{"id":128570,"date":"2016-06-30T08:37:54","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T06:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=128570"},"modified":"2016-06-30T08:37:54","modified_gmt":"2016-06-30T06:37:54","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/128570\/5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-3\/","title":{"rendered":"5 things you need to know in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in the country:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2016\/06\/30\/Election-the-biggest-since-the-1994-epic\">The 2016 municipal election promises to be the most contested\u00a0election in the country since 1994<\/a><\/strong>. New stats released by the IEC show that\u00a0a\u00a0total of 200 parties and more than 61,000 candidates will contest the elections, which is to be held on 3 August. There were 53,000 candidates in the 2011 elections.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Following riots in Tshwane in the past few weeks over the ANC&#8217;s mayoral candidate list, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2016\/06\/30\/Buses-torched-as-residents-protest-over-ANC-election-list-in-CT\">a new wave of violent protest has erupted in the Western Cape for the same reason<\/a><\/strong>. Buses were set on fire in Cape Town as protesters burnt tyres and stoned passing vehicles, expressing anger over the ANC&#8217;s election lists.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand gained as much as 2.5 percent on Wednesday as emerging markets rallied from a Brexit-triggered collapse and demand for riskier assets continued to recover.\u00a0Stocks were also firmer, led by gold firms lifted by safe-haven demand. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencycharts\/?from=USD&amp;to=ZAR\">On Thursday the rand was trading at R14.88 to the dollar, R19.96 to the pound and R16.55 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In global news: <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N19M0IB?pageNumber=2&amp;virtualBrandChannel=0&amp;sp=true\">Asia stocks rose on Thursday, tracking an overnight rally on Wall Street, while the safe-haven Japanese yen was held in check <\/a><\/strong>as global markets regained a semblance of calm after the Brexit shock.\u00a0Wall Street recorded big gains for a second day on Wednesday as investors continued to scour for bargains.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-global-oil-idUSKCN0ZG04W\">Oil prices fell in early trade on Thursday, with Brent\u00a0futures struggling to defend $50 per barrel as fears over\u00a0strike outages in Norway faded<\/a><\/strong> and as Nigeria&#8217;s production\u00a0improved.\u00a0International Brent crude oil futures were trading at $50.10 per barrel, down 51 cents, while U.S. crude futures were down 38 cents at $49.50 a barrel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In other news<\/strong>:\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/money\/food-prices-drop-month-on-month\">The Pietermaritzburg Agency for Community Social Action (Pacsa), has released its latest food price barometer<\/a><\/strong>, showing that food prices in June were down from price is May, showing some relief for consumers &#8211; however prices were still up over a three month period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today (30 June 2016)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":110385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-128570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128572,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128570\/revisions\/128572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}