BizNews Radio

In today's episode, we cover the US-Iran diplomatic talks and escalating tech wars with China's new DUV lithography machines. Locally, Jabulani Khumalo warns of Jacob Zuma's alleged plot to seize MK Party finances. We also examine a warrantless SAPS and Home Affairs raid on a Western Cape estate. Finally, Alec Hogg unpacks the Reserve Bank's shock rate hold that battered the rand, while analysts debate mega-cap tech's market leadership.

In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, the real founder of MKP, Jabulani Khumalo, comes out in support of The African Renaissance Unity Party (ARU) founded to lobby for the interests of traditional chiefs and their communities. With Khumalo's battle to reclaim control of the party - “hijacked” by former President Jacob Zuma - still winding through the courts, he calls on MKP members to vote for ARU in the upcoming Local Government Elections. He fumes at Zuma’s latest shock move to take over personal control of MKP’s finances and warns: “people must know that Zuma doesn't like MK. Zuma is the ANC - and he will die as the ANC. So he's in the MK just to loot money”. Khumalo describes how the “craziness of Zuma” and the games he plays have created mayhem in MKP. As for the enduring relationship of the former president with the fugitive Guptas of State Capture, Khumalo charges that Zuma’s aim was to use them to move money out of the country for him. He also reveals what is behind Zuma’s shock move to kick his daughter, Duduzile, out of MK.

An anti-immigration raid on a private housing estate in the Western Cape is causing a furore. In this interview with Chris Steyn, Eva Crouwel, a property owner on High Riding Estate, describes how police in a fleet of about six vans - accompanied by Home Affairs officials - descended on the estate last week, gained entry without a warrant, “stopped their vehicles at multiple properties, were knocking on doors, were hooting their cars, effectively in an effort seemingly to gain access to the properties” until they were escorted off the estate by several residents and security. Crouwel, a trained lawyer, says: “I have done some investigation into the various applicable legislations and have not been able to ascertain that there is in fact a permission for access to private residential properties without producing a warrant…And if we allow the Police Force of South Africa to enter those premises without due cause or warrant, then that becomes a very slippery road that we are going to find ourselves on.” While the matter is now under further legal advisement, Crouwel has this advice for other estates: “Unless somebody has a warrant against you or something on your property in a very well described matter, on duly documented legal documents, you are not under any responsibility to let them onto your property.”

Elon Musk tells The Economist that AI will out-think the whole of humanity within five years, and he sounds strangely at peace with that. Back home, the Reserve Bank blindsided everyone with a shock rate hold, the Rand took its worst knock in months, and Citigroup walked away from a bet it had believed in for weeks. Add a dramatic exit at the top of South Africa's anti-corruption unit, big numbers from Vodacom and Impala Platinum, and a fond farewell to RW Johnson, and that's a full day of news in about twenty minutes. Have a listen.

In today's BizNews Daybreak, we explore global market pressures, starting with new US Section 301 tariffs affecting South Africa and 60 other economies. Former Israeli adviser Mark Regev discusses strained Pretoria-Israel relations and ICJ genocide charges. Furthermore, we preview upcoming central bank rate decisions, Nvidia’s potential $250B OpenAI data center deal, tech mega-cap earnings scrutiny on AI CapEx, and US economic growth.