{"id":152867,"date":"2017-01-26T08:09:13","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T06:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=152867"},"modified":"2017-01-26T09:34:16","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T07:34:16","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-123","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/152867\/5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-123\/","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:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.za\/2017\/01\/25\/how-rupert-was-warned-about-bell-pottinger-theyre-behind-it\/?utm_hp_ref=za-homepage\">Target of a recent propaganda campaign, billionaire Johann Rupert is convinced that PR and reputation management firm Bell Pottinger is behind it, working at the behest of the Gupta family<\/a><\/strong>. Rupert has been named in many fake news and social media posts as being the poster-child of &#8216;white monopoly capital&#8217; and has reportedly received communication from ANC insiders saying &#8220;they are coming for you&#8221;. Bell Pottinger has consistently denied links to the attacks on the Rupert family.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.news24.com\/Africa\/News\/dlamini-zuma-speaks-out-on-donald-trumps-administration-20170125\">In her final speech as leader of the African Union, exiting chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has spoken out against US president Donald Trump, saying he\u00a0posed a risk to global progress on climate change and women&#8217;s rights<\/a><\/strong>. She suggested that Africa should counter these threats by committing to opening pan-African trade.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/01\/26\/iec-aware-of-claims-surrounding-anc-s-alleged-secret-war-room\">The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says it is aware of the ongoing furore over an apparent &#8216;black ops&#8217; smear campaign allegedly run by people within the ANC<\/a><\/strong>. The campaign was established to disarm opposition parties in the 2016 local elections, but never amounted to much. The purported leader of the unit, Shaka Sisulu, said he only ever worked as a volunteer for the ANC, and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/south-africa\/shaka-sisulu-hits-back-at-war-room-claims\">denied all claims of wrongdoing<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2017-01-26-sas-water-quality-falls-sharply\/\">The latest Blue Drop tests done to test\u00a0water quality at municipalities across the country show that the quality of South Africa&#8217;s water quality has deteriorated drastically<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0with\u00a0the number of Blue Drop certifications awarded falling from 98 in 2012 to 44 in 2014. The quality reports for 2015 and 2016 are expected in April and October 2017, respectively.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand firmed to its strongest level in nearly three months on Wednesday as lingering worries about U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s protectionist stance and uncertainty over his fiscal policies dragged on the dollar. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday the rand was trading at R13.24 to the dollar, R16.76 to the pound and R14.24 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SA billionaire Johann Rupert says the Guptas&#8217; PR company is to blame for the &#8216;fake news&#8217; storm targeting his family; Dlamini-Zuma does not think Donald Trump is good news; South Africa&#8217;s water quality is getting drastically worse; and the IEC has eyes on the alleged &#8216;black ops&#8217; election war room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":21786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-152867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152867","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=152867"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152911,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152867\/revisions\/152911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}