News 13:00

BULLETIN 9 September 1 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The Steve Biko inquest is halted after the family requests a postponement
# Tens of thousands of passengers are stranded at UK airports following an air traffic control issue
# And soccer: Six Spanish players and ten from PSG are nominated for the Ballon d’Or

# The inquest into the death of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko has been temporarily halted. His family brought an urgent application in the High Court in Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape to suspend proceedings, saying they need more time to properly prepare. The family says hundreds of documents still need to be scrutinised, with some requiring translation from Afrikaans. The court granted the application. The inquest seeks to establish the circumstances of Biko’s death in police custody in 1977.

# The Southern African Agri Initiative says state-owned Onderstepoort Biological Products is failing to meet the livestock industry’s vaccine needs and should be privatised. According to the agricultural organisation, shortages of vaccines for diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease and African horse sickness are putting farmers under pressure. Saai’s Theo de Jager says greater private sector involvement could improve vaccine production and supply:

Moving abroad:

# Tens of thousands of passengers remain stranded at UK airports today, following a technical fault at the National Air Traffic Services. The issue caused some one-thousand-300 cancellations of flights to or from airports in the UK yesterday. According to FlightRadar, the worst affected airports were Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham. More than 250 flights have been cancelled today. NATS has ruled out a cyber-attack as the cause of the major outage. Even if the issue is resolved, the disruption is likely to persist due to backlogs.

# Soccer: Six players of reigning world champions Spain are included in this year’s list for the coveted Ballon d’Or. Among them are Ferran Torres, whose goal in the World Cup final against Argentina secured victory for Spain. Argentina’s captain in the tournament, Lionel Messi, appears for the 17th time, but Portugal’s captain, Cristiano Ronaldo, was omitted. Torres recently joined Paris St-Germain, who has a total of ten players on the list, including Ousmane Dembele. The award ceremony takes place on the 26th of next month.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 16-rand-4-cents and the euro at 18-rand-66-cents. One British pound costs 21-rand-72-cents and Bitcoin trades at 79-thousand-446-dollars. Gold sells at four-thousand-397-dollars-63-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 102-dollars-31-cents a barrel.

# And finally: Acting national police commissioner Puleng Dimpane has appointed a senior officer to investigate the injury of a police dog at a SAPS training and veterinary facility in Limpopo. The retired Belgian Shepherd, Sky, with a history of escaping, was housed there pending adoption. Spokesperson Athlenda Mathe says she is receiving veterinary care. She says they will cooperate with the probe and act if shortcomings are found:

Stay tuned for more news………….