NEWSFLASH NEWS AGENCY 22 November 12 pm

Good afternoon,

In this bulletin:

# The Southern Cape floods are now leading to power outages
# The Gauteng Education Department says all learner Covid-19 screening will now be done on the premises
# And Tennis: Alexander Zverev is aiming to win a Grand Slam title next year

# The George Municipality in the Southern Cape is making an urgent appeal for people to stay at home if they can as heavy rain and extensive flooding is causing road closures. A spokesperson urged motorists to avoid roads such as Langenhoven Street, Hope Street, St Mary Street, the R102 Old Airport Road, Fiegland Street, Borchards, parts of Merriman Street and Saasveld Road. There are power outages in areas across the city to which the municipality is attending. The drivers’ licence testing centre is currently closed.

Meanwhile, the Garden Route District Municipality’s joint operations centre has been activated to monitor the heavy rainfall being experienced in parts of the Southern Cape. The municipality’s Athane Scholtz says the main area of concern remains George and surrounding areas. She says the centre has requested disaster management coordinators from Bitou and Mossel Bay to activate their own disaster management teams:

Play sound: ENG ScholtzOnFlooding

Flood-related incidents can be reported on 044 805 5071.

# The Gauteng Department of Education says they have resolved that from today all screening and scanning procedures for Covid-19 must be done inside provincial government school premises. MEC Panyaza Lesufi says he was devastated to learn of another learner kidnapping ordeal in the province in Johannesburg on Friday. He says he is glad this particular attempt failed. Lesufi confirmed the EP Baumann Primary School girl who was kidnapped last Wednesday is still missing.

# Metalworkers’ union Numsa has welcomed the precautionary suspension of Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa CEO Zolani Matthews. He has been suspended for deliberately failing to disclose that he holds a British citizenship. Numsa spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola says they hope the Prasa board goes further and fires Matthews:

Play sound: ENG MajolaOnMatthews

# Tennis: World number three Alexander Zverev has set his sights on winning a Grand Slam title next year. The 24-year-old German finished this season in the best way possible when he claimed his second ATP Finals trophy by defeating Russia’s Daniil Medvedev in Turin, Italy. Serbia’s Novak Djokovic currently leads the world rankings by nearly three-thousand points over Medvedev and nearly four-thousand points over Zverev. However, the German believes the number one ranking is also not out of reach next year.

# Financial indicators: The dollar is trading at 15-rand-82-cents and the euro at 17-rand-83-cents. One British pound costs 21-rand-23-cents and Bitcoin trades at 57-thousand-433-dollars-6-cents. Gold is selling at one thousand-845-dollars-37-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 79-dollars-31-cents a barrel.

For the latest news stay tuned to ………….