BizNews Radio

Seven months into the Iran war, economist Iraj Abedian tells Alec Hogg that Donald Trump has lost more than the battle for the Strait of Hormuz: he's lost America's standing as the world's dominant power. Abedian explains why the narrow waterway carries a third of global oil, why the mullahs are more afraid of each other than of Washington, and why South Africa's tilt toward Iran through BRICS looks like a costly misjudgement. He also has a warning for the Gulf states banking on American protection, and for the rest of us watching from the sidelines.

Pele Collins went from leading the SpaceX parachute engineering team that brought American astronauts safely home to co-founding a Y Combinator-backed deep tech startup, Beyond Reach Labs. In his latest interview with Irakli, the proudly South African engineer reveals how his team is tackling the ultimate pick-and-shovel play for the next era of the space race: deployable structures that unfold from the size of a dining table to a full-sized football field in orbit. Building in space historically meant assembling structures piece-by-piece over dozens of rocket launches. Collins wants to bypass those massive costs using dynamic, folding mechanisms. While the company initially entered Y Combinator focused on simulation software, raw customer feedback forced a fast pivot to pure hardware. “...customers said this, I mean this tool's amazing, we'd love to use it, but honestly, can you just go design and build the thing for us?” Collins recalls. Collins credits his resilient problem-solving mindset to his South African roots, highlighting a culture of mutual support that even landed him his first break at SpaceX under a fellow South African manager. “South Africans also always help each other out and... open doors for each other,” he says.

South Africa's BRICS bet on Iran is about to cost you at the pump. As the Strait of Hormuz standoff drags on, economist Iraj Abedian tells Alec Hogg why a third of the world's oil is stuck behind a 33km bottleneck, why Dubai is now more exposed than Israel, and why South Africa backed the wrong side. Plus: a boardroom bloodbath at the PIC, an ugly inflation surprise, a R21 billion Pepkor fintech deal, and a tribute to the late RW Johnson.

In today's Boardroom Talk, Alec Hogg confirms the death of RW Johnson, one of South African political writing's sharpest and most combustible voices, and reflects on a decade of working with him: the audiobook that started it, the necrotising fasciitis he refused to let slow him down, the Steenhuisen column that ended their working relationship, and the warmth he never stopped showing even after he stopped writing for BizNews.

In today's Daybreak, we unpack the growing impeachment momentum against President Ramaphosa and its potential threat to the government of national unity. We also dive into Sasol's operational rebound, highlighted by Secunda's best production run in five years. Globally, we explore Trump's proposed generic drug tariffs, a chipmaker-led market rally, the rise of China's Kimi K3 AI model, and how Middle East tensions are impacting local fuel prices.