BizNews Radio

The discovery of the wreck of the Endurance, the ship of the explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton that sank in the icy waters of the Weddell Sea in 1915, is a major milestone in the history of exploration. It was crushed by ice and sank to 10, 000 feet below sea level and lay there unseen but not forgotten. And if you haven’t seen the video of the ship that had been found, it is definitely worth a viewing. The expedition was made possible by a South African ice breaker, the SA Agulhas II, which set off from Cape Town in early February with the Endurance22 Expedition team on board. Also on board is Professor Annie Bekker from Stellenbosch university. BizNews managed to track her down and although her line kept on breaking up, she managed through written questions and voice notes to tell us about South Africa's involvement in the expedition.

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BizNews community member Emile de Beer chats to Michael Appel after he visited the site of a massive diesel spill caused by criminals tampering with Transnet's multi product pipeline outside Harrismith. De Beer, who owns filling stations in and around Harrismith in the Free State, knows the damage a diesel spill can do to the environment and is greatly concerned by the thousands, if not tens of thousands of litres of diesel that has seeped into the Meul River - a tributary of the Wilge River, that ultimately flows into the Vaal River. Transnet says the focus, over the next few days, will be on containment and recovery of the product, after which full rehabilitation of the area will commence. Transnet says it's unable to quantify the cost of the diesel spill at the moment or what exactly the environmental impact is going to be. It says repair teams have completed work to the block valve chamber and the pipeline was brought back into service on Wednesday evening.

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Francois Nortje, developer of the Port of Gauteng, a large container depot on the Durban/Johannesburg artery with 2,2km of rail frontage, says the national interest demands that SA's transport SOE be broken into much smaller pieces and urgently privatised. He says government's plan of introducing third parties into using the rail network won't fix the issue as potentially serious participants are concerned at the risks involved. Nortje, who has a vested interest in seeing the national rail infrastructure become more efficiently utilised, explains in this podcast why Transnet's problems will continue to multiply - arguing that losses at the State Owned Enterprise will keep growing as it has become too big to be properly managed. Among the recent examples he uses to argue his case is the environmental damage caused by a lack of Transnet oversight on fixing sections - and the affected geography - in places where organised criminals have pillaged by drilling into the Durban to Johannesburg fuel pipeline.

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Australia that has seen one of the strictest lockdowns during the Covid pandemic with the country adopting fortress-style controls. But it has finally fully opened its doors.Tearful reunions were seen when families and friends starting landing on on its popular shores and the authorities welcomed them back with a sign painted on a runway with the message, “Welcome Back World”. And it is not the only people that are being welcomed back, skilled migrants are back in demand. Sam Hopwood from Sable International told BizNews that the construction industry is booming and there are plenty of opportunities for people who are handy with a hammer.

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Jonathan Ball Publishers have been publishing non-fiction titles in South Africa since the 1970s and they have been known to slaughter a couple of holy cows. One of their first well-known books was an exposé about the Broederbond, ‘The Super-Afrikaners’ by Sunday Times journalists. The Publishing Director responsible for publishing many other well-known authors including Redi Thlabi, Van Zyl Slabbert and Sisonke Msimang for JBP is Jeremy Boraine one of South Africa’s leading publishers. Boraine has been now been tasked to spearhead a new imprint for Icon Books in the United Kingdom, a post he will take up in April. Icon Books is an indie British company that JBP acquired in March 2020. Boraine told Linda van Tilburg about his plans to take the SA concept of ‘active publishing' overseas…

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In this week's chat between Michael Appel and Adv. Erin Richards, we take a closer look at the regulatory and legislative requirements financial institutions are obliged to operate within. Richards questions how it was possible that millions - that should have been flagged as suspicious transactions - flowed through the Gupta's and their associates Standard Bank accounts for years on end. In this episode, the evidence of former Group General Council of Standard Bank, Ian Sinton, before the State Capture Inquiry, is dissected.

For the video version of this discussion go to the BizNews YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEKFTZQpCTs3YVf3yetO3Ng

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The South African Human Rights Commission's expert panel recently released its report on the deadly and destructive riots that broke out in July 2021. It's the most expensive riot in South Africa's history. It wiped R50bn off South Africa's books and killed over 350 people. Michael Appel asked 10 questions of Institute for Security Studies' head of the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme, Gareth Newham, about the findings of this latest report.

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In this two pronged podcast, veteran money manager Kokkie Kooyman of Denker Capital starts by explaining how banking stocks, his speciality, have reacted to the war in Ukraine - and tells us markets are already starting to price in the impact of peace breaking out, Kooyman also shares his conclusions after months of researching the impact on banks of disruptive technologies like decentratised ledgers, Bitcoin and blockchain. He was interviewed by Biznews.com's editor Alec Hogg.

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BizNews shareholder Tshepo Mahloele is a self-made billionaire with an inspirational story second to none. Mahloele, who grew up in Mamelodi and went to school in Kuilsriver, Western Cape, sat down with BizNews founder Alec Hogg at the BizNews Conference earlier this month to talk about his significant investments in South Africa.

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In October 2016, British civil servant Cormac Smith was seconded to Ukraine to take up a special appointment as the Strategic Communication Advisor to then foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin. For the 18 months of his posting, Smith was embedded in Klimkin's department, the first foreigner to be given unfettered access across the Ministry. He says trust was built up through a strategy of gaining a rapid understanding of the culture, issues and history of the hugely complex nation. During his time in Kyiv he advised and provided training for five other government ministries and worked directly with the Deputy Prime Minister; and the Ministers of Health and Education. Smith, who says he came away from Kyiv with a "deep understanding and empathy" for Ukraine and its people, is in daily contact with a range of former Ukrainian colleagues in government and friends who are in the middle of the conflict. In this special podcast, he gives BizNews editor Alec Hogg an update on the latest developments, the roots to the war - and delivers clear message to a 'confused' South Africa.

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