{"id":175213,"date":"2017-05-16T08:02:14","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T06:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=175213"},"modified":"2017-05-16T08:02:14","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T06:02:14","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/175213\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-59\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening 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\/2017\/05\/16\/zuma-s-lawyer-no-downside-to-the-secret-ballot\">President Jacob Zuma and speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete&#8217;s legal teams have admitted that there is no real downside to having a secret vote in motions of no confidence <\/a><\/strong>&#8211; but they argue that it is up to the NA to decide this, not the Constitutional Court. The ConCourt reserved judgement on the matter on Monday.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/05\/16\/how-brian-molefe-helped-gupta-optimum-heist-ngoako-ramatlhodi\">Former Mining Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi has made damning allegations, speaking to amaBhungane, claiming that he was fired by\u00a0president Jacob Zuma\u00a0for not going along with\u00a0Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe and chair Ben Ngubane&#8217;s plan to blackmail mining group Glencore<\/a><\/strong>, to sell Optimum Coal to the Gupta family. The pressure was to come from the\u00a0R2.17 billion penalty owed by Glencore.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/transport-and-tourism\/2017-05-16-saa-still-in-the-red-but-expects-to-slash-losses\/\">South African Airways is expected to narrow its losses for the 2017\/18 financial year, but will still post a rather large loss of around R853 million, according to the group&#8217;s corporate plan tabled in Parliament.<\/a><\/strong> This follows massive losses over the past few years, including a R3.5 billion loss in the past financial year. SAA says it is facing intense competition from other African airlines, and its products are not sustainable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/05\/16\/kzn-anc-make-an-example-of-judge-bashir-vally\">The ANC Youth League want\u00a0Judge Bashir Vally barred from the courts for ruling in favour of opposition parties, ordering president Jacob Zuma to provide record and reasons for his decision to reshuffle his cabinet in March.<\/a><\/strong> The Youth League accuse Vally and the South African judiciary with &#8216;siding with certain parties&#8217; all the time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand firmed on Monday along with other emerging currencies as the dollar retreated on weak manufacturing data and geopolitical fears following North Korea&#8217;s missile test, while stocks were flat. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Tuesday, the rand was trading at R13.18 to the dollar, R17.02 to the pound and R14.47 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zuma&#8217;s lawyers concede there&#8217;s no downside to a secret ballot; former mining ministers spills the beans on how Molefe allegedly helped the Guptas score big; another big loss expected for SAA; and Zuma&#8217;s supporters want a judge barred for &#8216;siding with the opposition&#8217; too much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":106751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-175213","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\/175213","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=175213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175237,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175213\/revisions\/175237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}