The week was one of mixed news and some non-starters. After a lot of trade war rhetoric, the international market reacted in a relatively docile manner; there have still been no decisions regarding Brexit; and the rand gave up some of the week’s gains in the wake of Cyril Ramaphosa’s stimulus package.
There have been a few revelations in the Zondo Commission this week. The Gupta’s have been denied their request to testify by video-link and will be forced to return to SA, Jacob Zuma has said that he is misunderstood and will co-operate with the State Capture Enquiry, and Duduzane Zuma will be allowed to cross-examine…
The rand lost 12.5% in a week, and the GDP number was expected to be +0.6 and came out at -0.7% in the midst of an Emerging Market sell-off. South Africa is now in a technical recession and to add to it SA recorded a gaping R4.6 billion deficit. President Ramaphosa has reassured that this…
With the possibility of a no Brexit deal becoming ever more realistic Theresa May has made her way to Africa, visiting Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. This has revealed a new tactic in Britain’s trade policy, promising investment and opportunities in a new continent to counter the effects of Brexit.
Despite the positive news for South Africa on the political front with Shaun “the Sheep” Abrahams being asked to leave as head of the NPA, this week was a bitter pill to swallow for South Africans as the rand plunged against the US dollar and Moody’s gave us a reality check.
This week has been momentous for our small part of the southern hemisphere. Cyril Ramaphosa announced, in the middle of the night, that the ANC will be making changes to our constitution regarding land expropriation without compensation and the Zimbabwean election results came out to riots and police shooting live ammunition.
This past week saw bureaucracy at its best. From the BRICS summit in South Africa to the EU and America deciding to leave their trade relationship essentially the same. Theresa May continued to battle with the woe that is Brexit, and Zimbabweans are all set to have their first truly democratic election on Monday.
Almost every day this week Trump has flip-flopped on what he said the day before. The US has been shocked by the performance of their president at a summit between Putin and Trump in Helsinki on Monday – more details to follow in the News Flash. This culminated yesterday in Trump extending an invitation to…
In just a couple of days Trump has criticised Angela Merkel, Theresa May, and NATO as a whole and showed his affiliation towards Russia and Putin in particular. He did not however, amidst rumours, remove the US from NATO all together, thankfully.
