{"id":156481,"date":"2017-02-09T15:31:50","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T13:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=156481"},"modified":"2017-02-09T15:31:50","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T13:31:50","slug":"protests-flair-up-ahead-of-sona-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/156481\/protests-flair-up-ahead-of-sona-address\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests flair up ahead of SONA address"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Protesters have begun\u00a0making their way through the Cape Town city centre ahead of President Jacob Zuma&#8217;s State of the Nation Address (SONA), according to a report by <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.news24.com\/SouthAfrica\/News\/protests-start-up-ahead-of-sona-20170209\" target=\"_blank\">News24<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The Protesters, who are believed to be armed with sjamboks and other traditional weapons\u00a0 are headed to the Grand Parade where the ANC is holding an event tying in with tonight&#8217;s\u00a0address.<\/p>\n<p>According to News 24, a seperate group of protesters, carrying with posters and signs, had also camped out at Cape Town CBD&#8217;s train station, bringing operations there to a halt with police officers on the scene &#8220;looking worried&#8221;.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Concerned looking police officers at protestors in Train Station. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/News24\">@News24<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SONA2017?src=hash\">#SONA2017<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YCFljfoeKA\">pic.twitter.com\/YCFljfoeKA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 James de Villiers (@pejames) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pejames\/status\/829673572406788099\">February 9, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In a state of readiness report released earlier, the Presidency indicated\u00a0that preparations for the national occasion are on track, announcing on Tuesday, 8 February that the President has approved the deployment of members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to maintain law and order around Parliament.<\/p>\n<p>As in previous years, the President\u2019s speech is expected to centre on boosting economic growth, fighting unemployment and poverty and effecting economic reform and transformation.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/155807\/zuma-has-declared-war-on-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\">Zuma has declared war on South Africa: EFF<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Protesters have begun making their way through the Cape Town city centre ahead of President Jacob Zuma&#8217;s State of the Nation Address.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":93308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-156481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-active"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156481","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=156481"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156497,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156481\/revisions\/156497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}