BN Daybreak 23 March - Trump's Iran Ultimatum, Massive Fuel Price Hikes, & SA's 'Mafia State' Reality

Join Alec Hogg for today's edition of BizNews Daybreak to cut through the noise and get the essential global and local business news you need to start your week.In this episode, we cover:Global Tensions & Oil Shocks: US President Trump issues a strict ultimatum to Iran regarding the Strait of Hormuz, sparking significant volatility in the oil market. Consequently, South Africans must brace for brutal fuel price hikes, with DME now calculating that the current under-recovery is R8.80 per litre for petrol and a massive R15.10 per litre for diesel.Totalitarian Transformation? Sakeliga CEO Piet le Roux delivers a scathing critique of South Africa's BBBEE policies, arguing that the transformation framework is fundamentally totalitarian.SA as a 'Mafia State': In the wake of rising organised crime and targeted assassinations, Jonathan Deal speaks out on the political manipulation of the SAPS and the grim reality that South Africa is increasingly operating as a mafia state.Energy & Climate Narratives: At BNC#8 Nick Hudson took aim at the all-encompassing push for renewable energy in South Africa, characterising the climate crisis narrative as a "scam" orchestrated by global financial establishments.Market Wrap: A quick look at the overnight markets, featuring a drop in gold prices and stagnant movement for Bitcoin..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of today's BizNews Daybreak.00:00:29:56 - 00:00:49:45 They are violating international humanitarian law. The charter of the UN. The rules of the 14 trade. And we have 96,000 people that are waiting for a surgery because we don't have electricity or oil to have electricity in the hospital.00:00:49:49 - 00:01:14:31 That’s the Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, Ernesto Soberón Guzmán. Well, you’re tuned into Daybreak. I’m Alec Hogg. It’s Monday, March the 23rd. We’re cutting through the noise this morning, as we always do, to bring you exactly what you need to know to start your week. We kick off with partners in New York with the biggest overnight news.00:01:14:31 - 00:01:42:09 That’s from our partners at Bloomberg News now. But before we get there, man, is it confusing: the rand, 17 rand and 12 cents against the US dollar. The gold price is at $4,358 an ounce. That is a smack of note—down another 5% overnight. And then Bitcoin isn't showing any relief either; that's at 68,185. What is happening to investment markets?00:01:42:09 - 00:02:11:20 Well, on Friday we saw a knock of 2% on Nasdaq, 1.5% to the S&P 500 index. Who knows? But maybe our partners at Bloomberg have got some insight that we can use. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says US-Israeli attacks on Iran are aimed at destroying its fortifications along the Strait of Hormuz, while Iranian leaders will be facing a Monday deadline from President Trump to reopen the waterway.00:02:11:34 - 00:02:44:22 He made the comment on NBC’s Meet the Press. There has been a campaign using military assets to soften up the Iranian fortifications along the strait. That's going to continue until they are completely demolished. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on NBC’s Meet the Press Saturday. President Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on its power plants—a deadline that expires Monday evening in New York.00:02:44:36 - 00:03:16:10 Eurasia Group president and founder Ian Bremmer says President Trump’s actions during the war with Iran have been incoherent, and at this point, there’s no easy off-ramp to the conflict. I think that the United States is hitting Iran incredibly hard with its military capabilities, but the vulnerability is on the economic side, and on that side, the absolute short-term priority for Trump is: get the price down, get more oil out under any circumstances possible.00:03:16:10 - 00:03:44:39 And clearly, he believes that there is some marginal benefit to price that comes from getting more of that oil out. And not necessarily in the hands of the Chinese, but instead, to countries that the Americans are more nominally aligned with. Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer. Iran's strikes on Israel appear to be intensifying as the conflict in the Middle East enters its fourth week, leaving dozens of people injured and causing damage and disruption across the country.00:03:44:43 - 00:04:06:36 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling on other countries to take a stand against Iran. What more proof do you need that this regime that threatens the entire world has to be stopped? Israel and the United States are working together for the entire world, and it’s time to see the leaders of the rest of the countries join up.00:04:06:41 - 00:04:40:06 Oil will be very much in focus as we begin the new trading week amid the war in the Middle East. Omar Aguilar is Chief Investment Officer at Charles Schwab Investment Management. So clients, you know, started to just, you know, be concerned about, you know, what would be the length of these or the implications that in many cases they see it not just because of the results of the volatility we see on every given day, but they also see in their regular lives, you know, the effect on gas prices, the effects of just the potential inflation hit, you know, something that, you know, clients are starting to feel, and that’s the natural...00:04:40:06 - 00:05:03:18 ...reaction is to just become, you know, risk-averse. Omar Aguilar of Charles Schwab interviewed on Bloomberg Surveillance. And that was Charlie Pellet of Bloomberg in New York. Well, that oil price is something that is now starting to hit already in South Africa. I have reports from a number of friends who've gone to various petrol stations and petrol has run out.00:05:03:23 - 00:05:43:39 It’s not easy to fill your tank up, apparently, anymore. I’ll be trying myself this morning, and it is just pure logic. The Department of Mineral Resources tells us that the under-recovery at the moment at the fuel pump is 8 rand 80 on petrol and 15 rand 10 on diesel. What that means is that if you were to go into the global market, buy at the current price of oil and the current rand, you would be paying 8 rand 80 more per litre of petrol and 15 rand 10 more per litre of diesel.00:05:43:48 - 00:06:11:38 So not surprisingly, people are being logical. They realise that by buying now while it's cheap and are filling up their tanks, heaven knows how many jerry cans are being filled up as well. And you've got to understand that from the position of the garage owners or the people who own the petrol stations, they would presumably be trying to stockpile until the price gets increased, which it is—it's a guaranteed increase.00:06:11:38 - 00:06:33:41 It’s coming up early next month. Now, the problem with the increases in South Africa and the way that you have administered petrol prices as we do here is they levy the average for the month. So although we are sitting at 8.80 in under-recovery now and 15 rand 10 on diesel, it’s going to increase. Not by that much...00:06:33:54 - 00:07:02:39 ...next month. But it’ll increase by a significant amount again in the following month. So we are manufacturing an artificial crisis in South Africa with the motorists. Just sensible citizens are saying, hang on a minute, why shouldn't I stock up with what I can? And of course, somebody has to pay the price. I'm not sure who it is. And we will be finding out from experts as we go forward.00:07:02:43 - 00:07:26:31 Well, let’s get into some of the big stories of the day. And we're going back now to the BizNews conference. Piet le Roux is the Chief Executive of Sakeliga, and he had some pretty hectic things to say about transformation and how transformation is hurting South Africa. So on the one hand, you’ve got these administered prices that are manufacturing a major crisis.00:07:26:34 - 00:07:42:12 Believe me, it’s coming. And on the other hand, we’ve got something else that Pretoria has been busy with: the whole transformation agenda that everybody believes in. But the unintended consequences are really scary. Here’s my theory.00:07:42:16 - 00:08:21:16 Transformation, ladies and gentlemen, is fundamentally totalitarian. Under this totalitarian framework, capitalist-devoured evidence indicates infrastructure—from rail to ports to public utilities to collapsed towns and even cities. Economic progress is throttled, evident in chronically stagnant GDP and relentlessly expanding joblessness. Productive people and financial capital are driven from these shores, evident in the millions of—mostly Westerners—that leave the country and also the JSE's...00:08:21:16 - 00:09:16:00 ...structural contraction. With listings today at a historic low of just over 200, from its high of around 750. Discussing the transformation programme and its catastrophic effects today, fortunately, is much easier than it was even just five or ten years ago. Until fairly recently, the ideology of transformationism was surrounded by a high-voltage electric fence of political correctness. But its harmful effects, its harmful results, have become too obvious to deny; its architects too forthright in their extremism and its targeting primarily of the Western subsection of the population too brazen for good people to remain silent and inactive.00:09:16:05 - 00:09:55:25 It is no longer so clear that these policies have noble motives, for nobility of motive would long ago have led to a change of course. The essential principle of transformationism is displacement. White people, and to a lesser but still significant degree, other minority groups are targeted for displacement. White shareholders ought to be displaced from ownership, employees from jobs, children from schools and sports teams, farmers from land.00:09:55:30 - 00:10:22:52 The state is not too fussed about where the displaced go. If they leave the country, so be it. The constant waves of skilled emigration have never been seriously lamented by ANC-dominated governments. If they move to build new businesses, these businesses simply become new targets for further rounds of displacement. It's what you call 'Uber-truths' that le Roux has been expressing.00:10:22:52 - 00:10:52:22 That full interview is available on BizNews TV and on BizNews Radio. Well, there’s something else that’s going on at the same time. It’s almost like we’re being hit from all sides at the moment here in South Africa. And that’s the Madlanga Commission and the ad hoc investigation that was sparked by the allegations made by Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, the head of the South African Police Service in KwaZulu-Natal.00:10:52:27 - 00:11:32:00 My colleague Chris Steyn has been on top of all of this. And yesterday in the Sunday show, she spoke with Jonathan Deal. Jonathan, do you think that all of the revelations and allegations at these public hearings have put the brakes on attempts by organised crime to capture politicians and top police officials? Chris, I don’t think so. I think that they might be a little bit more cautious, but it is, after all, if one is in the criminal syndicates in South Africa, it is the only thing that you do.00:11:32:01 - 00:12:10:43 It’s a source of income and the vested interests there are enormous. And we have seen this with the assassination of whistleblowers. So if life is cheap in South Africa—and I’ve spoken about this on other interviews as well—people die in this country for a nice pair of tekkies or a mobile phone. If life is cheap in the general population of South Africa, the people that have these vested interests of billions of rands will stop at nothing to assassinate people.00:12:10:43 - 00:12:52:11 And I don’t think that this will necessarily arrest it. And if I had to say, how will South Africa ever escape from under this issue? It will be when the government starts working with the public and providing an institution that the public can trust. So there's this institutional trust in SAPS, but also that the government understands that they will never, ever win the war against crime at any level, including the level that you've referred to in your question, without the willing cooperation of the public.00:12:52:16 - 00:13:19:27 So are you saying that this is not going to prevent South Africa from becoming a mafia state? I think South Africa is already, to a large extent, a mafia state. If you've got criminals calling the shots at the highest levels of the institution that is expected to protect South Africans, I think that that is a good definition of a mafia state.00:13:19:32 - 00:13:56:57 Jonathan, what is expected of Parliament now? I think that Parliament and SAPS have got a joint responsibility. The biggest thing that Parliament could do would be to remove the South African Police Service or remove the politics from South African Police Service. South African Police Service has for decades and by previous governments been used as a political football, because who controls the police generally to an extent controls the populace.00:13:57:02 - 00:14:16:20 But what has happened is that we have seen a rise in criminal activity at all levels. With the devolution of the South African Police Service over the last 10 to 15 years, it has just been a downward trajectory.00:14:38:31 - 00:15:22:34 That’s Jonathan Deal talking with my colleague Chris Steyn on the Sunday show this week. Again, you can pick up that full interview on the other channels, and on this channel as well. So even the way you access your business information, you just join the dots and there's a very disturbing picture that is starting to emerge. And we will actually be referring to the most controversial of the presentations at Penn State, which was from Nick Hudson. Nick Hudson, the chairman of PANDA and the man who was so outspoken in his resistance to Covid-19 narratives that were provided to the rest of us.00:15:22:38 - 00:15:42:24 And you’ve got it. When you go to second-level thinking, you've got to start wondering, well, maybe these guys that are written off as conspiracy theorists have actually got a point, because the facts are telling us that things are not really going well. Not just here, but anywhere in the world right now, it seems—well, not anywhere but in most parts of the world.00:15:42:29 - 00:16:14:22 Let’s get back to that story that we began with the pull quote. Can you imagine you are sitting in Cuba right now? Now Cuba has been blockaded by the United States. So there's no oil going in there. The last oil that went in was in January. And the result of this has been pretty horrific. So what do you do if you’re Cuban? The Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, had a fascinating interview with our partners at Bloomberg.00:16:14:22 - 00:16:36:48 And let's pick up some of the highlights. "I do believe I'll be having the honour of taking Cuba. That'd be good. That's a big honour. Taking you... taking Cuba in some form. Yeah. Taking Cuba, I mean, whether I free it, take it, think I could do anything I want with it?" What is your reaction to some of the rhetoric that we've heard from the President of the United States?00:16:36:50 - 00:17:22:05 Well, you know, during the last three months, almost every day, President Trump or Secretary of State Marco Rubio said something like this: "When they take cover, take cover. We are negotiating. We are not negotiating. We are ready to bomb and destroy everything." And for us, our position is crystal clear. You know, our president announced last Friday that we had recently started a dialogue between officials of the Cuban government and officials of the US government, based on equal footing and respect; also around the respect of independence and respect of non-interference in internal affairs.00:17:22:10 - 00:17:38:49 Let's talk a bit about the oil blockade that's been in place. The last shipment that you got of oil was in January. That came from Mexico. Before that, in December, you got a shipment from Venezuela. Of course, circumstances have changed. You used to rely on 25,000 barrels a day from Venezuela. That's gone. What has the impact of that oil blockade...00:17:38:49 - 00:18:01:19 ...imposed by the United States been on the country of Cuba over these last couple of months? It has a huge impact. The first question here is, does the US have the right to impose a blockade like this? They have the right to say to a third country that they cannot sell oil to Cuba?00:18:01:24 - 00:18:25:53 I think that they have not this right. And this is not just that they are violating international law, international humanitarian law, the charter of the UN, the rules of the 14 trade. So we have 96,000 people that are waiting for a surgery because we don't have electricity or oil to have electricity in the hospital, around 11,000 of them children.00:18:25:58 - 00:18:56:18 We have more than 30,000 pregnant women waiting for the ultrasound because of a lack of electricity. But you need electricity to produce food. You need electricity to pump water. You need electricity for food transportation, to transport people. You need electricity for almost everything. Are you disappointed China isn't doing more? They're sending solar equipment, for instance.00:18:56:18 - 00:19:29:10 But do you wish that they would take a stronger stand? No, no, not at all. We have been receiving political support from the majority of countries. But at the same time, we have been receiving some other support from many countries. You mentioned China, Vietnam, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Chile, the Caribbean countries. The UN system is also working now to try to implement these; when a country offers some kind of aid, they are trying to be like a bridge.00:19:29:14 - 00:19:59:02 What is your message to the American people at this moment, as we hear again the President making bellicose statements from the White House? What would you say to American people who are watching this and hearing from the administration that things are bound to change in Cuba in the near term?00:19:59:04 - 00:20:15:09 Well, you know, I yesterday read a poll that said that only 28% of the American people support this kind of policy of their government towards Cuba. So I would say to the rest, the 72% that doesn't support this policy: please continue pushing, continue raising your voice in favour of a different kind of relation between Cuba and the US.00:20:15:14 - 00:20:41:30 That's the Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, Ernesto Soberón Guzmán. Well, there's so much in there that is relevant and parallel here to South Africa. But just imagine for a minute that Donald Trump decided that he would blockade South Africa. And who would come to support us? Who would come to our aid in the same way as Cuba has got friends in China and Russia and South Africa?00:20:41:35 - 00:21:01:33 But what can we do to support them? What can be done to support them? What is being done to support them? So at the moment, you've got this extraordinary situation in the world where there's a guy in the White House who's using his muscle and nobody's standing up to him. So, is it possible for them to stand up to him?00:21:01:41 - 00:21:24:45 Probably not. And so what do you do in that circumstance? If you are South Africa, you're a little country which is 1/77th the size of the GDP of the US, less than half a percent of the global population, 0.3 percent of global GDP. Surely you put South Africa first and you just do what's right for our country because we've got high unemployment.00:21:24:45 - 00:21:49:09 We've got lots of things that we need to worry about here. That has to be on the minds today of people in Pretoria, mentioned at the UN at the intro, that we are sitting in a situation in South Africa where we have a petrol price that is currently being massively subsidised, but it's not going to last because the adjustment comes early next month.00:21:49:10 - 00:22:14:08 8 rand 80, according to the Department of Energy—and that is just to confirm or reaffirm. And heaven help you if you're driving a diesel vehicle with the under-recovery right now at 15 rand and 10 cents. All of this gets any logical, rational person thinking: what the heck is happening? And so we are looking for, we are seeking answers.00:22:14:08 - 00:22:37:14 We are seeking insights. And at the news conference, Nick Hudson made a bit of a stir. I would say probably 70% of the people in the audience thought, "Now come on, this guy has lost it. He's completely off his rocker." But there were some who felt that he was actually telling the real truth. Another Uber-truth like we heard earlier from Piet le Roux.00:22:37:19 - 00:23:05:24 But I've pulled a quote for you from Nick’s presentation, which is quite interesting because it relates to energy—and suspend your disbelief for a while. Listen to it. I did ask him, incidentally, before he made the presentation, to please run it through. I made sure that I was comfortable that he wasn't just making up a whole lot of stuff.00:23:05:29 - 00:23:47:30 And he assured me that he did exactly that. Let's have a listen to Nick Hudson to illustrate how pervasively the Anglo-American establishment supersedes over South Africa. I want you to quickly take a look at just one sector: energy. On top of it all, we had Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, governor of the London School of Economics for 42 years, driving the translation of climate science into economic imperative, and Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management making a €26 billion commitment to "Net-Zero alignment", as they call it, being the muscle into that initiative.00:23:47:35 - 00:24:21:47 And here's how it gets local. Listen to this. In the restructuring of Eskom's mountain of debt, Rothschild & Co advised the creditors, while Lazard Limited, an historic de Rothschild ally and principal bank of the Anglo-American establishment, advises Eskom itself. How convenient. This restructuring was a precondition for accessing funding for South Africa's so-called Just Energy Transition. The single largest climate finance deal directed at any developing country in the world.00:24:21:52 - 00:24:51:21 Martin Kingston was mentioned several times at this conference. The executive chairman of Rothschild & Co also chairs B4SA, which is the implementation arm of BUSA (Business Unity South Africa), which handles relationships with the government, as well as the Resource Mobilisation Fund, which deploys its own staffers in fields like energy modelling, tariff design, legal, communications, and energy policy experts into the president's NECOM apparatus.00:24:51:36 - 00:25:31:48 So Rothschild & Co are simultaneously advising National Treasury—which decides whether Eskom will assume debt or we will assume Eskom's debt—advising on Eskom's restructuring, which determines the structure of the energy market, advising on Transnet, which transports the coal (or would do so), and representing creditors in Eskom's debt reorganisation, which determines the terms of the unbundling. In short, NUMSA is entirely right when they say that the Rothschilds have almost complete control over the process that is forcing South Africa down the catastrophically expensive lock of renewable energy under the banner of the "climate crisis scam".00:25:31:53 - 00:26:07:03 We're talking about a level of state capture here that is enough to make even a Gupta blush. And these guys are laughing all the way to the bank at our considerable expense, because all of this will ensure that instead of utilising abundant and cheap coal to secure the energy independence that South Africa enjoyed during the apartheid era, South Africa will instead emerge over-indebted, energy-starved, even more dependent on the Anglo-American establishment, and with a national government that is, in all matters of importance, manipulated by foreign interests.00:26:07:08 - 00:26:46:50 Pretty strong words indeed. But you've got to stop and think for a minute. Hang on. We've got these fantastic gas resources off the coast; why are they not being exploited? We've got hundreds of years of coal; why are we closing our coal-fired power stations? Well, it's starting to reverse now, but why were we? And when those kind of irrational, illogical economic decisions are made in Pretoria, then questions must be asked, and questions may come to the kind of conclusions that we heard today from Nick Hudson—or rather, that we heard at the news conference from Nick Hudson.00:26:46:55 - 00:26:56:01 And indeed, the clip that you've just been with.00:26:56:05 - 00:27:22:32 Well, that wraps up this morning's edition of Daybreak. Quite a lot of dot joining for you, hasn't there? I'm Alec Hogg. Thank you for starting your Monday with us. Have a fantastic day ahead. We'll be right back here tomorrow morning. Cheerio.

BN Daybreak 23 March - Trump's Iran Ultimatum, Massive Fuel Price Hikes, & SA's 'Mafia State' Reality

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