News 08:00

BULLETIN 15 July 8 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The EFF is concerned about the process to pass budget votes in Parliament
# Numsa’s strike at Menzies Aviation could affect airports in four provinces
# And rugby, the Junior Springboks miss out on a fifth-place play-off

# The EFF says it is concerned by how the National Assembly is handling the process to pass the 2024/2025 draft budgets. Parliament will continue the budget votes process today, which includes briefing on departmental budgets, annual performance plans, spending plans, and departmental performance. The EFF says members of Parliament are not been given enough time to evaluate proposed budgets and make informed observations and recommendations. The party says budget votes being adopted without thorough consultation is nothing but malicious.

# The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa says its members at Menzies Aviation will embark on a strike starting today. Workers in Cape Town, East London, Gqeberha, King Shaka, and OR Tambo Airport will be participating in the strike. The company’s clients include FlySafair, Qatar, Qantas, and Cathay Pacific. The union’s spokesperson, Phakamile Hlubi-Majola, says workers at Menzies Aviation are fed up with management because it refuses to convert workers who are on permanent hourly pay to permanent monthly pay:

# Eskom says its diesel consumption remains under the projected figures for this winter and is considerably lower than in the past two years. Spokesperson Daphne Mokwena says the power utility’s expenditure between 1 April and 11 July on open-cycle gas turbines was 3.33-billion-rand, generating 487.16-gigawatt-hours. This is approximately 70-percent less than the 10.98-billion-rand spent last year over the same period:

# US president Joe Biden has called on Americans to lower the temperature of politics following the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump. A Secret Service sniper killed 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks after he fired a series of shots within minutes of Trump taking the stage at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. The former president was injured in the shooting while one person died. In an address from the Oval Office, Biden says politics must never be a literal battlefield:

# Rugby: The Junior Springboks lost 34-24 to Argentina in the fifth-place semi-final of the Under 20 World Rugby Championship in Cape Town. With this loss, South Africa will now compete for a seventh-place finish against Wales on Friday. Junior Bok coach Bafana Nhleko says his team’s performance was good in parts but not good enough for the full 80 minutes. Meanwhile, three-time champions France will play England in the final, after beating New Zealand 55-31.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-97-cents and the euro at 19-rand-59-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-33-cents and Bitcoin trades at 62-thousand-491-dollars-20-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-409-dollars-93-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 85-dollars-13-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….