News 09:00

BULLETIN 26 April 9 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Eskom says it has enough supply to meet the long weekend’s demand
# Absa is slapped with a R10-million fine over compliance failures
# And, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent abuse survivors, Virginia Giuffre, dies by suicide

# Eskom says in the past 24 hours, a total of three-thousand-320-megawatts of generation capacity has been restored, ensuring a stable power system with enough supply to meet the long weekend’s demand. The power utility implemented stage two load-shedding on Thursday afternoon after the loss of generation units and higher-than-expected electricity demand. Eskom’s spokesperson, Daphne Mokwena, says emergency reserves are adequate and will be strategically utilised when necessary to manage peak demand:

# The South African Reserve Bank’s Prudential Authority has fined Absa Bank ten-million-rand for failing to comply with sections of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act. An inspection in 2022 found that Absa did not properly check some high-risk clients, including politically exposed individuals. The bank also failed to deal with thousands of alerts about unusual transactions on time. Absa was given two warnings and a reprimand. The authority says the bank has since taken steps to correct the problems.

# The Department of Water and Sanitation says ten sluice gates at the Vaal Dam are now open. Above-average continuous rainfall has led to heavy inflows on the already saturated upper catchments. The department’s spokesperson, Wisane Mavasa, says the water levels in the Vaal and Bloemhof Dams are currently sitting at 119.68-percent and 111.87-percent capacity, respectively. She says with more inflows anticipated into the dams, outflows may potentially be increased again today:

# The woman who accused disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew of sexual abuse, Virginia Giuffre, has died by suicide at age 41. In 2019, the Australian publicly alleged that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked her and forced her to have sex with his friends, including Prince Andrew, when she was 17 years old. The Duke of York has repeatedly denied the claims. West Australian police say Giuffre’s death is being investigated by Major Crime detectives, and early indications are that the death is not suspicious.

# Tennis: Two-time champion Alexander Zverev is through to the Madrid Open third round. The German defeated Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut 6-2, 6-2, extending his winning streak to six matches. American third seed Taylor Fritz returned to ATP Tour action with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Australian Christopher O’Connell. Norwegian Casper Ruud saw off Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech, 6-3, 6-4. In the women’s draw, top seed Bulgaria’s Aryna Sabalenka beat Russia’s Anna Blinkova, 6-3, 6-4, while Britain’s Emma Raducanu suffered a 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 defeat to Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk.

Stay tuned for more news………….