News 06:00

BULLETIN 15 April 6 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# President Ramaphosa says his worst fears have been realised following Iran’s attack on Israel
# The Border Authority intercepts over 281-thousand individuals who attempted to enter the country illegally
# And load-shedding continues to remain suspended until further notice

# President Cyril Ramaphosa says South Africa had warned very early on that unless there is a ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, the situation would soon escalate to other regions. Iran launched an unprecedented strike on Israel on Saturday. The attack was in retaliation to Israel’s strike on its consulate in Syria, which killed seven Iranian officers. Speaking during an ANC’s election campaign in Orange Farm, Gauteng, Ramaphosa says his worst fears had been realised:

# The Border Management Authority commissioner, Michael Masiapato, says they intercepted and stopped over 281-thousand individuals at the 71 ports of entry over Easter, who attempted to enter South Africa illegally. Masiapato says despite the reduction in the number of conveyancers ferrying illegal migrants, eight penalties to the value of 270-thousand-rand were issued to bus companies found transporting illegal migrants:

# Load-shedding remains suspended until further notice, with today marking the 19th consecutive day without blackouts. This is the longest stretch without load-shedding so far this year. Eskom says this is due to the sustained availability of generation capacity and emergency reserves at its power stations. The power utility says two-thousand-150 megawatts of generation capacity is anticipated to be restored by today.

# A special and independent investigation committee has been established to lead a probe into the City of Johannesburg’s Group Forensics and Investigating Services department. Advocate Pule Seleka will lead the committee. Last year, a report found irregularities in some of the investigations conducted by the forensics and investigations department. Speaker of Council, Margaret Arnolds, says she is confident that the committee will get to the bottom of the allegations:

# Tennis: Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas won his third Monte Carlo Masters title in four years, becoming the fifth player to win three or more titles at the Principality. He dispatched Norwegian Casper Ruud, 6-1, 6-4. The 25-year-old found his best level in Monte Carlo, beating top-ten players Germany’s Alexander Zverev and Italy’s Jannik Sinner to reach the final. This victory sees Tsitsipas return to the top ten in the world rankings for the first time since February, climbing to number seven.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-85-cents and the euro at 20-rand-8-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-49-cents and Bitcoin trades at 65-thousand-242-dollars-87-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-354-dollars-73-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 90-dollars-31-cents a barrel.

 # And finally: The City of Cape Town has announced the details of the metro’s destination travel campaign that will be rolled out in China. The city is targeting various cities across China via WeChat. Data shows 151-thousand Chinese tourists arrived in South Africa in 2013. The following year, the figure fell to 83-thousand. Mayoral committee member for Economic Growth, James Vos, says after the reopening of the borders post-Covid-19, just over 34-thousand Chinese visitors made their way to South Africa between January and November last year.

Stay tuned for more news………….