Author: newsnote correspondent

South Africans have lost confidence in the governing party because of high unemployment, corruption, poor service delivery, and failing state institutions. In the lead-up to the hotly contested 2024 general elections, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa admits the party will face a difficult election campaign. In the previous national and local elections, the party’s support dwindled. It’s believed that South Africans have lost confidence in the governing party due to low employment, corruption, poor service delivery, and failing state institutions. At the opening of the ANC’s two-day lekgotla, Ramaphosa urged party leaders to fight hard to retain power. He vowed the…

The stand-off between Eskom and the National Treasury over funding for diesel has ended with an agreement that government will support Eskom borrowing from commercial banks, should it be unable to reprioritise its own resources. Eskom said in December that it had ran out of funds to purchase further fuel after spending R12 billion, exceeding its yearly budget by more than 100%, with four months left in the fiscal year.Eskom can only feasibly burn up to R2.5 billion of feedstock every month due to logistical limitations on the amount of fuel it can transport to the open-cycle gas turbine units.…

When people think about artificial intelligence (AI), they may have visions of the future. But AI is already here. At its base, it is the recreation of aspects of human intelligence in computerised form. Like human intelligence, it has wide application. Voice-operated personal assistants like Siri, self-driving cars, and text and image generators all use AI. It also curates our social media feeds. It helps companies to detect fraud and hire employees. It’s used to manage livestock, enhance crop yields and aid medical diagnoses. Alongside its growing power and its potential, AI raises moral and ethical questions. The technology has already been at the centre of multiple scandals: the infringement of laws and rights, as well…

This weekend’s lekgotla of the ANC national executive committee (NEC) will focus on the timing and method for transferring state-owned businesses (SOEs) from the department of public enterprises (DPE) to their line ministries. The proposed change would put the power company under the supervision of the department of mining and energy, in accordance with a resolution adopted by the party’s national conference in December in response to Eskom’s electricity generating issue. The conclusions of the ANC lekgotla will subsequently be used to inform a comparable two-day cabinet meeting that will be held by President Cyril Ramaphosa the following week. At…

Deputy President David Mabuza appears to be on his way out of the government, paving the way for his ANC counterpart, Paul Mashatile, to make his much anticipated move This week, a number of reputable ANC sources said that Mabuza, who was rejected for a second term at the party’s conference in December, had delivered a letter of resignation to the president on Monday. Despite Cyril Ramaphosa accepting the resignation, they said Mabuza still needs to legally resign as a member of parliament before quitting the position he has held in government since February 2018. While the minister in the…

The beleaguered effort to develop an HIV vaccine has yielded yet another failure in the final stage of testing a candidate. An efficacy trial of a complicated vaccine regimen, developed by a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary in cooperation with the U.S. National Institutes of Health, stopped early because an interim analysis showed it offered no protection, sponsors announced last week. The placebo-controlled study, dubbed Mosaico, assessed whether a series of six different shots could prevent HIV infection. Four shots delivered adenoviruses carrying a “mosaic” of genes from different HIV subtypes, and the final two contained two versions of HIV’s surface…

ActionSA declared that it had given up trying to save the coalition government of the City of Johannesburg and its former mayor, Mpho Phalatse, after exhausted all of its options. Phalatse has lost her position as executive mayor of the city. This comes after she was the target of three resolutions of no confidence at the first regular council meeting of the year on Thursday. The Democratic Alliance (DA) is at fault, according to the party. After scuttling an agreement with the Patriotic Alliance, whose votes were required to stop Phalatse’s ouster, it claimed that it had ignored Phalatse and…

South Africa’s worst power blackouts are threatening platinum and palladium supplies at the country’s leading mining company, Impala Platinum Holdings, both now and in the years ahead. Power cuts last year curbed output of the metals and the energy crisis that is crimping the economy has worsened in recent months. The nation’s platinum-group metal production will likely fall this year, the company said. The electricity crunch is damaging South African industry and agriculture and blackouts are expected for at least two more years, jeopardising output in Africa’s most industrialised economy. It is yet another headache for major mining companies such…

Lyle Foster has signed for Burnley from Belgian side KVC Westerlo for an undisclosed fee. His fee is expected to be around €7 million, which may rise to €10 million including add-ons, making him the most expensive player in South African history. In the January transfer window, the Clarets signed a bumper four-and-a-half-year contract for the 22-year-old forward. “I’m very happy to be here,” he said on the clubs official website. “I’m blessed and thankful for the opportunity and I just can’t wait to get started. “From the moment I heard that there was interest from Burnley, my heart and…

In response to the nation’s energy problem, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has been charged with grandstanding by the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL). The official opposition has started marching towards the ANC’s Luthuli House in Johannesburg to demonstrate against power cuts. Numerous ANC Youth League members, meanwhile, have congregated in front of the offices of the ruling party and have vowed to keep the DA at bay. Therefore, it said, the ANC was to blame for the regular blackouts and demanded that it accept responsibility. The ANCYL, however, said the DA was mistaken. “There is no political party anywhere that must think…