{"id":134104,"date":"2016-08-23T07:47:40","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T05:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=134104"},"modified":"2016-08-23T07:47:40","modified_gmt":"2016-08-23T05:47:40","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/134104\/5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-27\/","title":{"rendered":"5 things you need to know in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2016\/08\/23\/Zuma-to-oversee-SOEs-through-new-initiative\">President Jacob Zuma is a step closer to assuming full control at state-owned companies, with the presidency announcing that he will chair a\u00a0special presidential co-ordinating committee<\/a><\/strong>, which will have direct oversight of business strategies at parastatals. The move will undoubtedly have implications for companies like SAA, where Zuma&#8217;s friends are in charge, and are under pressure to step down.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2016\/08\/22\/Mantashe%E2%80%99s-comments-could-up-chance-of-ratings-cut%E2%80%9A-BMI-Research-says\">Comments from ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe that the country&#8217;s budget should be reprioritised are putting the country at serious risk of being cut to junk status at the end of the year<\/a><\/strong>, BMI Research says. Ahead of the 2016 elections, Fitch Ratings warned that adopting populist policies would be bad for the economy, and said the ANC should avoid it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand continued its retreat against a\u00a0strengthening dollar on Monday, as rekindled expectations of\u00a0a near-term rate rise kept investors cautious. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencycharts\/?from=USD&amp;to=ZAR\">On Tuesday, the rand was trading at R13.46 to the dollar, R17.73 to the pound and R15.26 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In global news, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N1B40BX\">Asia shares inched ahead while oil fell for a second session\u00a0on Tuesday, as investors awaited guidance <\/a><\/strong>on whether the\u00a0Federal Reserve will raise U.S. interest rates this year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-global-oil-idUSKCN10Y01V\">Oil prices fell over 1 percent on Tuesday, with Goldman\u00a0Sachs warning that August&#8217;s price rally had been overdone\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>and that a proposed oil production freeze at current\u00a0near-record levels would not help rein in an oversupplied\u00a0market.\u00a0Brent crude oil was trading at $48.54 per barrel, down 62 cents, while\u00a0U.S. crude was down 76 cents, at $46.65 per barrel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In other news<\/strong>:\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/scitech\/2016\/08\/22\/SA-university-performs-hands-free-kidney-transplant\">Health professionals at Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University (SMU) have performed Africa&#8217;s first hands-free kidney transplant<\/a><\/strong>, using\u00a0laparoscopic instruments. Previous surgeries of this nature were done with hand assistance &#8211; this marks the first time that no hands entered a patient&#8217;s abdomen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zuma is tightening his grip on state-owned companies; junk status is very much back on the cards for SA; and a local university has performed Africa&#8217;s first hands-free kidney transplant &#8211; here&#8217;s what is happening in affecting South Africa today (23 August 2016).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":53100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-134104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134104","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=134104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134106,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134104\/revisions\/134106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}