NEWSFLASH NEWS AGENCY 23 November 6 am

Good morning,

In this bulletin:

# Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni elect a DA mayor and speaker
# The court today will hear AfriForum’s urgent application on the lawfulness of Jacob Zuma’s medical parole
# And, Sahpra is considering the use of Pfizer booster shots in South Africa

# The Johannesburg Council has elected the DA’s Mpho Phalatse as mayor. She won 144 seats while the ANC’s Mpho Moerane received 121 votes. ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba, who pulled out of the race for mayor, said his party and the EFF agreed that they could not have a scenario where the ANC wins Johannesburg. The DA’s Vasco da Gama won the position of speaker. Meanwhile, the DA’s Tania Campbell has been elected as mayor of Ekurhuleni, after receiving 116 votes, while the ANC’s Mzwandile Masina got 105 votes. The speaker is the DA’s Raymond Dlamini.

# The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria will today hear AfriForum’s urgent application to review the lawfulness of the decision to grant medical parole to former president Jacob Zuma. Former National Commissioner of Correctional Services, Arthur Fraser granted Zuma medical parole last month. AfriForum says it will argue that Fraser’s decision was unlawful and must be set aside. It adds that Zuma must return to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.

# The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority says it will commence the assessment of data for the safety and efficacy of the third dose of Pfizer. The announcement comes after the US Food and Drug Administration accepted the emergency authorisations for booster shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Sahpra says Pfizer’s latest results from a phase 3 clinical trial with more than 10-thousand participants found the third dose was safe and effective. In the US all adults are now eligible for an additional shot six months after the second dose.

# Basic Education minister Angie Motshekga says more effort is required to leepfrog the education white paper 6 directives to inclusive education, by providing quality education and support to all children with disabilities. The minister says they have established district-based and school-based support teams based in Pretoria to coordinate inclusive education support services for teachers and learners in all nine provincial Education Departments. The Minister was speaking at an inclusive education summit by her department and the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities.

# A British child killer who was released on parole two months ago, is back behind bars after he apparently made advances towards young girls. Colin Pitchfork was initially given a life sentence for the murder of two 15-year-old girls, Lyna Mann and Dawn Ashworth, in Leicestershire in die 1980s. He was moved to an open prison in 2018 and release in September. According to reports, probation staff became concerned after he approached several young women when leaving the bail hostel he was staying at.

# Barbarians president John Spencer says he is expecting an electrifying atmosphere at Twickenham this weekend. Springboks Malcolm Marx, Steven Kitshoff, and Duane Vermeulen have been selected in the Barbarians match-day squad for Saturday’s fixture against Samoa. The Wallabies have the most representatives with eight including Tom Robertson and James O’Connor, and another two on the bench. Spencer says the team has an exciting group of players including some real household names for rugby fans.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar is trading at 15-rand-85-cents and the euro at 17-rand-81-cents. One British pound costs 21-rand-21-cents and Bitcoin trades at 56-thousand-837-dollar-1-cents. Gold is selling at one thousand-808-dollars-69-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 79-dollars-42-cents a barrel.

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