August 25, 2025.

For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Halima Frost.

Making headlines:

Amid tariff pressures, Ramaphosa calls for economic diplomacy and multilateralism

BLSA’s Mavuso hails rail slot allocations as breakthrough in logistics crisis

And, Senegal reports mpox case, patient in isolation

Back from his trip to Japan, where he attended the ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development Summit, President Cyril Ramaphosa underscored the importance of the forum to strengthen trade and investment, amid global trade disruptions.

In his weekly letter to the nation on Monday, he reiterated the importance of Japan as a trading partner of South Africa’s, particularly in areas such as construction, manufacturing, technology and agriculture.

He noted discussions at the conference on potential collaboration in renewable energy, automotive components and hydrogen production.

He said South Africa would strategically engage with partners in the Global North and South, while it continued with its multilateralism-based foreign policy.

He asserted that South Africa’s foreign policy would not be dictated by pressure but by principle.

Business Leadership South Africa CEO Busisiwe Mavuso said today that Transport Minister Barbara Creecy’s announcement last week that 11 train operating companies have been allocated rail slots across 41 routes and six corridors marks an important step toward building a competitive and thriving logistics system in South Africa.

She said this is the realisation of years of intense collaboration between business and government to improve the performance of the rail network by introducing private operators and investors.

The announcement came after Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana had addressed BLSA members last week about the importance of urgent structural reform.

Mavuso assured the country that business remained committed to supporting government in making it work.

Senegal authorities said they had detected a case of mpox in a foreign man who arrived in the West African country last week.

The health ministry said it was the first case it had detected this year. It was not immediately clear how many cases, if any, had been reported there before January.

The ministry said the patient's clinical condition is stable. He is currently in isolation and is receiving care but it did not give details on what variant of the infection had been found.

No new cases had been detected since then and 25 people were being monitored, a ministry spokesperson said today.

Mpox can spread through close contact. Usually mild, it is fatal in rare cases. It causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions on the body.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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