News 16:00

BULLETIN 15 July 4 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The Electoral Commission acknowledges challenges during last year’s general elections
# Rugby: A four-match ban for Jasper Wiese after a red card against Italy
# And the world’s oldest marathon runner dies in a hit-and-run incident at age 114

# The Electoral Commission has confirmed nearly 90-million ballots were printed and distributed to over 23-thousand stations within a month for the 2024 elections. CEO Sy Mamabolo told Parliament’s Home Affairs portfolio committee that over 200-thousand staff supported operations. Key achievements include real-time results reporting, communication campaigns, anti-disinformation efforts, and improved accessibility for visually impaired voters. Mamabolo however acknowledged challenges in human capacity and logistics at this massive scale:

# The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority says all locally available cancer medicines meet the required quality, safety, and efficacy standards. This after the Lancet Global Health study found poor-quality anti-cancer drugs in countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Cameroon. SAHPRA spokesperson Yuven Gounden confirms that the specific brands flagged in the study are not registered or sold in South Africa:

Moving abroad:

# Chinese president Xi Jinping told Russia’s top diplomat their countries should strengthen mutual support as Foreign ministers gathered in Beijing for Shanghai Cooperation Organisation talks. Beijing has long sought to present the SCO as a counterweight to Western-led power blocs such as NATO and has pushed for greater collaboration between its 10 members. Top diplomats from the grouping have arrived in Beijing for a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, including Russia’s Sergei Lavrov, India’s Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Iran’s Abbas Araghchi.

# Rugby: Springbok loose forward Jasper Wiese was given a four-match suspension for the red card he received during this past weekend’s Test against Italy in Gqeberha. This means he will miss South Africa’s next match against Georgia as well as the first three games of the Rugby Championship against Australia in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and against the All Blacks in Auckland. Wiese will only be available again on the 13th of September when the Boks play New Zealand in Wellington.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-80-cents and the euro at 20-rand-76-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-93-cents and Bitcoin trades at 117-thousand-187-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-357-dollars-27-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 68-dollars-63-cents a barrel.

# And finally: The world’s oldest marathon runner, Fauja Singh from India, died in a hit-and-run incident at the age of 114. Singh was still competing after turning 100 more than a decade ago. He was born in rural India in 1911 and later moved to London where he earned the nickname “Turbaned Tornado” after he took up marathon running in his late 80s and completed nine marathons. Singh was considered the world’s oldest marathon runner, though he never secured a Guinness World Record because he didn’t have a birth certificate.

Stay tuned for more news………….