News 07:00

BULLETIN 20 July 7 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# BUSA is encouraged by the president’s commitment on the National Health Insurance Act
# GIWUSA opposes the Reserve Bank’s repo rate decision
# And athletics, Akani Simbine faces top sprinters at a Diamond League meet in London

# Business Unity South Africa is reassured by president Cyril Ramaphosa’s commitment to unify stakeholders on the National Health Insurance Act. BUSA CEO Cas Coovadia has supported a collaborative approach, emphasising that the NHI Act in its current form is unaffordable and unsustainable. He urges amendments to leverage private sector resources and ensure economic stability while advancing universal health coverage:

# The General Industries Workers Union of South Africa has opposes the South African Reserve Bank’s decision to keep the repo rate at 8.25-percent. Spokesperson Koketso Phasha says GIWUSA criticises the decision, claiming it favours the wealthy and burdens the working class and poor. He calls for a rate decrease to provide relief for citizens struggling with loans and high living costs:

# The big four South African life insurers Old Mutual, Sanlam, Discovery Life, and Momentum paid out over 20-billion-rand in claims for 2023. Old Mutual alone disbursed 5.6-billion-rand, with significant amounts for trauma, including crime and accidents. Key trends include rising claims among younger policyholders, mainly due to cardiovascular events and cancer. Suicide claims accounted for six-percent, and Covid-19-related respiratory issues remain high. Experts highlight lifestyle factors as major contributors to severe health conditions.

# Cybersecurity experts warn yesterday’s worldwide technical outage could take days to correct. The issue, described as the biggest information technology glitch in history, caused chaos at institutions such as airports, television channels, banks and medical institutions. The anti-virus firm CrowdStrike quickly became a household name when it confirmed a bug in its automatic software update caused problems on Microsoft devices. Experts say the problem cannot be fixed automatically, but devices will have to be started in Safe Mode to remove the faulty update.

# And, athletics: South African sprinter Akani Simbine faces some of the Olympic favourites at the final pre-Games Diamond League meet in London today. This includes all three medallists at the World Championships in Budapest last year, reigning champion Noah Lyles of the US, Botswana star Letsile Tebogo and Briton Zharnel Hughes. Jamaican Kishane Thompson, who’s not in London, is the fastest man in the world this year so far with his 9.77. He beat Simbine and Tebogo in Hungary just more than a week ago.

Stay tuned for more news………….