The funnel cloud did not reach any residential areas in Bergville and there are no fatalities or damage reported at this stage view more

Thabani Mzolo is on trial for the May 1 murder of Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) student Zolile Khumalo view more

There will be an on-going inspection of infrastructure in order to identify potential problems and respond appropriately before abstraction, treatment or supply is affected view more

The other major beneficiary of the week-long rains was the Hazelmere System where Hazelmere Dam has risen by 7, 67% in a week view more

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan announced on Monday that Andre de Ruyter had been appointed as the new CEO of Eskom and that he would commence duties on January 15, 2020, at a salary below that of the current compensation package. De Ruyter, who spent more than 20 years with energy and chemicals group Sasol in a number of senior management roles, is currently CEO at JSE-listed packaging group Nampak. view more

JSE-listed industrial group Barloworld is eyeing several further acquisitions as it closes in on the purchase of a Caterpillar dealership in Mongolia, the due diligence on which has been completed. CEO Dominic Sewela tells Engineering News Online that the company, which has sold various noncore units in recent months as part of a restructuring exercise, is now shifting its focus to growth prospects, including acquisitive-growth opportunities. view more

South African Airways (SAA) acting CEO Zuks Ramasia on Sunday assured the country that the ongoing strike at the airline was not compromising the safety and security of its operations. She called on the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) and the South African Cabin Crew Association to withdraw their allegations that flying SAA is currently unsafe. She stated that, if they did not, the airline would consider legal action against them. "SAA has a proven safety record and we have an unwavering commitment to safety," she affirmed. "The safety and security of passengers and crew is the highest single priority to SAA. We do not compromise on that. ... We remain committed to ensuring the highest levels of safety and security on all our flights. The unions' allegations are malicious and represent an unfounded attack, as well as an insult to the [South African] Civil Aviation Authority, South African Airways, and South African Airways Technical." Ramasia also attacked attempts to intimidate SAA employees who had remained at work. She denounced inflammatory insults ("traitors") and threats ("we know where you are") made against them. view more

Labour unions are threatening to bring air travel in South Africa to a near standstill to force the loss-making state carrier to meet their demands for higher wages and job security, testing the government's resolve to get its finances back on track. Two labour unions representing more than 3 000 workers at South African Airways have been on strike since November 15 after the airline rejected their demand for 8% raises and announced plans to cut 944 posts, forcing the cancellation of most flights. Now the National Union of Metalworkers is engaging its members at other airlines and companies that service the industry on whether they should stage sympathy strikes. view more

JSE-listed poultry producer Astral Foods' earnings for the financial year ended September 30 were considerably lower than the record profit of R1.43-billion achieved in the 2018 financial year, CEO Chris Schutte pointed out on Monday. He noted in a presentation of the company's results that substantially higher raw material costs had contributed to high feed prices that make up 66% of the total live cost of producing a broiler, which, together with lower poultry selling prices year-on-year, negatively impacted on poultry margins. view more

Food company Pioneer Foods delivered "acceptable revenue and volume growth" for the financial year ended September 30, despite a difficult trading environment characterised by weak demand. The company, which recorded a 6% year-on-year decrease adjusted headline earnings a share to 522c for the financial year, on Monday said it expected inflationary cost pressures, weak demand and muted consumer spending to continue. view more

South Africa could move deeper into junk territory as the nation looks set to lose the only stable outlook on its credit ratings this week. Of the 22 economists in a Bloomberg survey, 16 expect S&P Global Ratings to change its outlook on the country's credit rating to negative on Friday. That means the next move from the company, which already assesses South Africa's foreign-currency debt at two levels below investment grade, could be a further downgrade. view more

Telecommunications giant MTN and mobile operator Cell C have concluded an expanded roaming agreement that will extend Cell C's coverage nationwide. The agreement builds on the 2018 initial roaming agreement that provided second-generation, third-generation (3G) and fourth-generation (4G) roaming services on MTN's network in areas outside of the main metropolitans. view more

South Africa's hedge fund industry is betting on new rules to help reverse a record drop in assets under management. New guidelines from January will split funds into different investment categories and geographical exposure so local investors can make better comparisons. They will also allow hedge funds to be stacked against long-only equity or fixed-income funds and help the industry body compile uniform data. view more

Kangas Wind Farm on Monday reported that construction of the Groeipunt transmission substation was 80% complete and on track to be handed over to State-owned power utility Eskom in March 2020. The construction of the substation started in June and marked the first time that an independent power producer in South Africa had taken on the responsibility of a greenfield self-build transmission substation, which would normally be done by State-owned energy utility Eskom. view more

Paper and pulp producer Sappi's three dissolving wood pulp (DWP) production facilities - Cloquet, Ngodwana and Saiccor - have completed the Higg Facility Environmental Module (Higg FEM) self-assessment via the Sustainable Apparel Coalition's (SAC's) online portal. The Higg FEM is a sustainability assessment tool that standardises how facilities measure and evaluate their environmental performance year-on-year. view more

The MSC Orchestra cruise liner has made its maiden voyage to South African shores. It started its journey in Genoa, Italy, and stopped at the Réunion island off the coast of France, before arriving at the Port of Durban on Saturday with 3 000 passengers. view more

International food, service and technology group Bidcorp CEO Bernard Benson on Monday said trading conditions in the four months to October 31 had continued to be positive and was broadly in line with the performances achieved in the 2019 financial year. During a webcast presentation on Monday, he said underlying sales had continued to grow in the independent segment with some further rebalancing of the customer mix evident in New Zealand and the UK. view more

JSE-listed EPP has urged the Polish government to introduce real estate investment trust legislation for the country to make it more open for investment. COO Rafał Kwiatkowski believes the Polish property sector could be an excellent avenue for creating wealth and would be a good vehicle for people to invest their retirement savings. view more

Swiss clean energy provider Meeco Group has completed the installation of its first photovoltaic (PV) solar project using an innovative solar power mounting structure called the sun2rope. This environment-friendly system comprises PV modules that are mounted on tailor-made rope structures, specifically designed for the project. view more

Research agency Fitch Solutions Macro Research has created a new set of assumptions on electric vehicle (EV) sales to determine future EV battery metals demand in the US, China and Europe over the coming years. Using its existing EV forecasts, the research agency divided geographic demand for battery metals into direct demand, which refers to demand from any country where battery manufacturing takes place domestically, and indirect demand, which refers to demand from a country where EV sales may stoke demand for batteries containing key metals that are produced elsewhere. view more

It's the most nettlesome problem in the quest to ditch fossil fuels: how can you get thousand-degree heat used in factory furnaces without pumping billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? Heat-intensive processes like steelmaking and oil refineries are the starting point for production of everything from cars to life-saving medicines. But fueling their ultra-high temperatures requires burning coal, oil and natural gas. That makes industry responsible for about 20% of the carbon dioxide produced by humans and heating processes, and a bigger emitter than all cars and aircraft combined. view more

Rebar futures in China rose for a fifth consecutive session on Monday amid improving steel margins in the world's top producer of the construction and manufacturing material. The Shanghai Futures Exchange's most-traded contract for the construction material, for delivery in January 2020, ended 0.6% higher at 3,556 yuan ($508.43) a tonne, after climbing to 3,576 yuan earlier in the session, its strongest since Sept. 30. view more

There is a small chance that South Africans may be impacted by load-shedding this week, as struggling power utility Eskom continues to battle unplanned outages.  In an electricity status update on Monday morning, the power producer said unplanned outages at generation units were just below 9 500MW, about a fifth of its nominal capacity.  view more

The decision by the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) to terminate contracts of 20 private security companies at the end of October has left railway infrastructure vulnerable to vandalism, says the United National Transport Union (Untu). In a statement on Friday by Untu spokesperson Sonja Carstens, the union lays all manner of accusations at PRASA, saying "the leadership of Untu repeatedly warned the [PRASA] board that the decision [to terminate security contracts] exposed their staff and commuters and the assets of PRASA as the SA Police Service have never in the past came to the party. view more

Several animals at the Tshwane Rietvlei Nature Reserve were electrocuted after an Eskom electricity pylon collapsed, Tshwane's mayoral committee member for environment and agriculture, Dana Wannenburg said on Saturday. The animals are a female rhino, her calf and a zebra. view more

The City of Tshwane has urged residents to exercise patience as A Re Yeng Bus operations are set to be suspended ahead of a looming strike on Monday. MMC for Roads and Transport, Sheila Senkubuge, in a statement on Sunday, said the city had issued an alert of the possible suspension to bus services following a notice to strike issued to Tshwane Rapid Transport (TRT) by National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (Numsa). view more

South Africa's deputy minister of trade, industry and competition Nomalungelo Gina will lead a group of business people on a mission to Mozambique later this month with the aim of increasing bilateral relations between the two countries, her department said on Monday. The department is organising and funding the November 24-29 visit through its Export Marketing and Investment Assistance scheme whose objective is to develop export markets for South African products and services.  view more

South African Airways officials will be summoned to a meeting with regulators next month to disclose details about talks with potential equity partners and give assurances that any deal won't violate foreign-ownership laws. Under the Air Services Licensing Act of 1990, airlines must be at least three-quarters owned by South Africans to operate a domestic service. That would prevent international operators from buying more than a 25% stake from the government, unless the rules are changed. view more

Research and development (R&D) spend in South Africa is not at the level it should be, which is hindering the country's development, as R&D is a fundamental factor in driving economies in the long term, Cova Advisory and Associates joint MD Duane Newman said at the company's R&D breakfast, in Johannesburg, on Friday. He indicated that, globally, spending on R&D had been on the rise since 2000; however, there were bubbles where spending was considerably higher, such as in the US and China. view more

Unions and flag carrier South African Airways are still deadlocked as a national strike continues. "The unions are still sticking to their guns and we continue to urge unions to approach the situation with open minds," said SAA spokesperson Tlali Tlali. He said that SAA cannot present anything other than its offer of a 5.9% wage increase. Unions have demanded an 8% increase, together with the insourcing of employees and a promise of no job losses. "We want to channel our energies and focus on getting labour to work with us to find a working solution," said Tlali. SAA, which is technically insolvent, has said it would apply a "no work no pay" principle to those who participate in the strike. view more

Given the current level of the rand and the global price of oil, the petrol price will rise in the first week of December while diesel and paraffin will decline, according to the Automobile Association. The association said in a statement on Friday that it predicts an increase of 11 cents a litre for 95 octane petrol, and a seven-cent rise for 93 octane petrol. Diesel is set to decrease by 18 cents per litre, while illuminating paraffin is set to drop by 21 cents. view more

Denel CFO Carmen Le Grange on Friday indicated the businesses that the State-owned defence group was exiting or was planning to exit, as part of its turnaround strategy. She was addressing the 2019 Aerospace, Maritime and Defence Conference in Pretoria. The turnaround plan had ten elements, she reported. They were -- (1) maximize the business value of the core businesses; (2) maintain and expand strategic partnerships; (3) exit non-core businesses; (4) improve governance; (5) drive cost ... view more

The South African Government has set growth targets it hopes that the local defence industry will achieve over the next few years. This was reported by Secretary of Defence and Military Veterans Dr Sam Gulube on Friday. He was delivering the keynote address at the 2019 Aerospace, Maritime and Defence Conference, in Pretoria. Currently, he pointed out, the South African Defence Industry accounted for 0.47% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and directly employed 15 000 people. The industry had suffered from years of declining defence budgets in South Africa, a result of the country's economic difficulties, and had become dependent on exports. view more

Renewable and energy management solutions group LTM Energy is preparing to enter the sanitation industry through the launch of an off-grid, customised sanitation solution for the South African - and the broader African - market. The green economy-focused business aims to pilot the solution after having entered into a technical and commercial partnership with Beijing-based Envirosystems on low-cost sanitation solutions for Africa and India earlier this year. view more

Russia has earned more money this year from the Opec+ deal than Saudi Arabia, underscoring how the kingdom has carried a greater share of the burden of production cuts. Saudi Arabia on average has cut production almost ten times deeper than Russia since the countries joined forces at the end of 2016, according to estimates in the International Energy Agency's monthly oil market report published on Friday. Yet Riyadh has received just three quarters of the additional financial benefit enjoyed by Moscow, the data show. view more

Telecommunications group Telkom on Friday confirmed that it was in discussions to buy out embattled Cell C. Telkom on Monday announced that it was in negotiations regarding a possible transaction, sparking speculation that it was in negotiations with Cell C. view more

The Competition Tribunal has been tasked to review a cartel conduct matter between wood-based panel companies KAP Diversified Industrial and Sonae Arauco South Africa, together with Steinhoff International Holdings. KAP Diversified, previously PG Bison, and Sonae allegedly agreed to increase their prices for wood-based panel products by the same percentage at the same time. view more

South African Airways (SAA) has not increased its wage hike offer to striking unions at the airline, spokesperson Tlali Tlali told Fin24 on Friday morning. The airline, which is technically insolvent, is sticking to its 5.9% offer. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and the South African Cabin Crew Association have rejected the offer and started an unprotected strike on Friday morning. view more

With high levels of under-invoicing being a critical challenge in efforts to deepen fair trade, Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel has welcomed the Brics Summit Declaration by Heads of State (SDHS). The Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics SDHS) was adopted during the ninth meeting of the Brics Ministers of Trade, held in Brazil earlier this week. view more

Workers at national carrier South African Airways (SAA) began a two-day strike likely to cost the financially-strapped airline millions of rand as it was forced to cancel almost all its domestic, regional and international flights scheduled for Friday and Saturday. Workers affiliated to the South African Cabin Crew Association (Sacca) and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) want an 8 percent wage increase and have rejected SAA's offer of 5.9 percent. view more

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday commended the progress of the the New Development Bank (NDB) during a dialogue among Brics Heads of State and Government, the Brics Business Council and the New Development Bank in Brasilia, Brazil.  "It has been five years since we signed the Articles of the New Development Bank at the sixth Brics Summit in Fortaleza, thus establishing the first multilateral development institution by emerging and developing countries," Ramaphosa said.  view more

The South African government signaled it's going to take a hardline approach to its cash-strapped national airline as labor unions prepared to strike over pay and job cuts, forcing the carrier to cancel almost all its flights over the next two days. "If some tough decisions need to be made, we'll make them," Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said in a speech at a conference in New York Thursday. South African Airways is "not too big to fail." view more