DINNER PARTY INTEL...
The topics you have to be able to discuss this week
such a missile, spotting it from space, then tracking it with several ground radar stations before eliminating it with an antimissile missile.
The North Koreans issued a statement in which they bragged about their new capacity. And the South Koreans, who are in the direct line of fire, began to speculate about what it all means.
Reuters quoted Kim Dongyub, a military expert at Kyungnam University in Seoul, South Korea, as saying: “It appears the test was successful. If launched on a standard angle, the missile could have a range of more than 8,000 km.”
South Korean President Moon Jae-in convened a meeting of his national security council.
Across the Pacific, US President Donald Trump was moved to tweet. (“North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?”)
Trump signalled that this was a major international matter by sending out more than one tweet.
Another read: “Hard to believe South Korea and Japan will put up with this much longer. Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!”
The tweets appear to have had no effect on North Korea.
1. Sony to start making vinyl records again
Japanese multinational conglomerate Sony will begin pressing its own vinyl records again as demand for them surges — even amid the rise of digital downloads and streaming services. Sony is one of the world’s biggest record companies, and it stopped pressing its own vinyl in 1989 when CDS (which are now outdated!) became popular. According to the group, a new record pressing machine will be introduced to one of its factories southwest of Tokyo, with the aim of starting production by March next year.
“My wife and I were privileged to attend and enjoyed every moment . . . I have never been to an event like that and probably will not because it was an event of the millennium.” Former KPMG Africa CE Moses Kgosana to Atul Gupta in the leaked Gupta e-mails. Kgosana was invited to a Gupta wedding in 2013. After 15 years of auditing the Guptas’ businesses‚ KPMG resigned in 2016, amid reports of state capture
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2. EU court blow for Uber
Uber. In the news again. The ride hailing company underplayed an EU court opinion this week that some of its services could be illegal. Uber says the case only concerned an app service in France, which it no longer provides. It stopped the service in 2014. An advocategeneral for the court of justice of the European Union said in a nonbinding opinion that transport activities like UBERPOP “may be criminal”. This year, Uber has faced a sexual harassment scandal, the resignation of its CE, Travis Kalanick, and allegations that it used software to trick regulators.
3. 1,800-year-old ruins discovered in Rome
Rome metro excavations have unearthed a third-century “Pompeii-like scene”, in which archaeologists have found the remains of a building that appears to have been destroyed by a fire. The skeleton of a crouching dog was also found. This is the latest in a string of discoveries found during construction of Rome’s new underground network — Line C — which started in 2007. Each discovery has caused construction delays. Archaeologists said the ruins might be from an aristocrat’s home at the foot of the nearby Caelian Hill or from a nearby military barracks that had been explored in other excavations for the subway line, according to AP.