{"id":363722,"date":"2020-01-03T07:23:39","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T05:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=363722"},"modified":"2020-01-03T07:23:39","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T05:23:39","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-706","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/363722\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-706\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/politics\/violent-crimes-are-common-israel-issues-travel-warning-for-sa-39992961\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">South Africa\u2019s high levels of crime have prompted Israel to join the US and several EU countries in issuing travel warnings for its citizens intending to visit the country.<\/a> <\/strong>The ministry described South Africa as a country battling violent crime, saying that women were at particular risk. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fin24.com\/Companies\/Retail\/makro-closes-stores-due-to-technical-issues-20200102\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Makro says all its stores are operational again following issues that caused disruption in its trading system, resulting in closures of all its outlets around the country on Thursday morning.<\/a><\/strong> Downtime has been a major issue for the company but has primarily affected online sales only. [Fin24]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2020-01-03\/as-south-african-stock-investors-eye-2020-budget-looms-large\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Investors are already focusing on February&#8217;s budget speech which will be scrutinized for evidence that South Africa is doing enough to preserve its last remaining investment-grade rating from Moody\u2019s Investors Service<\/a><\/strong>. Traders will also examine plans to manage crippling debts at the state-owned power utility, which is struggling to maintain steady electricity supplies, and the loss-making national airline. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/traffic-volumes-set-increase\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Traffic around the country is expected to spike in the coming days as holidaymakers begin returning home.<\/a> <\/strong>The N3 Toll Concession says over 1,500 vehicles passed through the Mooi River Toll Plaza headed for Johannesburg, between 13h00 and 14h00 on Thursday. JMPD Spokesperson Wayne Minnaar said traffic has already been increasing on the N3 from KZN, the N1 from Limpopo, the N12 from NW and tolls from the Free State. [eNCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand weakened on Thursday as the US dollar recovered on global markets, while local stocks were boosted by looser policy from China\u2019s central bank and optimism over a US-China trade deal. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">On Friday the rand was at R14.17 to the dollar, R18.61 to the pound and R15.81 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A growing number of countries are warning their citizens about South Africa&#8217;s high crime rate; Makro was forced to close all of its outlets on Thursday morning due to technical issues; Investors are already warning that the next two months could be make or break for South Africa and traffic is expected to increase around the country as holidaymakers return home. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":114834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363722","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=363722"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363766,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363722\/revisions\/363766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}