News 11:00

BULLETIN 13 June 11 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Iran says Israel and the US will pay dearly for the strikes on its nuclear sites
# Solidarity urges government to scrap black empowerment with the G20 spotlight on South Africa
# And motorsport: Verstappen will be banned for one race if he collects just one more penalty point this month

# Iran’s armed forces have warned that Israel and the US will pay dearly for the strikes on its nuclear sites. The attacks were part of Israel’s Operation Rising Lion, which killed Iran’s chief of staff, Mohammad Bagheri, and the leader of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami. US secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that America was not involved in the attack, but Iran’s Foreign Ministry says such acts of aggression by Israel could not have occurred without coordination and authorisation from the US.

Back home: 

# Trade union Solidarity has renewed calls for government to scrap broad-based black economic empowerment policies, as South Africa prepares to host the G20 summit in November. According to the union, BEE is crippling the economy and enriching a politically connected elite, while millions remain unemployed. Solidarity’s Theuns du Buisson blames BEE for driving away investment, increasing inequality, and undermining economic growth:

# The National Energy Regulator of South Africa says since the introduction of its registration of electricity generation facilities in 2018, it has successfully registered a total of one-thousand-971 generation facilities. This is a combined capacity of 12-thousand-737 megawatts. Nersa’s spokesperson, Charles Hlebela, says in the fourth quarter of the 2024/25 financial year, 160 new generation facilities were registered, contributing a capacity of two-thousand-187 megawatts, and an investment value of 41.94-billion-rand:

# The DA is demanding answers after three offenders were wrongly released from the Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison in Cape Town. This follows the re-apprehension and reincarceration of the third person erroneously released from the prison, despite a High Court order that all three convicted offenders be held at Pollsmoor Juvenile Centre. The DA’s Nicholas Gotsell says this case has exposed the major failures between Justice and Correctional Services:

# Motorsport: Red Bull’s Formula One world champion, Max Verstappen, will have to be very careful to avoid more penalty points in the next two Grand Prix races in Canada and Austria. He received a 10-second penalty after the previous race in Spain for colliding with the Mercedes of George Russell, leading to another three penalty points to his F1 super licence. That took his tally to 11 for the 12-month period which expires on 30 June, and one more penalty point will lead to an automatic one-race ban.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-2-cents and the euro at 20-rand-82-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-41-cents and Bitcoin trades at 104-thousand-473-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-412-dollars-31-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 71-dollars-87-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….