News 18:00

BULLETIN 27 March 6 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Eskom suspends load-shedding untill Sunday 
# The GOOD party urges voters to hold the Gauteng premier accountable for his e-toll promises 
# And tennis: Novak Djokovic fires his coach after 12 Grand Slam titles

# Eskom has good news for the Easter Weekend: load-shedding will remain suspended until Sunday afternoon at four. This is due to the sustained available generation capacity and the planned return to service of two-thousand-300-megawatts of generation capacity, along with the anticipated low demand over the long weekend. Eskom will provide an update for the week ahead on Sunday afternoon or communicate should any significant changes occur.

# The GOOD Party urges voters to hold Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi accountable for his e-toll promises as the deadline nears. Lesufi pledged in his state of the province address that the e-toll system would shut down on 31 March. According to the party, this isn’t the first time such promises have been made, and similar commitments in 2022 fell through. GOOD’s national chairperson, Matthew Cook, says voters can show their displeasure with false promises at the polls on 29 May:

# More migrants have arrived in the UK since the start of 2024 by crossing the Channel from northern France in small boats than in any similar period before. Provisional UK government figures showed that four-thousand-644 undocumented people made the journey. This is the highest figure ever for the first three months of any year, when crossings are generally at their lowest because of rough winter seas. Migration has become a major political issue in the UK as the country prepares for a general election expected later this year.

# Tennis: World number one Novak Djokovic of Serbia has fired his coach of the past five years. His partnership with former world number two, Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia, yielded 12 Grand Slam titles. Djokovic’s season so far wasn’t up to his own high standards, with him crashing out in the semifinal of the Australian Open, and in the third round of Indian Wells. He said on social media he and Ivanisevic decided to stop working together, but he will always regard the 2001 Wimbledon champion as a friend.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-89-cents and the euro at 20-rand-44-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-87-cents and Bitcoin trades at 69-thousand-673-dollars-4-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-192-dollars-63-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 85-dollars-35-cents a barrel.

# And finally: TB hospitals in the Eastern Cape have been closed due to decreased demand. According to Health MEC Nomakhosazana Meth, there have been a reduced number of patients that require hospitalisation over the years. She sees this as a sign that the province is progressing with regard to TB treatment. Meth urged all TB patients to persist with treatment:

Stay tuned for more news………….