News 13:00

BULLETIN 19 October 1 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Masemola prioritises police readiness ahead of the local government elections
# A bomb threat forces a flight from Israel to divert
# And rugby: The Lions’ coach says they wanted to play out of respect for Andrews

# National police commissioner Fannie Masemola plans to engage provincial commissioners to assess preparedness, identify potential hotspots and ensure intelligence, personnel and resources are aligned to address emerging risks. He addressed the media in Pretoria upon his return from suspension. Masemolal says political attacks and killings before next month’s elections require urgent attention. He will receive a comprehensive briefing from Crime Intelligence on these incidents, including threat assessments and measures needed to strengthen prevention and investigations:

The ANC has meanwhile welcomed the Electoral Commission’s confirmaton of the inclusion of all 181 candidates previously excluded from the ballot in six municipalities in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State. This follows the Constitutional Court’s ruling which upheld the ANC’s appeal of the Electoral Court’s decision to exclude the candidates after the party failed to complete the final submission step on the IEC’s online portal. ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula has thanked the IEC for acting promptly on the order of the court.

# The DA is calling on workers to provide information about municipalities that have failed to pay pension contributions. Information presented to Parliament reveals 16 municipalities in the Free State, the Eastern and Northern Cape and North West have failed to pay 1.79 billion-rand in pension arrears – 80-percent from the Free State and North West. The DA’s Marina van Zyl says withholding pension contributions being deducted from workers’ salaries, punishes employees and families:

Moving abroad:

# The pilots of an Austrian Airlines flight from Tel Aviv in Israel to Vienna has made an emergency landing in Sofia, Bulgaria, after a bomb threat. The Airbus A320 was carrying 57 people when the alert was raised over Romania. A Bulgarian fighter jet escorted it to Sofia. A security search found no threat, and the flight continued to Vienna with everyone on board. The incident comes days after fighter jets escorted another European passenger flight following a false hijacking alert, highlighting the serious response triggered by aviation security warnings.

# Rugby: Lions head coach Ivan van Rooyen praised his men for honouring Saturday’s Champions Cup fixture against Stade Francais in France despite the death of teammate Hyron Andrews on Friday morning. He was found unresponsive in his hotel room and declared dead later, with the cause of death not yet confirmed. Saturday’s match was very emotional, especially when Andrews’ number 5 shirt was laid on the field beforehand. The Lions lost 31-14, but Van Rooyen says they played to show respect to their fallen teammate.  

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 16-rand-46-cents and the euro at 18-rand-45-cents. One British pound costs 21-rand-94-cents and Bitcoin trades at 82-thousand-977-dollars. Gold sells at four-thousand-168-dollars-31-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 110-dollars-6-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….