South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has moved to defuse a row with the new US administration over a new land law by speaking to Elon Musk. However, President Ramaphosa has said his country "will not be bullied". What's at stake for the country?
Also why have Moroccans decided to call a general strike? It's the first one in almost a decade
And Rwanda faces allegations of sports washing, a claim the country denies. What's going on?
Presenter: Charles Gitonga
Producers: Yvette Twagiramariya, Bella Hassan and Nysaha Michelle
Technical Producer: Jonathan Greer
Senior Journalist: Karnie Sharp
Editors: Alice Muthengi and Andre Lombard
Tatanka Means (Lakota/Diné) maintains a busy schedule as a stand-up comedian, all while portraying serious on-screen roles in Killers of the Flower Moon, Echo, and Reservation Dogs. He carries the name of his notable Lakota father, has close ties to his Navajo roots in Chinle, Ariz., and is fully embracing his role as a basketball dad. We’ll hear about his life and creative drive as our February Native in the Spotlight.
On this week’s news roundup, Bitdeer’s acquiring rights for a 101 MW power plant and Trump wants to launch a BTC ETF.
Welcome back to The Mining Pod! Colin, Will, and Matt are back at it this week with a packed docket of news. Bitdeer has acquired the rights for a $90 million, 101 MW natural gas power plant in Alberta in a bid to become even more vertically integrated, and Cipher cashes in on Project Stargate with a $50 million investment from Softbank. Plus, two cheers for taxation (but not actually): Russia has codified a tax code for bitcoin miners, and a Nebraska Senator introduces a bill for a $0.025 per kw excise tax on bitcoin miners. For our last news item, Trump wants to launch bitcoin ETFs, because memecoins just weren’t sophisticated enough. And for this week’s cry corner, why Ethereum is no longer deflationary and what a croissant can tell us about the future of ETH issuance (seriously).
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Timestamps:
00:00 Start
02:21 Difficulty report
05:03 Bitdeer Power Plant
11:32 Softbank invests $50m in Cipher
16:18 Russian miners reporting & taxes
22:20 Nebraska rate hike
28:17 Bitcoin Plus ETF
32:20 Cry corner: uLTrA SOunD MooONeeY
Published twice weekly, "The Mining Pod" interviews the best builders and operators in the Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining landscape. Subscribe to get notifications when we publish interviews on Tuesday and a news show on Friday!
Judge puts federal buyout offer on hold. FBI turmoil over January 6th list. L-A's toxic fire debris. CBS News Correspondent Steve Kathan has today's World News Roundup.
Episode Overview:
This episode features a relaxed, peer-to-peer conversation between two media entrepreneurs—African Tech Roundup co-founder and executive producer Andile Masuku, and Money & Moves founder and writer Tinashe Mukogo.
They explore how Mukogo draws on his background in consulting (Deloitte), corporate venture capital (Next47), and organisational finance (Siemens), along with his CA and INSEAD MBA credentials, to deliver sophisticated yet accessible analysis of African businesses.
What starts as an origin story and a look into his approach to business journalism expands into a deep dive on turning media assets into sustainable businesses. Mukogo and Masuku explore strategic considerations, revenue model challenges, and innovation opportunities in building independent media ventures that balance public interest with commercial viability.
Key topics:
- Leveraging corporate experience for credible financial analysis
- Strategic approaches to finding and maintaining "blue ocean" market positions
- The geography advantage: How distance can aid editorial independence
- Business model innovation in African media markets
- Building personal brands alongside institutional credibility
- The role of independent media in developing investment ecosystems
Notable points:
1. How geographic distance from Zimbabwe enables more objective coverage of major corporations
2. The limitations of traditional advertising models when covering potential advertisers
3. The strategic value of building long-term credibility before monetisation
4. Why individual voices often carry more trust than institutional media
5. The "billionaire model" and its implications for editorial independence
Listen in for an unfiltered discussion between two media entrepreneurs on the practical challenges and strategic opportunities in building independent financial media properties in African markets.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained more than 100 people in the Chicago area in an effort to carry out President Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations. But on Monday, dozens of stores and restaurants closed as part of Day Without Immigrants in protest and to honor the contributions of immigrants. Reset checks in with Héctor Aguirre, co-owner of La Malinche Coffee and Tea House, a business in Pilsen that participated.
For a full archive of Reset interviews, head over to wbez.org/reset.
The Justice Department is moving to implement President Trump's agenda for the agency, some large companies in the US are deleting or softening DEI language from their investor disclosures and influenza is peaking twice this winter.
Today's episode of Up First was edited by Anna Yukhananov, Rafael Nam, Scott Hensley, Janaya Williams, Alice Woelfle and Ben Adler. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Patrick Murray, our technical director is Zac Coleman. And our Executive Producer is Kelley Dickens.
French president Emmanuel Macron recently announced that Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa painting will be moved to her very own room at the Louvre, as part of a plan to renovate the iconic museum.
And that got us thinking. Once the crowds have gone home every night, the Mona Lisa will be all by herself, with no other paintings to smile at enigmatically across the room.
So this week, we are talking all things isolation. We start things off by finding out about a key cognitive skill that may have been impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns.
Next, we discover more about the history of loneliness and the impact it can have on your health, before discussing what evolutionary roads isolated island species will go down.
Plus, we’re joined by Professor Jonathan Harrington from the University of Munich. He reveals how our accents can be affected by isolation.
That, plus many more Unexpected Elements.
Presenters: Marnie Chesterton, with Christine Yohannes and Affelia Wibisono.
Producers: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, with Dan Welsh, William Hornbrook and Imaan Moin.
Our new podcast series is a shocking look at transnational organised crime: nearly as big as the illegal-drug trade and far more sophisticated than you might think. Beware. After a week that started with bold tariff moves by the Trump administration, what can be gleaned from how things progressed (09:20)? And a staid, ancient game gets a glitzy modern makeover (16:20).
WSJ’s Joel Schectman joins Ryan Knutson and Molly Ball to explore the dismantling of USAID and what it means for America’s future as a global leader. Plus, Trump's tariffs, a Gaza proposal and remaking the CIA.
