News 09:00

BULLETIN 24 June 9 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The Labour Party of South Africa wants to interdict the National Dialogue
# Home Affairs rolls out the new National Population Register verification service
# And Donald Trump continues to tout a ceasefire deal while Iran launches a fresh round of missiles

# The Labour Party of South Africa has launched an urgent application in the North Gauteng High Court to interdict president Cyril Ramaphosa’s National Dialogue. It argues that the process is unconstitutional, irrational, fiscally irresponsible, and excludes the working class. The party’s Joseph Mathunjwa told Newzroom Afrika that the dialogue lacks the executive powers of the existing institutions like Parliament and the legislature:

# Parliament’s Higher Education Portfolio Committee chairperson Tebogo Letsie has called on the National Student Financial Aid Scheme to urgently resolve payment issues of student accommodation. Speaking during a chairpersons of Parliament’s Social Services Cluster Oversight Committees update, Letsie condemned non-payment of providers since 2023 and slow response to appeals. He insists no student should be excluded due to administrative failures, which fuel poverty:

# Minister of Home Affairs, Leon Schreiber, says the rollout of an upgraded National Population Register verification service to all companies and government users will begin on July 1st. Home Affairs has increased the fees for a single real-time verification check to ten-rand per transaction. For non-live batch verifications, where a user wishes to verify multiple records simultaneously during off-peak periods, the cost will be one-rand per verification field request. Schreiber says the new, more efficient system will act as an economic catalyst because it will take milliseconds to verify identities.

# The Israeli Defence Force says Iran has launched three waves of fresh missile attacks towards its territory today. Three people were killed after a missile struck a residential building in the southern Israeli city of Beer Sheva. Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump has continued to claim a ceasefire has been reached, taking to Truth Social and saying that Israel and Iran reached out to him almost simultaneously about a peace agreement. He added that both nations will see tremendous love, peace and prosperity in their futures.

# Rugby: England coach Steve Borthwick has named ten uncapped players in the 36-man squad for the July tour of Argentina and the USA. The squad, which will be captained by hooker Jamie George and fly-half George Ford, comprise of 20 forwards and 16 backs. The debutants include Bath’s Premiership-winning trio Will Muir, Max Ojomoh and Guy Pepper, Joe Carpenter of Sale Sharks and Harlequins’ Luke Northmore. Borthwick says this series will be a valuable opportunity for the continued development of the squad.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-78-cents and the euro at 20-rand-64-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-12-cents and Bitcoin trades at 104-thousand-859-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-349-dollars-81-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 68-dollars-91-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….