News 11:00

BULLETIN 18 June 11 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Ramaphosa appoints minister Angie Motshekga as acting president while he is out of the country
# AfriForum demands free temporary licences amid the card printing crisis
# And motorsport, the Canadian Formula One Grand Prix is confirmed until at least 2035

# President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Defence and Military Veterans minister Angie Motshekga to serve as acting president. This is due to Ramaphosa’s absence while he participated in the G7 summit in Canada, and deputy president Paul Mashatile currently being on a working visit to Russia. The Presidency says Motshekga’s appointment is in accordance with the Constitution, and she will occupy the country’s highest position until tomorrow.

# AfriForum is calling on Transport minister Barbara Creecy to issue free temporary driving licences to motorists who renew on time. The demand follows a backlog of over 730-thousand licence cards by mid-May, due to repeated printer breakdowns. AfriForum’s Louis Boshoff says it’s unfair for motorists to pay extra for delays caused by the department’s failures, urging immediate solutions and better accountability:

# The DA in Gauteng says Health MEC, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko, has ordered a review of excessive hospital security following the party’s exposure of ballooning costs. Total security costs have soared from 655-million-rand in 2022 to 2.54-billion-rand this year. The DA’s Jack Bloom says, for example, the Tara Mental Hospital’s new security contract includes almost double the guards it really needs:

# The Israeli Defence Force says it launched a wave of strikes on Iranian uranium centrifuge and missile production sites overnight. It says among the facilities targeted was a site for producing raw materials and components for assembling surface-to-air missiles, a centrifuge production facility, and an academy linked to the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Centrifuges are machines that enrich uranium. The IDF says it is confident that the Iranian regime is enriching uranium intended for developing nuclear weapons.

# Motorsport: Canada will host a Formula One Grand Prix until at least 2035. This follows the sport’s signing of an extention to Quebec and Canada’s deal to host a race in Montreal, which hosted it’s first Grand Prix in 1978. The race had been in doubt after F1 CEO Stefano Dominicali issued a stern warning following complaints over the organisation and logistics last year. On Sunday, everything went much smoother and the deal, originally due to run until 2031, had been extended by another four years.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-99-cents and the euro at 20-rand-73-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-24-cents and Bitcoin trades at 104-thousand-893-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-382-dollars-22-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 74-dollars-85-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….