News 07:00

BULLETIN 8 May 7 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The EFF criticises Britain over Malema’s visa denial
# President Ramaphosa says minister Godongwana’s budget will be different
# And Afrikaans celebrates 100 years as an official language

# The EFF has condemned the British High Commission’s failure to process leader Julius Malema’s visa application to the United Kingdom. Malema was supposed to address students at the 11th Annual Cambridge Africa Together Conference at Cambridge University this weekend. He revealed that he received the denial letter just four hours before his scheduled departure on Wednesday. EFF’s spokesperson, Thembi Msane, told the SABC that this is nothing more than an expression of bureaucratic process being used to suppress political dissent:

# President Cyril Ramaphosa says the upcoming budget will speak to growth, which is the only way to achieve fiscal sustainability and social progress in the country. Finance minister Enoch Godongwana will deliver the national budget for a third time in Parliament on the 21st of May. Speaking at the launch of the second phase of Operation Vulindlela in Pretoria on Wednesday, Ramaphosa stressed that the budget will be different from what has been presented in the past:

# The Democratic Alliance in Johannesburg has criticised mayor Dada Morero’s State of the City Address, citing massive financial mismanagement. DA provincial leader Solly Msimanga claims the city has incurred over 20-billion-rand in unauthorised and fruitless expenditure. Msimanga says this reflects a failure to address Johannesburg’s complex challenges amid limited resources. He argues that the mayor’s speech lacked concrete solutions to restore governance and service delivery:

# Researchers say the world’s wealthiest 10-percent of individuals are responsible for two-thirds of global warming since 1990. The first study to quantify the impact of concentrated private wealth on extreme climate events reports that how the rich consume and invest, has substantially increased the risk of deadly heatwaves and drought, A scientist at ETH Zurich, lead author Sarah Schoengart, says they linked the carbon footprints of the wealthiest individuals directly to real-world climate impacts.

# Cricket: India captain Rohit Sharma has announced his retirement from Test cricket with immediate effect, ruling him out of the series in England in June. The 38-year-old retires with four-thousand-301 runs in 67 Test matches, including 12 hundreds and 18 half-centuries. His top score was 212 against South Africa in Ranchi in 2019. Sharma, who quit T20 internationals after leading India to their second World Cup title last year, says he will continue to play ODI internationals.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-24-cents and the euro at 20-rand-63-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-27-cents and Bitcoin trades at 97-thousand-845-dollar-90-cents. Gold sells at three-thousand-387-dollars-2-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 61-dollars-37-cents a barrel.

# And finally: Today we celebrate Afrikaans’ centenary as an official language. Over the decades, Afrikaans has developed into a language that reflects the diversity of South Africa. It is a language that connects people, carries stories, and shapes communities. Thomas Walters of the DA says this is an opportunity to pay tribute to all the poets, writers, educators, artists, and ordinary Afrikaans speakers, as well as the various Afrikaans dialects, that shape and build Afrikaans.

Stay tuned for more news………….