set aside some serious money to build a livable home and improve the access. · Double X Ranch [Hall & Hall] · Other Andalucia [Sotheby's International Realty] · Mt Isthmus Station [Sotheby's International Realty] · Game Farm in the Klein Karoo [Sotheby's International Realty] · Ney Ranch [Sotheby's International Realty]

June 17 (Reuters) - A list of the last 19 major championship winners after England's Justin Rose became the 18th different champion when he clinched the 113th U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pennsylvania on Sunday. 2013 June - Justin Rose (England), U.S. Open April - Adam Scott (Australia), Masters 2012 August - Rory McIlroy (Northern Ireland), PGA Championship July - Ernie Els (South Africa), British Open June - Webb Simpson (United States), U.S. ...

Flanker Joe Harley will join up with the Scotland squad currently touring South Africa, while Ryan Wilson and Jim Hamilton are heading in the opposite direction.

South Africa's Bernard Parker scored this rocket of a header, unfortunately into his own net. Because of that, the 2010 World Cup hosts won't be around for the 2014 edition. In CAF qualifying, South Africa came into last night's game two points back of Ethiopia for the group's lone spot in the third round. The match was tied until the 70th minute, when Parker, attempting to clear a free kick cross, instead headed home a perfectly placed bullet from 15 yards out. The match would end 2-1, and Ethiopia cannot be caught. But wait! Ethiopia may have fielded an ineligible player who should have been sitting with two yellow cards in previous group play. If Ethiopia are docked three points, South Africa could get the chance to lose again, in even more heartbreaking fashion. [h/t Steven]