Pretoria, 30 June 2017 – The South African Revenue Service (SARS) today releases trade statistics for May 2017 recording a trade balance surplus of R9.50 billion. These statistics include trade data with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (BLNS). The year-to-date trade balance surplus (01 January to 31 May 2017) of R19.52 billion is an improvement on the deficit for the comparable period in 2016 of R13.29 billion.
eNCA | Discontent, frustration in spotlight at ANC policy conference
JOHANNESBURG – President Jacob Zuma called on delegates at the ANC’s National Policy Conference (NPC) to discuss the growing discontent within the party.
Opening the conference in Nasrec, south of Johannesburg on Friday, Zuma said the ANC had faced several challenges over the past few years.
“There has been a development of some negative tendencies, which have caused frustration and disillusionment among the membership and nation at large. This policy conference is called upon to look in(to) this and emerge with recommendations… and redirect to its core mission and character,” said Zuma.
Zuma condemned ANC members for speaking out publicly against the party.
The party leader also blamed the country’s economic downturn on a constant negative narrative.
“We also need to look at the issue of ill-discipline in various forms… attacking the movement by ANC members and leaders instead of handling matters within the organisation… Some members have become primary conveyors of negative messages about their own movement,” said Zuma.
WATCH: Zuma calls for unity
The president told members this year’s policy conference had to address South Africa’s slow economic growth.
“At the time of the budget in February the economy was expected to grow at a low 1.3 percent in 2017. Given the current difficulty, even this low growth rate may not be achieved. Our deliberations… will need to look at what needs to be done… over the next five years.”
Zuma also said allegations of state capture needed to be investigated.
He said prolonging such investigations had tainted the image of the ANC and its leadership.
“We support the establishment of a judicial commission of inquiry to look into the matter.
“At a political level, this debate requires a thorough… analysis of the South African political economy so that we can understand what is meant by state capture.
“We need to know which business interests have sought to influence the ANC and its government over the years, with what impact and what must be done to end the said capture.”
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ANC National Policy Conference 2017 Discussion Document Organisational Renewal by eNCA.com on Scribd
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Health24.com | National Health Insurance approved and gazetted
The National Health Insurance (NHI) white paper will finally be gazetted today (Friday, 30 June 2017) after being approved by Cabinet last week.
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced on Thursday at a press conference in Pretoria that plans were still under way to use tax credits on medical aids, that add up to R20 billion per year, to fund initial priority areas of the NHI.
Some people will be upset
These priority areas include dental care, spectacles, hearing aids and speech therapists for school-going children who suffer from physical barriers to learning. The Department of Health conducted an audit of about 3.2 million children and found approximately 500 000, disproportionately from poorer schools, suffered from one or more of these barriers.
“We need to massively reorganise the health system… [And this] will upset some,” he said.
He said that tax rebates, given to medical scheme members annually, serve to make the rich even richer and need to be used to assist the poor. He said his office had had negotiations with National Treasury on the earmarking of these rebates since former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan suggested they be used for the NHI in his February budget speech.
“The ball is now in the Treasury’s court,” said Motsoaledi.
Along with substantive changes to legislation, he said that, under the NHI, teaching hospitals would become more autonomous and report directly to the National Department instead of the current provincial system.
No one will be turned away
Last week he told Health-e News these intuitions are “national treasures” and should be given the power to spend on what they need without having to deal with budget and bureaucratic restrictions.
According to the Health Ministry the NHI is, by definition, a “health financing system that pools funds to provide access to quality health care services to all South Africans, based on their health needs and irrespective of their socio-economic status”.
He said it would function like a big medical scheme, but that it would be different because everyone would have to contribute and no-one could be turned away based on their financial status.
“People in medical aids are stratified. The higher your position is, the higher your salary is, the better health package you are given,” he said. “But that type of system cannot be allowed. Because high blood pressure is high blood pressure [regardless].”
He lamented the fact that 80% of the country’s specialists serve the private sector where only 16 percent of the population have access to care. The state also shoulders the entire tuberculosis treatment and care burden, despite it being South Africa’s number one infectious disease killer.
“Some think we are driven by ideology, but we are driven by simple facts like this,” he said. “It’s wrong and the whole world knows it’s wrong.” – Health-e News.
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Medical scheme tax credit a step towards NHI
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Medical scheme members likely to lose their tax credits under NHI
Medical scheme members are likely to lose their tax credits to help pay for the first set of benefits to be rolled out under National Health Insurance (NHI), Health Minister Aaron Motsolaedi said.
Briefing reporters on the government’s latest policy position on NHI, which will be published as a revised White Paper in the government gazette, Motsolaedi said the first package of benefits would target women, children and the elderly: “The central philosophy is that we are going to start pooling funds for people who are not on medical aid, starting from the bottom.”
The government provided R20bn in tax credits to members of medical schemes in 2015, many of who were among the nation’s most wealthy citizens and least in need of government support, he said. Only 8.8-million people currently belong to medical schemes, out of a population of about 55.5-million, he said.
Former finance minister Pravin Gordhan announced in his February budget that an NHI Fund was to be established, which would progressively expand the services it provided. At the time, he indicated that Treasury was looking at various financing options for the fund, including possible adjustments to the tax credits on medical scheme contributions, with more details expected in the October adjustment budget, and during the course of the legislative process for NHI.
Motsoaledi said the priority programmes that would initially be covered by the NHI Fund include healthcare at schools, childhood cancer, women’s health (including pregnancy, cervical cancer and breast cancer), mental health services, disability and rehabilitation services, and hip, knee and cataract surgery for the elderly.
The total cost of implementing these priority programmes will come to R69bn over four years, he said, less than the total cost of the tax credits provided to medical scheme members over the same period.
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Yoga and Meditation Can Change Your Genes, Study Says
This article originally appeared on Time.com.
Yoga and meditation may do more than just help you feel relaxed in the moment. A new scientific review suggests that these and other mindfulness exercises can actually reverse stress-related changes in genes linked to poor health and depression.
In the new paper, published in Frontiers in Immunology, British researchers analyzed the findings from 18 previously published studies—involving a total of 846 people—on the biological effects of meditation, yoga, breathing exercises, Qi gong and Tai Chi. Together, the authors say, the studies show that these mind-body exercises appear to suppress the expression of genes and genetic pathways that promote inflammation.
Inflammation can temporarily boost the immune system, and can be protective against infection and injury, the authors write in their paper. But in today’s society, in which stress is primarily psychological, the body’s inflammatory response can become chronic and can impair both physical and mental health.
Researchers found that people who practiced these activities regularly had fewer signs of inflammation, including a decrease in their production of inflammatory proteins. This signals “the reversal of the molecular signature of the effects of chronic stress,” they wrote, which may translate to a reduced risk of inflammation-related diseases and conditions.
Environment and lifestyle can both affect which genes are turned on and off, and that can have real effects on disease risk, longevity and even which traits get passed on to future generations. Stressful events, for example, can activate the fight-or-flight response and trigger a chain reaction of stress-related changes in the body—including activating specific genes involved in making proteins that produce inflammation.
Lead author Ivana Buric, a PhD student in Coventry University’s Brain, Belief and Behaviour Lab in England, says her team was surprised to see that different types of mind-body techniques had such similar effects at the genetic level. “Sitting meditation is quite different than yoga or Tai Chi,” she said in an email, “yet all of these activities—when practiced regularly—seem to decrease the activity of genes involved in inflammation.”
This is a relatively new field of research, she adds, and it’s likely that similar benefits could be obtained from other lifestyle changes like healthy eating and exercise. There aren’t yet enough studies to know how activities like yoga compare to other types of physical activity in terms of altering gene expression.
Buric says the existing studies suggest that mind-body interventions “cause the brain to steer our DNA processes along a path which improves our well being.” She also emphasizes that inherited genes are not static and that DNA activity can depend on things people can control. “By choosing healthy habits every day, we can create a gene activity pattern that is more beneficial for our health,” she says. “Even just 15 minutes of practicing mindfulness seems to do the trick.”