News 06:00

BULLETIN 18 November 6 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Archbishop Thabo Makgoba launches an inquiry into possible sexual abuse in the Anglican Church
# Eskom says it’s on track to meet the electricity demand
# And the Hezbollah spokesperson was killed in an Israeli strike

# Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has launched an inquiry into whether the Anglican Church in Cape Town has met its obligation to keep its members safe from abuse. An independent Makin Review concluded that former UK lawyer, John Smyth, was responsible for the abuse of over 100 boys and men in the UK, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Smyth organised evangelical summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s. He attended a Cape Town Anglican Church two times. Makgoba says no evidence had ever been reported to the church’s leaders that Smyth had committed abuses in Cape Town.

# Eskom says it remains on track to meet electricity demand with an available generation capacity of 29-thousand-157-megawatts and a peak demand forecast of 25-thousand-954-megawatts. Eskom’s Daphne Mokwena says an additional two-thousand-540-megawatts is expected to return online by this evening. She says Eskom’s earlier summer outlook predicted a likely scenario of summer free from load-shedding due to structural generation improvements:

# ActionSA Gauteng Youth Forum demands that president Cyril Ramaphosa take decisive action to address the spaza shop crisis. The Forum’s Mologadi Modiba says that instead of making empty promises, he should declare a state of disaster and take concrete steps to protect children and the local economy. She says while addressing the nation, Ramaphosa absolved foreign nationals of any responsibility for the tragic deaths of over 20 children in the province:

# Maersk subsidiary, APM Terminals insists its court challenge against Transnet’s Durban Port contract was made “in good faith”. It argues that Transnet failed to adhere to its own tender criteria, including a solvency metric. According to News24, the 32-billion-rand contract was awarded to Filipino company ICTSI, which accuses APM of protecting market dominance. APM says the process must be transparent for South Africa’s benefit. A judicial review is set for March 2025.

# An Israeli airstrike reportedly killed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah’s spokesperson, Mohammed Afif, and injured three others in Beirut. The attack was just the fourth Israeli strike inside Beirut’s city limits since 2006 when a 34-day armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah took place. Afif had been the public face of Hezbollah in several press conferences after the assassination of leader Hassan Nasrallah in September this year. Israel’s apparent targeting of Afif comes amid an escalation in its offensive in Lebanon.

# Golf: Four-time major winner Rory McIlroy won the season-ending DP World Tour Championship for the third time. The Northern Irishman finished two strokes ahead of Denmark’s Rasmus Hojgaard on 15 under after a three-under-par 69 in his final round. This win also confirms the 35-year-old as the Race to Dubai champion for the sixth time and the third successive season. He equals Spain’s Seve Ballesteros’ record. McIlroy says this is a fitting end to this year:

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-22-cents and the euro at 19-rand-20-cents. One British pound costs 22-rand-99-cents and Bitcoin trades at 89-thousand-805-dollar-63-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-573-dollars-27-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 70-dollars-91-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….