News 09:00

BULLETIN 11 March 9 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# People Against Budget Cuts is demanding an end to austerity measures
# The refurbished Unit 2 at Koeberg is back online
# And the UN chief warns that women’s rights are under siege worldwide

# The People Against Budget Cuts says it rejects any value-added tax increases in the budget and is demanding an end to the austerity measures that have negatively impacted communities. Finance minister Enoch Godongwana is set to table the budget in Parliament on Wednesday. People Against Budget Cuts spokesperson, Busi Mtabane, says the government must reconsider its budget allocations and ensure that economic policies serve the people, not just the elite:

# Eskom says Koeberg nuclear power station unit two has been successfully brought back online. The unit suffered an outage caused by a steam leak in the reheat system, which resulted in stage three load-shedding being implemented during the weekend. The power utility says the unit has been incrementally ramped up to 646 megawatts and will continue to increase its output until it reaches its full capacity of 930 megawatts. It adds that Koeberg is a key contributor as part of its energy generation mix and stabilising electricity supply.

# Cape Town Metro Police have arrested three suspects, who have been charged with kidnapping, extortion, pointing of a firearm, and possession of stolen property. Metro police spokesperson, Ruth Solomons, says armed suspects accosted four people, a woman and three men, as they were about to enter a shop in Epping 2. She says the suspects bundled the four into an Avanza and drove off, but two of the victims managed to escape by jumping out of the vehicle:

# United Nations secretary-general, António Guterres, has warned that women’s rights are under siege globally, and hard-won gains are being thrown into reverse. He addressed the opening of the 69th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York, which aims to address the widespread inequalities, violence, and discrimination women continue to face. Guterres says action is needed to ensure women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation and leadership in decision-making:

# Tennis: Two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz is through to the round of 16 at the Indian Wells Masters for the fourth consecutive time. The Spaniard beat Canadian Denis Shapovalov 6-2, 6-4. Ninth-seeded Australian Alex de Minaur earned a statement, 6-4, 6-0, victory against Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz, while former champion American Taylor Fritz saw off Chile’s Alejandro Tabilo 4-6, 6-3. In the women’s draw, Australian Open champion Madison Keys of the US defeated Belgium’s Elise Mertens, 6-2, 6-7, 6-4, to reach the fourth round.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-31-cents and the euro at 19-rand-87-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-59-cents and Bitcoin trades at 80-thousand-187-dollars. Gold sells at two-thousand-896-dollars-32-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 69-dollars a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….