News 12:00

BULLETIN 5 June 12 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The DA says over five-thousand-700 land claims remain dormant
# Meat importers call for access to safe poultry markets outside of Brazil
# And rugby, eleven uncapped players are included in Ireland’s squad for Tests against Georgia and Portugal

# The DA says the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development has failed to process existing claims despite having had the legal framework, time, and funding to do so. To date, over 52-billion-rand has been spent on land restitution. The DA’s Sonja Boshoff says more than five-thousand-700 land claims lodged before the original 1998 cut-off remain unresolved, with provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga carrying the heaviest backlogs:

# The Association of Meat Importers and Exporters urges the government to reopen poultry imports from countries declared free of bird flu. These include France, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium. Imports from Brazil remain suspended due to an outbreak in Rio Grande do Sul, but a partial lifting of the ban is expected soon. The association’s CEO, Imameleng Mothebe, warns local producers cannot meet full demand, especially for products like poultry offal and mechanically deboned meat:

# Tanzania blocked access to social media platform X over the presence of pornographic content, two weeks after government-linked accounts were hacked. X announced last year that it would no longer block “consensually produced and distributed” adult content. Tanzania’s minister of Information, Jerry Silaa, told a local TV station this contradicts their regulations. He said X now has pornography and homosexuality, which are all contrary to their country’s laws, culture, customs, and traditions.

# Rugby: Munster scrum-half Craig Casey has been named Ireland captain for next month’s tour of Georgia and Portugal, in a 32-man squad that includes eleven uncapped players. The debutants include Alex Kendellen, Darragh Murray, and Paddy McCarthy. After missing out on selection for the British and Irish Lions, Jack Crowley and Sam Prendergast have been included in the squad. Interim head coach Paul O’Connell says they have a strong blend of youth and experience for what will be a trip into relatively uncharted territories.

# Financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-78-cents and the euro at 20-rand-29-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-12-cents and Bitcoin trades at 104-thousand-650-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-372-dollars-79-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 64-dollars-89-cents a barrel.

# And finally: Astronomers have discovered a massive planet orbiting a tiny star, a bizarre pairing that has stumped scientists. Most of the stars across the Milky Way are small red dwarfs like TOI-6894, which has only 20-percent the mass of our Sun. It had not been thought possible that such puny, weak stars could provide the conditions needed to form and host huge planets. But an international team of astronomers have detected the unmistakable signature of a gas giant planet orbiting the undersized TOI-6894, according to a study in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Stay tuned for more news………….