News 11:00

BULLETIN 13 April 11 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Fincance minister Godongwana and Reserve Bank governor Kganyago are not accredited to attend the G20’s finance meetings
# Elon Musk claims Starlink was offered a bribe to launch in South Africa  
# And rugby: Two familiar Springbok Women’s Sevens players are recalled for Hong Kong

# Finance minister Enoch Godongwana and South African Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago have not been accredited to attend the upcoming meeting of the Group of 20 finance chiefs in Washington in the US. America took over the annual rotating presidency from South Africa late last year. Godongwana told Bloomberg South Africa will not be part of the G20 for the whole of this year. US president Donald Trump has already barred South Africa from attending the G20 summit in Miami later this year.

# Multibillionaire Elon Musk claims his satellite internet company, Starlink, was given the opportunity to bribe its way to a telecoms licence in South Africa, by pretending a black person ran the company’s local entity. The country’s broad-based black economic empowerment policies require foreign-owned telecommunications licenses to sell 30-percent of the equity in their local subsidiaries to historically disadvantaged groups. In a series of posts on X, Musk claimed Starlink is being denied an operating licence because he is not black. He adds he refused to be bribed based on principle.

# Gauteng Education MEC, Lebohang Maile, says although the provincial education budget has increased significantly over the years, financial constraints remain a major challenge. The national education budget grew from 31.4-billion-rand in 1995/96 to just over 358.5-billion-rand in 2025/26. Over the same period, the provincial education budget increased from 4.5-billion- to 70.9-billion-rand in 2026/27. Maile says this represents a one-thousand-476 percent increase over 31 years:

Moving abroad

# US president Trump says he doesn’t care if Iran returns to the negotiations or not, after the weekend’s peace talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, ended without a deal. Iranian Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said the two parties were close to reaching a deal, but they were met with maximalism and shifting goalposts. Speaking at the Joint Base Andrews near Washington DC, Trump reiterated his claims that Iran’s military capabilities have been weakened:

# Rugby: Two Springbok Women’s Sevens players, Zintle Mpupha and Eloïse Webb, have been recalled to the squad for the first Sevens World Championship tournament, to be played in Hong Kong this coming weekend. Mpupha played for the squad in January, while Webb last represented the team in 2024. Coach Cecil Afrika has also called on the uncapped duo of Jané Mulder and Owami Mohuli. Mpupha says the senior players are ready to make another step up:

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 16-rand-56-cents and the euro at 19-rand-35-cents. One British pound costs 22-rand-21-cents and Bitcoin trades at 71-thousand-58-dollars. Gold sells at four-thousand-723-dollars-21-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 97-dollars-91-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….