News 09:00

BULLETIN 7 November 9 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Forum for South Africa demands urgent action over the South Africans trapped in Ukraine
# ActionSA lodges an ethics complaint against minister McKenzie
# And US airlines cancel hundreds of flights due to the reduction of flight operations

# The Forum for South Africa says it is outraged that 17 South African men are trapped in the war-torn Donbas region of Ukraine. The men were apparently lured to join mercenary forces involved in the Russia-Ukraine war under the pretext of lucrative employment contracts. Working as a mercenary or fighting on behalf of another government is illegal in South Africa, unless the government authorises it. FOSA leader, Tebogo Mashilompane, says they are calling for an investigation into the matter:

# ActionSA has lodged an ethics complaint against the Sports, Arts and Culture minister, Gayton McKenzie. The party says this follows his misleading reply to a Parliamentary question regarding the Teboho Mokoena saga, which nearly cost Bafana Bafana their place in the 2026 World Cup. South Africa was docked three points by FIFA after fielding Mokoena, who was suspended, to play against Lesotho in March. ActionSA’s spokesperson, Matthew George, says McKenzie did not launch an investigation into this matter, despite him saying he did:

# The DA in Gauteng has expressed concern at the Merafong City Local Municipality’s debt owed to Rand Water and Eskom, which has increased to three-billion-rand. Debt owed to Rand Water has more than doubled from 655-million-rand in June 2023 to over 1.4-billion-rand this month. Similarly, Eskom’s debt has ballooned from 858-million-rand in April 2024 to over 1.6-billion-rand this month. The DA’s Carl Steenekamp says the municipality has yet to take meaningful action to curb this escalating debt crisis:

# Delta, Southwest, and United Airlines are among the airlines that have pre-emptively cancelled some flights in the US for today in compliance with the Federal Aviation Administration’s directive. The FAA has ordered a four-percent reduction in flight operations at 40 major airports from today, as a result of the government shutdown, which has resulted in air traffic controller staffing shortages. The flight reductions will rise to five-percent tomorrow and six-percent on Sunday, before hitting ten-percent next week.

# Tennis: World number one Aryna Sabalenka and fifth-seeded American Jessica Pegula are through to the semifinals of the WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Belarusian Sabalenka beat American Coco Gauff, 7-6, 6-2, to finish top of the Stefanie Graf Group. Gauff needed a straight-set victory against Sabalenka to continue her title defence. Pegula won, 6-2, 6-3, against already-eliminated Italian Jasmine Paolini. Sabalenka has set up a semifinal meeting with American Amanda Anisimova today, while Pegula will face Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-39-cents and the euro at 20-rand-6-cents. One British pound costs 22-rand-81-cents and Bitcoin trades at 101-thousand-867-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-997-dollars-32-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 63-dollars-58-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….