News 15:00

BULLETIN 21 July 3 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# South Africa secures a World Bank loan to back infrastructure reforms
# A labour shortage threatens the sugar cane harvest in KwaZulu-Natal
# And soccer: Co-host Morocco boosts its hotel capacity for the 2030 World Cup

# South Africa has secured a 24.78-billion-rand loan from the World Bank to support reforms in the country’s water, electricity and freight transport sectors. The funding will strengthen water infrastructure, expand private investment and improve service delivery to millions of households. It will also support a competitive electricity market and reforms in rail and ports. Finance minister Enoch Godongwana says the programme will remove infrastructure bottlenecks, with the reforms expected to help create nearly 600-thousand jobs by 2032.

# The African Farmers Association of South Africa in KwaZulu-Natal says sugar cane growers on the province’s north coast are facing a serious labour shortage. Deputy chairperson Lloyd Hadebe told the SABC many foreign national workers have left farming communities following protests against undocumented migrants. He warns the shortage is delaying harvesting and putting pressure on the sugar industry as farmers struggle to find experienced workers:

Moving abroad:

# An Indonesian court has found 19 people guilty of trafficking 34 babies through an illegal adoption network operating between Indonesia and Singapore between 2023 and last year. The trafficking ring illegally bought babies, some as young as three months, in the Indonesian province of West Java and sold them for adoption between the two countries. The ringleader, 70-year-old Lie Siu Luan, has received a seven-year prison sentence, lower than the prosecutors’ demand of ten years. The remaining 18 received sentences of between three and six years.

# Soccer: Morocco plans to boost its hotel capacity for the next World Cup by one-fifth following its good showing in this year’s tournament in Northern America. The Northern African country reached the quarterfinals after advancing to the semifinals in Qatar in 2022. Morocco will host the 2030 tournament together with its neighbours across the Mediterranean, Spain and Portugal, while three matches will also be played in South America. Morocco’s Tourism Ministry says they want to add 60-thousand beds within the next four years.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 16-rand-44-cents and the euro at 18-rand-77-cents. One British pound costs 22-rand-5-cents and Bitcoin trades at 66-thousand-164-dollars. Gold sells at four-thousand-and-59-dollars-45-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 88-dollars-29-cents a barrel.

# And finally: The University of the Western Cape found many women remain in abusive relationships as they are trapped by a combination of emotional attachment, financial dependence, fear, social expectations and institutions that fail to protect them. The study drew on the experiences of 262 mothers, grandmothers, adolescents and practitioners from several communities and a university student cohort. Researcher professor Robert Balfour says gender-based violence cannot be addressed through individualised, crisis-response models alone:

Stay tuned for more news………….