News 17:00

BULLETIN 20 October 5 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Witness A tells the Madlanga commission about threats and harassment from supporters of a controversial police detective
# Amazon’s cloud services are hit by an hours-long global outage
# And cricket: Pakistan reaches 259 for five at stumps on day one in Rawalpindi

# Witness A told the Madlanga commission he and his colleagues faced threats and harassment from supporters of police detective Michael Pule Tau following his arrest in the murder of Q-Tech Engineering engineer Armand Swart. He said some of the supporters, believed to be police officers in plain clothes, tried to take pictures of them and even attempted to drive them off the road after a court appearance:

# The chairperson of Parliament’s Social Development portfolio committee, Bridget Masango, says inhouse disputes in the department are concerning. This also includes the recent dismissal of its spokesperson, Lumka Oliphant, over allegations of leaking sensitive information and breaching department rules. Masango says the committee will seek legal advice from Parliamentary Legal Services. She stressed to Newzroom Afrika that the department’s mandate to protect vulnerable citizens should not be overshadowed by leadership issues:

Moving abroad:

# A global outage hit Amazon’s cloud services for several hours today. A subsidiary of the US tech giant said it disrupted many websites and services including Amazon Prime, Perplexity, Fortnite, Alexa, Snapchat and Duolingo. Amazon’s maintenance said it took some three hours to largely fix the problem, with some services working to erase the backlog. During the outage, many other online services were affected, including Reddit, and various video streaming platforms such as Hulu and Disney+. In Europe, several major mobile phone operators, some UK banks, WhatsApp and Tinder were also affected.

# Cricket: Pakistan reached 259 for five at the end of the first day of the second and final Test against South Africa in Rawalpindi. The hosts won the toss and chose to bat, with captain Shan Masood contributing 87 and Abdullah Shafique 57. Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer both claimed two wickets, with Kagiso Rabada removing another batter. The Proteas didn’t fare too well in the field, missing several catches. Pakistan won the first Test in Lahore by 93 runs within four days.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-27-cents and the euro at 20-rand-12-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-17-cents and Bitcoin trades at 110-thousand-692-dollars. Gold sells at four-thousand-318-dollars-99-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 60-dollars-31-cents a barrel.

# And finally: The DA in Gauteng has extended its best wishes to all matric learners as they begin their final examinations. DA Gauteng Education spokesperson, Sergio Isa dos Santos, commended learners for their resilience amid challenges such as overcrowded classrooms and infrastructure delays. Dos Santos also thanked teachers and parents for their support and urged the Education Department to ensure secure, disruption-free exam centres. He encouraged learners to remain confident:

Stay tuned for more news………….