News 11:00

BULLETIN 24 October 11 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Trump’s pick for South African ambassador will pressure the government on its non-alignment policy
# Scopa’s chairperson calls on the Road Accident Fund to exclude foreign nationals
# And gymnastics: Indonesia says the exclusion of Israeli athletes was designed to maintain public order

# US ambassador-designate to South Africa, Leo Brent Bozell, says one of his priorities will be to communicate objections to South Africa’s geostrategic drift from non-alignment towards America’s competitors, including Russia, China and Iran. He faced a grilling from senators during his confirmation hearing before the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. Bozell says he will also press South Africa to end proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice:

# The chairperson of Parliament’s standing committee on Public Accounts, Songezo Zibi, has called for foreigners to be excluded from Road Accident Fund payouts. Zibi says while current law allows anyone injured in a South African road accident to claim, the act should be amended. He says the upcoming Road Accident Benefit Scheme Bill will include these reforms following public consultation:

# The GOOD Party says the national government’s failure to properly regulate policing powers under Section 334 of the Criminal Procedure Act has created a vacuum. This follows the Gauteng government’s decision to disband the crime prevention wardens. GOOD’s secretary general, Brett Herron, says it is disingenuous and pure political point-scoring for the DA to jump on the crime-warden bandwagon. He says the DA’s own Law Enforcement Advancement Plan in the Western Cape has cost taxpayers over four-billion-rand:

# Nearly 37-thousand migrants have arrived in the United Kingdom on small boats so far this year, as the government faced fresh pressure over its attempts to stop the crossings. A total of 36-thousand-954 undocumented migrants have crossed the English Channel from northern France to England’s southern coast so far this year, compared with 36-thousand-816 for the whole of last year. The numbers will be a massive headache for British prime minister Keir Starmer, who had promised to smash the gangs of people smugglers charging migrants huge sums for the dangerous journeys.

# Gymnastics: Indonesia says its decision to ban Israeli athletes from the world championship in Jakarta was designed to maintain public order, security and the public interest. The Israelis were denied visas due to the war in Gaza. This led to the International Olympic Committee urging all international sporting federations not to host any events in the Asian country with the world’s largest Muslim-majority. Indonesia’s minister of Sport, Erick Thohir, says the decision was based on the country’s Constitution and its obligation to maintain world order.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-30-cents and the euro at 20-rand-9-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-7-cents and Bitcoin trades at 111-thousand-366-dollars. Gold sells at four-thousand-and-92-dollars-64-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 64-dollars-94-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….