Moody’s says South Africa could face another ratings downgrade and has flagged weak economic growth and government's high debt burden as risks. Business Day TV's Alishia Seckam spoke to Lucie Villa, Senior Credit Officer at Moody's for more detail.

Vodacom has raised its final dividend by 1.2%. That's as increased data usage and robust demand for the group's financial services helped lift profit during the full year. Business Day TV's Alishia Seckam unpacked the performance with CEO Shameel Joosub.

“Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful.” Samuel Beckett’s iconic quip in Waiting for Godot encapsulates the way it’s felt waiting for a vaccine in South Africa. During the peak of the first wave last year a study conducted by an academic consortium National Income Dynamics Study — Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (Nids-Cram), offered policymakers unrivalled insights into almost real time impacts of the coronavirus lockdown on households across the country. Last week Wave 4 was published, and the findings are equally fascinating as the impact of school closures on educational inequality call out for urgent policy interventions. This penultimate wave of the survey helps provide a window of insight into the state of South African society during the onset of the second wave of Covid-19. Michael Avery spoke to Nic Spaull, an economist at Stellenbosch University and the co-principal investigator of the Nids-Cram study; Mpumi Mohohlwane, Deputy Director: Research, Monitoring & Evaluation. Department of Basic Education; & Ronelle Burger, professor in the Economics Department of Stellenbosch University.

Astral has opted to pay an interim dividend of R3 despite the group’s half-year headline earnings per share declining by 37% due to rising feed costs. Business Day TV's Alishia Seckam spoke to CEO Chris Schutte for more detail on the numbers as well as the company’s outlook.

Redefine Properties has posted a near 63% plunge in interim headline earnings, as it had to provide rental relief of over R107 million to financially distressed tenants during the period. Business Day TV's Alishia Seckam unpacked the performance with CEO Andrew König.

Japanese shares led a rebound in Asian markets on Friday, building on the lead from investors on Wall Street snapping up stocks that would benefit most from an economic recovery. The rally interrupted a three-day rout for stocks globally, as market jitters over accelerating U.S. inflation were calmed by Federal Reserve officials reiterating that price pressures from the reopening of the economy would prove transitory. In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin recovered to just below $50,000 on Friday, after plunging to a 2-1/2-month low of $45,700 in the previous session when a media report of a regulatory probe into crypto exchange Binance added to pressure from Tesla CEO Elon Musk's reversing his stance on accepting the digital currency. To review the week that was Michael Avery is joined by Warwick Lucas Chief Investment Officer at Galileo Asset Managers and Raymond Parsons, professor in the School of Business and Governance at North West University

The e-commerce industry is taking off in South Africa. That's as research by World Wide Worx showed that online retail sales jumped 66% last year as lockdown restrictions encouraged more consumers to shop online. Alishia Seckam talks to the MD of World Wide Worx Arthur Goldstuck for more

The US has backed India and South Africa's bid to temporarily lift patent protection for COVID-19 vaccines. The support for an IP waiver by the WTO has left pharma companies dismayed and health activists asking for more. Public health activists say the easing of patent protections on COVID-19 vaccines will allow drugmakers in poor countries to start production of effective vaccines sooner and speed up the end of the pandemic, which if allowed to rage could see the emergence of vaccine-resistant COVID variants. The proposal was vehemently opposed by the previous US administration and other wealthy nations like Britain as well as the European Union, who said that a ban would stifle innovation at pharmaceutical companies by robbing them of the incentive to make huge investments in research and development. This, they argue, would be especially counterproductive during the current pandemic, which needed drugmakers to remain on their toes to deal with a mutating virus. So which side is right and will any of this lead us to have vaccines faster than the current rate of nothing for anyone outside of healthcare workers?

Mining production surged 21.3% year-on-year in March, marking the industry's first annual expansion since February 2020. This was boosted by growth in PGMs, iron-ore and manganese-ore. Business Day TV's Alishia Seckam unpacked the print with Nedbank CIB's mining analyst, Arnold Van Graan.

Former Tekkie Town owners, Braam van Huyssteen and Bernard Mostert are determined to see Steinhoff liquidated. The pair have filed an urgent court application to do so after they gave up a majority stake in the business to Steinhoff in exchange for shares in the furniture retailer which have since lost their value. Business Day TV's Alishia Seckam spoke to Business Day reporter Warren Thompson for greater insight on the matter.