DINNER PARTY INTEL...
The topics you have to be able to discuss this week
1. Meatier than ever
Despite growing health fads such as meat-free Mondays and
Veganuary, global meat consumption has in fact increased over the past 50 years, and not just because there are many more and richer people. Meat production today is 330Mt, five times higher than in the 1960s. The US and Australia top the tables. They, New Zealand and Argentina eat more than 100kg of meat per person a year — about 50 chickens or half a cow each. In Western Europe it’s 80kg-90kg, Nigeria 9kg. The global increase is driven by middle-income countries such as China, Brazil and SA.
“Once you start manipulating the outcomes of cases to please politicians, that ends up being a disaster for the NPA” Willie Hofmeyr, deputy national director of public prosecutions, at the Mokgoro commission into the fitness of his colleagues Nomgcobo Jiba and Lawrence Mrwebi to hold office. “It’s incredibly difficult to have people work in an organisation who are either spying on [it] to give information to accused people or trying to sabotage its work,” Hofmeyr added
2. Cold crypto wallet
As if the bursting of the bitcoin bubble was not enough, cryptocurrency investors in Canada are enduring more pain. The country’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Quadriga, has been unable to access about C$180m worth of digital coins since the sudden death of its founder in December, according to a BBC report. Gerald Cotten had sole responsibility for handling the exchange’s funds and coins, and the laptop he used is encrypted. Having sole responsibility for such a large pool of funds and assets is clearly not always a good idea.
3. Zim beware
A day after their ultimatum expired for Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro to call an election in the divided country, key EU countries recognised opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president. US President Donald Trump threatened to send in the army to remove Maduro. Many Latin American states as well as Canada urged the Venezuelan army to back Guaidó as interim leader. Russia and China slammed the move. There’s no doubt Maduro runs an oppressive, kleptocratic state. Do calls for his removal mean that countries like
Zimbabwe might be next on the list?