War in Middle East prompts cut in global growth forecast
The World Bank cut its global growth forecast for 2026 to 2.5% due to the war in the Middle East, and warned growth could slow to just 1.3% if energy supply disruptions prove more severe, bringing more stress to financial markets. Global growth reached 2.9% in 2025. The bank’s 2026 forecast is down 0.1 percentage point from January, the lowest seen since the COVID pandemic that began in late 2019.
Businesses prepare legal action against Emfuleni over month-long power cut
Despite official enthusiasm for reviving South Africa’s declining manufacturing economy, Emfuleni in Gauteng has allowed the industrial zone of Duncanville to spend a month without power. A transformer failed on 12 May, and remains unrepaired, forcing local businesses to turn to diesel generators at substantial cost. The delay in response has been attributed to Emfuleni’s reliance of external service providers; municipal staff sent to the site were apparently not equipped with the correct tools and materials to effect repairs. Businesspeople told the media that they were calculating the damage the outage was doing, in preparation for legal action against the municipality.
Trump claims US/Iran deal will be done “pretty quickly”.
US President Donald Trump is quoted as telling reporters: “We have a deal that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, which was the whole purpose of what we had to go through to get this. So, it’s a very big thing.” He said there would “probably be a signing, maybe in Europe” once the documents were finalised, which he said would be done “pretty quickly”. This followed his cancelling fresh missile strikes, after two days of escalating attacks on Iran that threatened to collapse the fragile ceasefire. In a social media post, Trump said: “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening.” Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said large parts of the text under negotiation had been finalised but Iran would not compromise on its red lines. “So far, Iran has not reached a final conclusion on the agreement,” Baghaei said.
Next El Niño weather cycle could be strongest on record, forecasts suggest
US scientists say El Niño – the natural Pacific weather pattern that pushes up global temperatures – has officially begun, with many forecasts suggesting this could end up as a so-called “super” El Niño, and even be among the strongest ever recorded. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared that El Niño conditions are now under way in the tropical Pacific, with sea surface temperatures having risen sharply in recent months. El Niño’s intensity is measured by how far sea surface temperatures rise above average in a key zone of the Pacific. A strong event is defined as more than 1.5C above average; a very strong one above 2C. According to NOAA’s June outlook, “there is a 63% chance of a very strong El Niño during November-January, that would rank among the largest El Niño events in the historical record going back to 1950”.
Western Cape seeks national government funding help to tackle storm damage
Western Cape premier Alan Winde is to write to President Cyril Ramaphosa as part of a provincial effort to secure financial help from the national government to tackle damage caused by severe weather in May, estimated to run to R9bn. The province argues that the scale of the damage has exceeded provincial departments’ budgets and delivery capacity. The region’s agriculture sector suffered estimated damage of more than R5.2bn — with wine and fruit farms flooded, and crops and livestock lost — and damage to infrastructure is estimated at just under R2bn.
Sources: Reuters, BBC, News24, Business Day, The Guardian