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Mapisa-Nqakula elected as new National Assembly Speaker

Former Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has been elected as the new Speaker of the National Assembly, following a vote by secret ballot by Members of Parliament on Thursday.

Addressing the National Assembly sitting for the first time as Speaker on Thursday afternoon, Mapisa-Nqakula said being initially nominated left her “emotional and humbled”.

“I return of course to be part of a collective leadership of this national legislature after what can be considered a long stay within the executive branch of government. I therefore fully appreciate the extent of the transition that I must personally make in order to fulfil my obligations and those of this House, to ensure the accountability and oversight of the executive branch,” she said.

She said this after Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe presided over the nomination and the election of the new Speaker of the National Assembly.

After a voting process that lasted for over three hours, Mapisa-Nqakula was elected after she received 199 votes out of a total of 298 votes cast during a secret ballot. Dr Annelie Lotriet MP, who was a nominee from the main opposition DA, received 82 votes, while 17 ballots were spoilt.

The election comes after Thandi Modise resigned as Speaker following President Cyril Ramaphosa announced changes to his Cabinet earlier this month. Modise was appointed as the new Defence Minister.

Ahead of the vote, ANC Chief Whip Pemmy Majodina rose to nominate Mapisa-Nqakula, and she was seconded by Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu.

The DA’s Chief Whip Natasha Mazzone in turn nominated Dr Annelie Lotriet, MP and was seconded by DA leader John Steenhuisen.

Mapisa-Nqakula’s record of service

Mapisa-Nqakula has served as Chairperson of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Defence from 1994.

She served as a Deputy Minister of Home Affairs from May 2002 to April 2004, and then as Minister of Home Affairs from April 2004 to May 2009.

In May 2009, she was appointed as a Minister of Correctional Services, a position that she held until June 2012 when she was appointed as Minister of Defence and Military Veterans.

Source: South African Government News Agency

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Education sector assesses COVID-19 disruptions

The Department of Basic Education has encouraged all stakeholders in the education sector to support its efforts to ensure that learning is not disrupted or delayed any further during this school year.

Director for Research at the department, Dr Stephen Taylor, says the department’s observations show that large parts of crucial learning time were lost last year due to COVID-19 related disruptions.

“We have now begun to measure COVID-19 related learning losses in South Africa by comparing how much children learned in 2020 with how much they learned in a normal school year before that. These measures indicate that between 50% and 75% of a normal year’s worth of learning was lost during 2020.

“Although we only have this information for certain grades and learning areas, it is likely that learners across grades and subjects would have been similarly affected,” Taylor said.

He said further delays in the reopening of schools at the beginning of the year and an extended winter holiday would have a negative effect on society and the education sector.

Early Childhood Development

The department also raised concern about children attending Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres and primary schools.

“The impact on early learning for children attending ECD centres is also likely to have been significant, since attendance rates at ECD centres have dropped considerably since the pandemic. There is now evidence from the NIDS-CRAM [National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey] …that more school-aged children are not attending school than usual.

“It is not clear whether this is temporary non-attendance or will become permanent,” the department said.

The department warned that if the schooling system does not recover to pre-pandemic levels, the knock-on effect will be felt in years to come.

“[It is] predicted that grade 12 outcomes may be expected to be lower over time. In the long run, the learning losses in primary school may lead to an increase in dropouts when these children reach grades 10, 11 and 12. This creates an urgent need to recover learning that has been lost,” the department said.

Despite these challenges, the department said the introduction of comprehensive school COVID-19 safety protocols and the vaccination of teachers has now “created the possibility to keep schools open and return to everyday attendance”.

“The second step, which will take some time, will be to introduce measures to catch up what was lost,” the department said.

Source: South African Government News Agency

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18 to 35 age group to get their jabs from 20 August

South Africa’s COVID-19 vaccination programme is expected to increase drastically following Cabinet’s approval for the vaccination of people aged between 18 and 35 years from 20 August 2021.

Cabinet said it had received a report from the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) indicating that over nine million vaccines have been administered in South Africa to date, with over seven million people partially vaccinated and over four million fully vaccinated.

“Cabinet welcomed the vaccination roll out plan to increase the uptake of vaccines, particularly in provinces that had shown a reduction in the uptake of vaccines. As part of increasing the vaccination roll-out programme, Cabinet approved the vaccination of persons aged between 18 and 35 years from 20 August 2021,” Cabinet said in a statement on Thursday.

Cabinet urged people to dispel unfounded and misleading conspiracy theories about the vaccines and choose life by vaccinating.

“Scientific evidence confirms that vaccinated people stand a better chance of surviving from COVID-19 than unvaccinated people. Cabinet encourages all unvaccinated people in South Africa to get vaccinated because vaccines protect us from getting seriously ill from COVID-19 and they save lives.”

Cabinet said the process to get vaccinated is easy.

“Simply visit your nearest vaccination site with your identity document to be registered and vaccinated. You can find your closest site from the more than 3 000 vaccination sites across the country at www.sacoronavirus.co.za/active-vaccination-sites.”

Cabinet has further approved the keeping of the country under the Risk-Adjusted Alert Level 3 of the national lockdown, as advised by the Ministerial Advisory Committee.

Source: South African Government News Agency

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Funding package to support business affected by unrest

Cabinet has called on all eligible businesses affected by the recent civil unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng to apply for industrial loan support at zero-percent interest, under the R3.75-billion Economic Recovery Support Package offered by government.

“The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) and its development finance institutions – the Industrial Development Corporation and National Empowerment Fund – have put together a funding package to support various business recovery interventions. This includes the rebuilding of infrastructure, equipment, fittings for premises, stock and working capital,” a Cabinet statement said on Thursday.

The funding will help to alleviate the socio-economic challenges facing businesses affected by the unrest.

Cabinet has welcomed and endorsed the announcement by JP Morgan to provide financial and non-financial support to the tune of R340 million through the Abadali Equity Equivalent Investment Programme (EEIP).

The programme consists of Abadali Fund – a Black Business Growth Fund and Abadali Grant (R40 million).

Energy

Cabinet also welcomed this week’s gazetting of the regulations that increase the threshold for embedded generation from the current one megawatt (MW) to 100 MW.

In June 2021, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the amendment of Schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act, 2006 (Act 4 of 2006) to increase the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s licensing threshold for embedded generation projects to allow for more private generation of electricity.

“Companies in energy-intensive sectors will now be able to generate their own electricity without the need for a licence. The new generation capacity will increase energy security by reducing reliance on the power grid and unlocking significant private sector investment.

“These initiatives will support inclusive economic growth and job creation within the small and medium-sized businesses, particularly in the manufacturing and green economy sectors,” Cabinet said.

Meanwhile, South Africa is expected to participate at the upcoming World Expo.

Cabinet approved the participation in December 2019 but the event was subsequently postponed due to COVID-19.

“The multinational event, which is held every five years in different countries, provides a large and attractive market to showcase South African goods and services to a global audience. It will be held as a hybrid of virtual and on-site exhibitions in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 1 October to 31 March 2022,” Cabinet said.

The dtic will next week host a media briefing to unpack South Africa’s participation at the World Expo 2020.

Source: South African Government News Agency

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JW Player Appoints Digital Video Veteran David LaPalomento as Chief Technology Officer

David’s deep digital video technology background will help scale JW Player’s engineering team and product development to service the growing Digital Video Economy.

NEW YORK, Aug. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — JW Player, the leading video software and data insights platform, today announced it has appointed David LaPalomento as Chief Technology Officer, effective immediately. The strategic hire will accelerate JW Player’s product innovation to meet the needs of a rapidly growing Digital Video Economy, leveraging the recent infusion of $100M in Series E funding from LLR Partners.

“David has proven himself to be a visionary leader in both developing and scaling innovative video delivery products,” said Dave Otten, CEO and co-founder of JW Player. “I have no doubt that his expertise will strengthen our position as a leading force for innovation in the digital video industry. With his leadership, we will scale our engineering teams and bring new products to market that further empower customers with independence and control in the Digital Video Economy. We could not be more excited to have him on our team.”

During his decade-long tenure at Brightcove, David built a world-class engineering team to modernize its video delivery platform. He led the overhaul of the company’s legacy data center-based architecture, replacing it with a scalable, cloud-native architecture and migrating thousands of customers to the new platform. His leadership helped triple revenue, launch new products, and integrate acquisitions to address new market segments. His experience will be invaluable as JW Player rises to meet the explosive growth in demand for digital video since the pandemic began.

“I’m thrilled to start the next chapter of my career with JW Player,” said David. “We’ve reached an inflection point where every company with a digital presence now depends on video to engage its audience and monetize its offering. JW Player has built the most comprehensive platform for success in this digital video ecosystem, with unmatched consumption and contextual data insights, cutting-edge monetization and engagement features, and world-class video experiences on any screen. I look forward to building on this platform to bring new innovations to market.”

According to JW Player’s data from over 12,000 publishers and broadcasters, video consumption has continued to surge in the wake of the pandemic, up nearly 50% since 2020 and 28.6% since January 2021. The growing demand has made it an imperative for organizations of all stripes, including fitness, e-commerce, sports and e-learning businesses, to develop a robust video strategy to engage their audience on the screen of their choice: web, mobile or connected TV.

JW Player’s API-driven video platform empowers hundreds of thousands of customers to independently control and operate their mobile, OTT and web video applications at a global scale. Importantly, JW Player delivers unique data-driven insights that empower customers to more effectively grow, engage, and monetize their audiences. In the last year alone, the company’s video streaming grew by nearly 200%, with live streaming increasing by over 400%.

About JW Player
JW Player is the leading video software and data insights platform that gives customers independence and control in today’s Digital Video Economy. Started in 2008 as a hugely popular open source video player, JW Player’s technology platform now powers digital video for hundreds of thousands of businesses, including half of the comScore top 50 sites in the US, leading broadcasters across EMEA, APAC and Latin America. Each month 1 billion viewers, or one third of all people on the Internet, consume video on JW Player’s technology across 2.7 billion devices, creating an unmatched and powerful consumption and contextual data graph that helps customers grow audiences and generate incremental video from digital video. The company is headquartered in New York, with offices in London and Eindhoven, visit http://www.jwplayer.com.

Media Contacts:
Fatimah Nouilati
Scratch Marketing + Media for JW Player
[email protected]

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Casio to Release Two-Tone, Purple and Blue Metal G-SHOCK

Two-tone ion plating and metal finish evoke the beauty of Tokyo twilight

TOKYO, Aug. 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Casio Computer Co., Ltd. announced today the latest addition to its G-SHOCK line of shock-resistant watches. The new GMW-B5000PB is part of the 5000 line of full metal watches with the square face design of the very first G-SHOCK, and it features purple and blue-gray ion plating (IP).

GMW-B5000PB

The GMW-B5000PB is based on the GMW-B5000D, which reproduces the shape of the very first G-SHOCK, but in a metal case. The purple and blue-gray IP finish, a new approach to CMF design,* is inspired by the beauty of Tokyo at twilight when light and darkness interplay. The bezel and band feature a new purple IP hue achieved by tuning the chroma and luminance, along with a deep and sophisticated blue-gray IP. Combined with muted chroma and hairline finish, the watch evokes the image of twilight Tokyo in an integrated total design. The watch face is adorned with splashes of orange and light blue reminiscent of city lights illuminating as the sun sets. The bezel and band are hairline and mirror-finished, which enhances the texture of the metal while emphasizing the interplay of multi-spectrum light.

GMW-B5000PB

* CMF design integrates color, material, and finish

The GMW-B5000PB not only receives radio wave time-calibration signals; it is also equipped with Mobile Link functions that pair via Bluetooth® to a smartphone to access Internet time servers and ensure accurate time. Features like alarms and World Time can be easily set from a paired smartphone, and the helpful reminders and phone finder function make for a very useful watch.

Band featuring purple and blue-gray IP

The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by Casio Computer Co., Ltd. is under license.

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Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1586975/image_3.jpg