News 15:00

BULLETIN 4 June 3 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# AgriSA’s CEO says SA needs a food security index
# GIWUSA says the 0.1-percent GDP growth confirms the capitalist stagnation
# And cricket: Mitchell Marsh is back as Australia’s T20 captain

# The CEO of AgriSA, Johann Kotze, says South Africa needs a food security index that will be active in real time. Based on the 1996 World Food Summit, food security is defined as a state which exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active life. Kotze says the index will help the country understand food security for the future:

Meanwhile, the The Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa launched a report entitled, Food for Thought. The report aims to better understand how some of the institute’s partners and client groups have been affected by and responded to food insecurity and hunger issues. It says 23.1-percent of households nationally consider their access to food as inadequate or severely inadequate. The institute says the report illustrates that many poor and low-income households across the country are struggling with food insecurity and hunger on a daily basis.

# The General Industries Workers Union of South Africa says 0.1-percent gross domestic product growth confirms that South Africa is trapped in a deep, structural crisis of capitalism, characterised by stagnation, deindustrialisation, and neocolonial plunder. GIWUSA president, Mametlwe Sebei says the country is confronted with an organic crisis, where the fundamental contradictions of monopoly capital, imperialist domination, and neoliberal austerity have exhausted all possibilities of reformist capitalist resolution:

# Europe’s largest car manufacturer is considering opening an assembly plant in Egypt. The VW Group’s managing director for Africa, Martina Biene told Engineering News it is part of a plan to tap new African markets in the face of slower demand in Europe. Volkswagen could first establish an assembly unit by using existing facilities. Biene says a potential next step would be to build a local factory in the Middle East’s most populous nation. VW is cutting production capacity and jobs in Germany due to increasing costs and rising competition from China.

# Cricket: Mitchell Marsh will captain Australia on his return to the T20 squad for a five-match series in the West Indies, while explosive batsman Mitchell Owen earned a first call-up. Fast bowler Josh Hazlewood is back, having been rested for Australia’s last T20 series against Pakistan in November, and left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann makes the squad for the first time. Australia’s Test and 50-over captain Pat Cummins, Travis Head and Mitchell Starc were left out of the 16-man squad for the series next month.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-84-cents and the euro at 20-rand-31-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-12-cents and Bitcoin trades at 105-thousand-427-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-347-dollars-73-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 65-dollars-44-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….