News 07:00

BULLETIN 26 September 7 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# ActionSA exposes an alarming vacancy crisis in the health sector
# An interim report highlights the mistakes that led up to Trump’s assassination attempt in July
# And swimming: Chad le Clos and Lara van Niekerk are ready to compete again

# ActionSA has raised concerns over the critical vacancy crisis in the healthcare sector. ActionSA’s Kgosi Letlape says the Northern Cape has a 44-percent vacancy in senior management, and the Free State has a 22-percent shortage of doctors. Letlape claims a parliamentary question revealed staff burnout, low retention, and surging malpractice lawsuits as leading causes of vacancies. ActionSA demands urgent government intervention to address these gaps and improve public healthcare.

# The Institute of Race Relations is urging the government of national unity to adopt a no-holds-barred approach to ensuring South Africans have access to cheap, reliable electricity. Eskom has been criticised for its revenue application to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa. It has asked for a 36.15-percent tariff increase for its direct customers for the 2025/2026 financial year alone. The IRR’s, Hermann Pretorius, says government must remove bureaucratic hurdles, such as race-based procurement regulations, that make it more expensive to generate power:

# The DA will today protest outside Tshwane House in support of mayor Cilliers Brink, as a motion of no confidence against him moves forward. The motion, led by the ANC and backed by ActionSA, follows two previous attempts that were withdrawn. The ANC cites poor service delivery as the reason for Brink’s removal. DA provincial chairperson Fred Nel says the party is prepared to return to the opposition benches if necessary:

# US Secret Service’s ability to protect former president Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July was hampered by a range of communications failures. These include faulty radios and a lack of ability to quickly get in touch with state and local police on the scene. This is according to an interim report by the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Democratic committee chairperson, Gary Peters, says the Secret Service’s failures that allowed an assassination attempt on Trump were shocking, unacceptable, and preventable.

# Swimming: Chad le Clos and Lara van Niekerk are fit again and will compete in the South African short-course championships, starting in Durban today. The event will give athletes the chance to qualify for the world championships taking place in the Hungarian capital of Budapest in December. Van Niekerk is a two-time Commonwealth champion while Le Clos won four Olympic medals. Both will participate in five items. Van Niekerk says she is 90-percent fit at the moment.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-25-cents and the euro at 19-rand-22-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-1-cents and Bitcoin trades at 63-thousand-159-dollars-40-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-659-dollars-86-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 73-dollars-71-cents a barrel.

# And finally: The plane carrying the remains of 49 anti-apartheid activists landed at the Waterkloof Air Force Base yesterday evening. They were exiled in Zambia and Zimbabwe by the apartheid regime. Amongst those repatriated include advocate Duma Nokwe, who was one of the instrumental figures during the Defiance Campaign in the 50s, and Florence Mophosho. Tomorrow, the government will host an official homecoming ceremony at Freedom Park in Tshwane. Defence minister Angie Motshekga says more fallen heroes and heroines will be repatriated:

Stay tuned for more news………….