News 13:00

BULLETIN 11 March 1 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# A bus accident claims the lives of twelve people in Kempton Park
# The DA says a radical overhaul is needed to fix Gauteng’s hospitals
# And rugby: Irish players won’t be disciplined over Antoine Dupont’s knee injury

# Twelve people have died after a bus overturned on the R21 North just before the OR Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park, Gauteng, this morning. The Ekurhuleni Disaster and Emergency Management Services has confirmed the bus rolled several times. EMS spokesperson, William Ntladi, says the victims are nine women and three men:

# The DA in Gauteng says fixing Helen Joseph Hospital requires a radical overhaul of the provincial Health Department. Most of the province’s 37 public hospitals continue to face staff shortages, poor management, and crumbling infrastructure. The party also cites a hiring freeze amid a 7.3-billion-rand budget deficit has left 30-percent of nursing posts vacant. The DA’s Jack Bloom is pushing premier Panyaza Lesufi to fire Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko and department head Lesiba Malotana:

# The City of Tshwane’s Emergency Services Department is urging communities to remain alert as adverse weather is expected today. The South African Weather Service has issued a Level 2 Yellow warning for severe thunderstorms over most parts of Gauteng. Emergency spokesperson, Lindsay Mnguni, says the rainfall probability around Tshwane is 30 to 60-percent:

# Rugby: The Six Nations have refused France’s demand for two Irish players to face a disciplinary committee over their ruck clean-out that left French captain Antoine Dupont on the sidelines for several months. He suffered a serious knee-injury when Tadhg Beirne and Andrew Porter landed on his leg during France’s 42-27 victory in Dublin. Irish winger Calvin Nash was also not cited following his yellow card for a high tackle on French centre Pierre-Louis Barassi. France plays Scotland in Paris in this coming weekend’s final round.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-24-cents and the euro at 19-rand-89-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-58-cents and Bitcoin trades at 81-thousand-287-dollars. Gold sells at two-thousand-909-dollars-59-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 69-dollars-49-cents a barrel.

# And finally: Two-thousand-444 dead birds from over 200 species have been recorded across 33 wind farms in South Africa over eight years ending in 2023. This is according to a report by BirdLife South Africa. Currently, the country has one-thousand-421 turbines generating about three-thousand-490-megawatts of capacity, which is set to grow to 17-thousand-700-megawatts by 2030. BirdLife says by law, all wind farms must have environmental management programmes, which include monitoring bird deaths caused by turbines. It adds that many wind farms fail to comply.

Stay tuned for more news………….