DINNER PARTY INTEL...

The topics you have to be able to discuss this week

1. Built to be destroyed

Just four Olympic-related events will take place at South Korea’s new Pyeongchang Stadium in Seoul — including the opening and closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics this month — before it is completely destroyed. The 25,000-seat venue, which was constructed for US$110M, was only intended for this purpose. It is South Korea’s solution to the construction of costly venues that become white elephants because they are too expensive to maintain.

The Cape Town Stadium in Green Point, for example, was built at a cost of over $600m ahead of the 2010 soccer World Cup, and has been a drain on council coffers since then.

2. Information gold mine

Personal fitness tracking information made available online has unwittingly revealed information about the location and staffing of military bases and spy outposts. Fitness tracker Strava published a visualisation map that shows the activity tracked by users of its app in November 2017. Military analysts now say the mapping is detailed enough to give away information about military personnel (who are also Strava users). US bases in Afghanistan, Djibouti and Syria were “clearly identifiable and mappable”, one analyst said. The same locations are not visible on the satellite views of Google Maps or Apple’s Maps, yet can be clearly seen using Strava.

3. Giving them lip

Botox injections used to make the pouts of 12 Arabian camels look more alluring have instead caused them to be disqualified from an annual camel beauty contest in Saudi Arabia. The contest comes with prize money of $5m for each category, tempting some camel owners to cheat. According to news sites, camels are judged for their “delicate” ears, big noses, long necks and even the thickness of their lips.