News 17:00

BULLETIN 26 February 5 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The Gauteng Health Department cracks down on ghost employees with its Ziveze campaign
# Tesla shares slump after European sales fall
# And archeologists find a Stonehenge-like circle in Denmark

# The Gauteng Health Department has embarked on the Ziveze, ‘reveal yourself’, campaign to remove ghost employees from its payroll. The campaign aims to verify 85-thousand-642 employees, to ensure only legitimate staff are paid. As of yesterday, 66 unverified employees had their salaries frozen. The department’s Motalatale Modiba says the verification process is ongoing, with over 31-thousand employees verified so far, and it will continue until the end of next month:

# The GOOD Party says the government of national unity must counter apartheid apologists by passing a pro-poor budget. The party believes that despite being just seven-percent of the population, white citizens remain far better off. GOOD’s Brett Herron says the budget delay is a chance to push for economic justice through fair taxation. He urges Finance minister Enoch Godongwana to defend democracy and ensure those who can afford to pay contribute to building a more equal society:

# Shares in electric car maker Tesla have slumped more than nine-percent after European Union and United Kingdom sales fell by almost half in January. The drop took the company’s valuation back below one-trillion-dollar for the first time since November 2024. Tesla sales last year fell for the first time in more than a decade as demand faltered and rivals gained pace. In addition, Tesla owner Elon Musk has been causing controversy on both sides of the Atlantic as a close ally of US president Donald Trump.

# Soccer: Liverpool’s manager, Arne Slot, was suspended for two Premier League matches after chaos erupted during this month’s Merseyside Derby with Everton. Slot was shown a red card after the match for using insulting words towards the match officials. He was fined 1.6-million-rand. Slot’s assistant manager, Siphe Hulshoff, was also given a two-match suspension, and a 162-thousand-rand fine. The two clubs were also given hefty fines after a scuffle broke out between the players after the final whistle.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-38-cents and the euro at 19-rand-27-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-25-cents and Bitcoin trades at 87-thousand-504-dollars. Gold sells at two-thousand-911-dollars-17-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 72-dollars-28-cents a barrel.

# And finally: Danish archeologists have uncovered a four-thousand-year-old circle of wooden piles they say could be linked to Britain’s world-renowned Stonehenge. The 45 neolithic-era wooden pieces, in a circle with a diameter of about 30 metres, were found during work on a housing estate in the northwestern town of Aars. The two circles of stones at Stonehenge in southern England are believed to have been erected between three-thousand-100 and one-thousand-600 BC. The Danish archeologists are now trying to find if there is an inner circle at the Aars site.

Stay tuned for more news………….