Breaking News Today – 29 July 2024

Illegal Military Training Camp in South Africa Shut Down: Reports indicate that 95 illegal Libyan nationals have been arrested and will appear in the White River Magistrates court today on charges of illegal entry into South Africa. The visas, according to the South African Home Affairs Department, were issued to the Libyans for entry for training as security guards. The site of the training was however a military training camp in contravention of South African Laws.

Egypt Oil Production Investment Boost for Egypt: Yesterday Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum, Karim Badwali, signed two agreements with international oil companies on Sunday to invest $340 million to boost oil and gas production in the Mediterranean and Gulf of Suez. International oil and gas companies, Signed a $222 million investment deal with Shell Egypt and Malaysia’s Petronas. The deal is targeting new gas production in the Mediterranean’s West Delta region.

Ethiopia Removes Currency Restrictions: The National Bank of Ethiopia issued a statement this morning advising that it had dropped all foreign currency restrictions for all the commercial banks. The announcement states that “banks are henceforth allowed to buy and sell foreign currencies to or from their clients and amongst themselves at freely negotiated rates”. The nation has been overwhelmed with debt and defaulted on its debt payments and is in the process of a debt overhaul supported by the International Monetary fund but is subject to conditions.

Olympic Highlights:

• Women’s Swimming: South African Swimming sensation Tatjana Smith (Schoenmaker), hit the best time of all the semi-finalist swimmers the 100m breaststroke semi-finals yesterday. The winner of two gold medals in Japan, hit a blistering 1:05:00 flat in the event. She is the top medal hopeful for South Africa.
• Men’s Swimming: Pieter Coetzee, South African Back-stroke sensation also made it to the 100m finals with the third fastest, semi-final time of  52;63’ which is also a new African record time.
• Medal Count Africa: Tunisia 1x Silver, Egypt 1x Bronze, South Africa 1x Bronze

World Markets: A key week for markets, this week that will see several central bank meetings with the US Fed FOMC and Bank of Japan (BOJ) monetary policy meeting happening on Wednesday and the Bank of England (BOE) MPC meeting to be held on Thursday. It is expected that the Fed will keep rates on hold, but markets are anticipating a more positive outlook going forward. The BOJ is forecast to hike rates while markets seem undecided on what the BOE will do. Later this week will see the US nonfarm payrolls and unemployment numbers come out. The Dollar is trading relatively flat at Friday’s slightly softer closes at 1.0860 against the Euro, at 1.2875 against the Pound, while the Yen is firmer at 153.38, with the Rand trading a touch firmer at R18.29 this morning.

Commodities Stronger after losses last week: Gold, Platinum, and Palladium have all started the new week on a firmer footing. Gold is up 0.4% at $2,394, Platinum is up 0.8% at $945, and Palladium is 1.1% higher at $910. Base metals are currently trading in positive territory and Middle East geopolitical concerns have seen Brent crude open 0.5% higher at $81.54.