{"id":233677,"date":"2018-03-26T08:05:01","date_gmt":"2018-03-26T06:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=233677"},"modified":"2018-03-26T08:05:01","modified_gmt":"2018-03-26T06:05:01","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-270","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/233677\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-270\/","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>Economists and investors are celebrating ratings firm Moody&#8217;s decision to give South Africa a second chance by holding the country above junk status for the second time. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/markets\/rand-hits-3-week-highs-14072100\">The rand reversed recent losses on the news, and is now trading at three week highs once again<\/a><\/strong>. A cut to junk would have forced closed to R100 billion in foreign investment leave SA shores. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2018-03-25-zuma-court-date-set\/\">Former president Jacob Zuma is set to appear in court on charges of fraud and corruption on 6 April 2018, according to reports<\/a><\/strong>. Zuma&#8217;s legal team is also reportedly planning on challenging NPA head Shaun Abrahams&#8217; decision to reinstate charges against him. [TimesLive]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-03-24\/south-africa-s-anc-said-to-discuss-bringing-elections-forward\">South Africa&#8217;s 2019 general elections may be brought forward<\/a><\/strong>, according to sources within the ruling party. It has been suggested that with all the positivity around new president Cyril Ramaphosa, having earlier elections would result in a bigger win at the polls. \u00a0[Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/south-africa\/anc-structures-must-not-support-those-being-charged-in-court-magashule\">The ANC has called on its members to avoid wearing party colours if and when they support those charged with corruption &#8211; especially those tied to the state capture saga<\/a><\/strong>. Party secretary general Ace Magashule said that while ANC members were allowed to support accused leaders, they had to do so in their personal capacities. [eNCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand swept aside recent losses and rallied more than one percent to near its firmest in three weeks on Friday on overwhelming bets the country would dodge a downgrade to junk by Moody\u2019s and dollar weakness. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Monday the rand was at R11.68 to the dollar, R16.53 to the pound and R14.44 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The rand is rebounding after Moody&#8217;s spares us the chop; Zuma&#8217;s court date has been set; Ramaphosa fever could see the 2019 elections come earlier; and the ANC has asked its members to avoid using party colours to support those facing charges of corruption and other crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":176465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233677","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=233677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233693,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233677\/revisions\/233693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}