LOCAL NEWS: (Kouga)

Load Shedding Stage 2 – Power off at 5:00 am to 07:30 and be prepared for possibly from 13:00 to15:30 should load shedding continue today

Local Dam Levels critically low  –  Dam levels continue to drop and the combined total has now dropped to below 20% of capacity with our largest dam.  Kouga at a perilously low 9.45% 

REGIONAL NEWS: (East Cape, Port Elizabeth & Southern Coast)  

SANDF members to be deployed on Garden Route beaches  –  SANDF members would be deployed to assist police in enforcing lockdown regulations on beaches along the Garden Route.

COVID NEWS:

COVID-19 LIVE UPDATES | Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine appears effective against mutation in new coronavirus variants -study  –  Pfizer Inc and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine appeared to work against a key mutation in the highly transmissible new variants 

Mkhize faces 3 hour grilling on vaccines, Ivermectin, budgets  –  Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize’s appreance before parliament’s portfolio committee on health on Thursday resulted in three hours of grilling from his fellow MPs.

LOCKDOWN:

Cigarette buying frenzy due to tighter lockdown rumours  –  Smokers are not getting caught without their fix again, and as rumours abound of tighter lockdown regulations coming, they are ensuring they stock up.

POLITICS:

All eyes on Ramaphosa as he delivers ANC’s January 8 statement  –  All eyes will be on ANC President, Cyril Ramaphosa, as he is today expected to deliver the governing party’s historic January 8 statement to mark 109 years since it was founded in 1912.

‘We didn’t even discuss Ace at first NEC,’ says Nomvula Mokonyane  –  Vaccines, a virtual January 8 address and lockdown consume the governing party’s first national executive committee meeting of the year.

‘Now the vaccine looting begins’ — Seven reactions to SA’s one million vaccines announcement  –  EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi was one of many who reacted to the news that SA will be receiving a million doses of Covid-19 vaccine this month and 500,000 doses in February from the Serum Institute of India (SII).

ENERGY:

South Africa’s electricity crisis hits in 2021  –  Eskom said the load-shedding is necessary to recover and preserve its emergency generation reserves.

SA & AFRICA NEWS:

Tributes flow in for SA ‘sports unifier’ Mluleki George  –   Politicians and sporting heavyweights have expressed their sorrow over the loss of the former deputy defence minister, who has become the latest high-profile figure whose life has been claimed by Covid-19.