{"id":310444,"date":"2019-04-11T07:02:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T05:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=310444"},"modified":"2019-04-11T07:02:02","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T05:02:02","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-532","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/310444\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-532\/","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>South Africa is experiencing a mixed bag of economic events and indicators this week. A <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2019-04-10\/nissan-pledges-213-million-to-south-africa-for-new-navara-model\">R3 billion investment from Nissan for South Africa<\/a><\/strong> and a stronger rand are coming amid downward revisions to GDP forecasts for the country,<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2019-04-10-one-month-before-2019-election-sa-economy-takes-three-hits-in-quick-succession\/\"> a dip in business confidence and slowing in consumer spending<\/a><\/strong>. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>ANC secretary general Ace Magashule and his supporters &#8211; particularly the Free State ANC Youth league &#8211;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2019-04-10-ace-in-a-deep-uncomfortable-dark-and-lonely-hole\/\"> found themselves abandoned by the party<\/a><\/strong>, after it issued statement after statements condemning the league&#8217;s plans to burn books detailing corruption allegations against Magashule. [Daily Maverick]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Former president <a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/zuma-denies-he-has-gaddafi-millions\"><strong>Jacob Zuma has vehemently denied that he is holding onto<\/strong> <strong>late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi&#8217;s missing millions<\/strong><\/a>, as reported by the Sunday Times. He said he was surprised to read he had the millions, while he was struggling to pay for his many legal fees. [ENCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The use of entrance exams for private schools have been criticised by some parents <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sunday-times\/news\/2019-04-07-parents-say-private-schools-admission-tests-aim-to-exclude\/\">as a way for the schools to exclude certain learners, and have been branded elitist.<\/a><\/strong> Private schools denied this, saying they are used to determine level of skill, and inform where to place prospective learners. [TimesLive]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand firmed below the R14.00 threshold on Wednesday for the first time in six weeks as a softer dollar boosted investor appetite for emerging markets. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday the rand was at R13.94 to the dollar, R18.25 to the pound and R15.72 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mixed bag of economic data for South Africa this week; ANC abandons Magashule and his supporters over book burning plans; Zuma denies reports that he&#8217;s holding Gaddafi&#8217;s millions; and some parents are not happy with private school entrance exams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":168963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-310444","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\/310444","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=310444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310448,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310444\/revisions\/310448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}