News 16:00
BULLETIN 15 March 4 pm
Good afternoon. I am……..
In this bulletin:
# President Cyril Ramaphosa re-appoints Lesetja Kganyago as governor of the Reserve Bank
# McDonald’s are offline in at least five countries
# And rugby: A late New Zealand player is diagnosed with a degenerative brain disease
# President Cyril Ramaphosa has re-appointed Lesetja Kganyago as governor of the South African Reserve Bank for a five-year term starting 9 November. Nomfundo Tshazibana and Rashad Ismail Cassim have also been re-appointed as deputy governors, effective from the first of August. The Presidency’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, says new appointments include Mampho Modise as the new deputy governor, starting the first of next month. Modise replaces Kuben Naidoo whose term of office ended last year.
# The Democratic Union Party is calling for the review of all state-owned enterprises including Eskom and Denel. This follows the collapse of the proposed deal for the sale of a 51-percent stake in South African Airways to Takatso Consortium. The party’s secretary-general, Thapelo Makgale, says political parties and organised labour must stand against any future sale or dismantling of SOEs:
# AfriForum says president Ramaphosa’s advocacy for mother-language education is mere lip service until the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill is scrapped. They argue the current bill poses a serious threat to mother-language education, especially in Afrikaans. The civil rights organisation vows to oppose the bill, claiming it centralises power and targets Afrikaans schools. AfriForum says it is preparing for legal action if the bill is passes. The organisation’s Alana Bailey criticises Ramaphosa for blaming schools instead of acknowledging the department’s dysfunction:
# McDonald’s have apologised to customers in various countries after a system failure led to many of the fast food chain’s shops being closed and online and app orders not being possible. Coutries such as Britain, Australia, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong are impacted. The chain gave the assurance the incident wasn’t related to a cybersecurity event. CNN reports Japan has nearly three-thousand McDonald’s shops, the United Kingdom one-thousand-500, and Australia just over one-thousand.
# Rugby: Auckland Blues’ former scrumhalf, Billy Guyton, has become New Zealand’s first professional player to be diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy. He died unexpectedly at the age of 33 last year after retiring five years before after several episodes of concussion. CTE, linked to repeated head impacts in contact sport, can only be diagnosed after death. New Zealand Rugby says it’s concerned that repeated head impacts in rugby may contribute to CTE in later life.
# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-65-cents and the euro at 20-rand-32-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-80-cents and Bitcoin trades at 67-thousand-781-dollars-90-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-163-dollars-5-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 84-dollars-73-cents a barrel.
Stay tuned for more news………….