News 13:00

BULLETIN 18 January 1 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

#  Minister McKenzie announces the release of expression of interest document for South Africa’s Formula One bid
# Eskom says there is a minor improvement of average unplanned outages in South Africa
# And rugby: The Cheetahs have a new flyhalf and fullback due to more injuries in the squad

# Sport, Arts and Culture minister Gayton McKenzie has announced the release of the Request for Expression of Interest by the Bid Steering Committee for parties interested in participating in South Africa’s bid to host a Formula One Grand Prix in 2026/2027 and beyond. The ministry’s spokesperson, Stacey-Lee Khojane, says the Bid Steering Committee, appointed by McKenzie in December last year, was tasked with managing and guiding South Africa’s F1 bid process:

# Eskom says average unplanned outages over the past week was 14-thousand-376-megawatts – a minor improvement compared to the same period last year. Spokesperson Daphne Mokwena says to meet demand under these circumstances, reliance was placed on a higher Open-Cycle Gas Turbine load factor for the period under review. She says year-to-date unplanned outages average 12-thousand-megawatts, remaining below the summer base case of 13-thousand-megawatts by 960-megawatts:

# Cosatu has welcomed the halt to the cancellation of 67-thousand Community Works Programme workers’ contracts. Cosatu’s Matthew Parks says Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa and Finance minister Enoch Godongwana announced that funds have been secured to cover these workers’ salaries for the months of January to March 2025 and that further engagements will take place for the new financial year. Parks says a progressive longer-term funding solution for the April 2025/ 2026 Budget is now needed:

# TikTok warned late last night it will go dark in the United States on Sunday unless president Joe Biden’s administration provides assurances to companies like Apple and Google that they will not face enforcement actions when a ban takes effect. The statement came hours after the Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok in the United States on national security grounds if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell it, putting the popular short-video app on track to go dark in just two days.

# And rugby: The Cheetahs have a new flyhalf and fullback for their Challenge Cup match against Lyon in France tonight. Franco Smith takes over from Ethan Wentzel at flyhalf and Cohen Jasper replaces Michael Annies at fullback. They returned home due to injury. Neels Volschenk is on the bench. The Free State team have their tails up after beating Zebre Parma last week. Kick-off is at 7:30 pm.

Stay tuned for more news………….