Latest news with #NPC
Otago Daily Times
4 hours ago
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Former Irish prop to coach stags
New Southland Stags coach Nathan White will have a hectic start to his provincial coaching career. White, a former Irish prop, who played for Waikato and the Chiefs, was named as co-coach for the side in something of a surprise move. He is expected in the South sometime later this month. No firm starting date could be provided. Rugby Southland in a statement last week said head of performance and Stags co-coach Matt Saunders was moving on. He was taking up an opportunity with Foodstuffs and operating the Otatara Four Square. Saunders, who had been in the role since 2022, previously operated the Tapanui Four Square. White is a former Toyota Verblitz forwards coach, having worked alongside former All Black coaches Ian Foster and Steve Hansen. White will be the co-coach with James Wilson. Union pathways manager Scott Eade has been promoted to assistant coach for the side, with responsibility for defence. Speaking on Saunders' departure, Rugby Southland chief executive Hua Tamariki acknowledged the mixed emotions within the organisation. "While we're gutted to see Matt go. He leaves with my full support and that of everyone involved in our union," Tamariki said. He said the timing was far from ideal, but the situation was outside Saunders' control. "We've had to act quickly to ensure we maintain continuity and momentum heading into this year's NPC campaign." Tamariki paid tribute to Saunders and said he was a steady and dependable leader. Eade had the full support of the union. "He's self-driven, an exceptional planner, and possesses a unique ability to connect with players across all levels. His inclusion in the Stags' coaching group was always a matter of when, not if," Tamariki said. Tamariki said White should fit in easily. "Originally from Waikato, Nathan has a deep connection to provincial rugby and will fit seamlessly into our community. His skills and leadership will be a great complement to James and the entire coaching group as we move closer to NPC kick-off." White played for Waikato and the Chiefs. In Ireland, he played for Leinster and Connacht. He played 13 tests for Ireland in 2015-16 before retiring because of concussion in 2016. He started his coaching career by helping out at Connacht. Rugby Southland also confirmed last year's forwards coach, Kane Thompson, would be unable to return in 2025 due to international coaching commitments with Manu Samoa. Daryl Thompson will be the set piece coach and Marty McKenzie the skills coach. Southland's first game of the NPC is against Otago in Invercargill on August 2.— APL
The Verge
6 hours ago
- Business
- The Verge
Epic is bringing AI Darth Vader's tech to Fortnite creators
Epic Games is going to allow Fortnite creators to make AI-powered NPCs that work similar to the recently-launched AI Darth Vader. The company showed off the tech at its State of Unreal show on Tuesday. Using the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), creators can make characters with personalities that they can voice chat with. Creators will be able to set the type of voice, their delivery, and the AI NPC's characteristics when the feature is available later this year. In a live demo shown onstage at the event, two Epic staffers showed a conversation with an AI character, 'Mr. Buttons,' whose sole purpose was to try and get the player to press a big red button in the room. For example, one Epic staffer asked a question about the screens in the room saying not to press the button, and the AI wanted the player to push the rules and press the button. In May, Epic added a Darth Vader NPC to Fortnite that could speak to players using an AI-powered version of James Earl Jones' voice. Jones' estate approved of the use of his voice. However, Epic had to issue a hotfix after players got the AI Darth Vader to swear. The AI NPCs aren't the only AI-focused news for Fortnite creators. Epic is also beta testing the Epic Developer Assistant, an AI chatbot that can help UEFN creators write code in UEFN's Verse programming language. The beta test is live today. Epic also announced that new franchises will be available for UEFN creators to make experiences with. Squid Game assets will be available starting June 27th — the same day as the premiere of the show's third and final season — and creators will be able to publish Squid Game experiences later this summer. Avatar: The Last Airbender, which appeared in Fortnite last year, will be available for creators to build with in 2026. Star Wars assets will be available at some point in the future. And on June 17th, creators will also be able to build LEGO experiences brick by brick, which should allow for more customizable LEGO experiences.
Daily Maverick
5 days ago
- Business
- Daily Maverick
New report reveals cost-of-living crisis deepening for South Africa's poor
From 2011 to 2023 the cost of living in South Africa has nearly doubled. This was revealed in the Trend in the Cost of Living in South Africa report, released on Friday, 16 May 2025. Electricity increases and food inflation are shown to be hitting poor and working-class households the hardest. A new report by the National Planning Commission (NPC) and Unicef (United Nations Children's Fund) reveals a troubling trend: while cumulative headline inflation rose by 94.6% between 2011 and 2023, the cost of essentials surged at a much faster rate. Electricity prices tripled, education costs more than doubled, and food prices climbed by 136.1%, far outpacing the growth in wages for poorer households. 'This report is not just about graphs and figures, it's not only about the cost of living. It is about the cost of being human — the cost of being a mother, a child, or a worker,' said Professor Julian May, a commissioner from the University of the Western Cape. May presented the findings to a room filled with officials from various government departments and civil society organisations on Friday, 16 May, highlighting both the improvements and challenges in addressing South Africa's cost-of-living crisis. The report aims to inform policies created through the National Development Plan (NDP). The NDP 2030, drafted in 2012 by the National Planning Commission, sets out to eliminate poverty and reduce unemployment by 2030. With the deadline for this long-term strategic plan approaching, the commission partnered with Unicef to update and deepen the analysis. 'This report is important for planning purposes and for informing policy with evidence,' said Professor Phakama Ntshongwana, a commissioner at the National Planning Commission. 'The different domains researched in this report are critical because they affect millions and millions of people in the country.' Cost of living essentials outpace everything else The report reveals that while general inflation nearly doubled prices over 12 years, essential goods and services increased far more sharply. Meanwhile, real wages — what people take home after adjusting for inflation — fell by 3.4%. In other words, the average South African worker could buy less in 2023 than in 2011. Electricity saw the most dramatic increase, rising by 230% over the 12-year period. With persistent load shedding and above-inflation tariff hikes, many poor households were forced to spend a disproportionate share of their income just to keep the lights on and cook meals. Food inflation hit the poorest the hardest. Staples like maize meal and cooking oil experienced steep price increases, with overall food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation at 136.1%. These are not luxury goods but the backbone of sustenance for South Africa's poor. As a consequence, households were forced to cut back on food spending. May said some even went as far as skipping meals or relying on cheap, nutrient-poor alternatives to survive. Transport costs also rose sharply, especially for those reliant on minibus taxis or buses. With public transport inflation estimated at about 130%, and private transport closer to 165%, commuting to work or school became unaffordable for many. While education is often hailed as a pathway out of poverty, it has become less accessible over the past 12 years. Education costs increased by 138% overall, and primary and secondary school fees rose even faster. The report shows that it is no longer just about access, but affordability. The soaring cost of essentials was only exacerbated by the fact that real wages declined by 3.4% between 2011 and 2023. For many low-income workers, each year brought less purchasing power. Despite the introduction of a national minimum wage, wage growth lagged far behind inflation in essentials, squeezing household budgets even tighter. Challenges to Achieving NDP Goals Ntshongwana noted that while there have been pockets of improvement, the report highlights significant challenges to the National Planning Commission's goal of meeting key objectives in the National Development Plan. 'We are not much closer to the goals of the NDP. There are pockets of improvement, but much remains to be done regarding policy delivery and improving quality of life for children, women, and society as a whole,' he said. She also pointed to South Africa's spatial patterns — a legacy of apartheid spatial planning where non-white people were removed from urban areas and placed in townships on the periphery — as a strong impediment to improving the quality of life for the poorest communities. 'With low-income people living far away from economic hubs where they can access jobs, there comes the question of their job-seeking patterns, with transport costs playing a huge role in their ability to access employment,' Ntshongwana said. The value of social grants The report highlights that social grants have become a critical lifeline for a large portion of South Africa's population amid rising living costs and economic challenges. In 2023, Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity released a statement revealing that about 93% of grant money is spent on food, underscoring the grant's role in mitigating the impact of soaring prices on poor households. The Trends in the Cost of Living report found that between 2011 and 2023, social assistance in South Africa expanded, with the number of grants paid out by the government in the same period. However, the report found that the real value of grants declined over the assessment period when compared to the headline CPI, particularly for the old age grant, war veterans grant, disability grant, and care dependency grant Despite their importance, the report argues that social grants alone are insufficient to fully offset the rising costs of essentials, leaving many people vulnerable to ongoing economic pressures. However, Mervyn Abrahams, a programme coordinator at Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity, said his organisation was working on a research project advocating for social grants to be set above the upper-bound poverty line to adequately address the cost of living crisis. 'If you set it below, it will only be used to sustain life — to pay for food, transport, and the like. But if it's set above, it allows some level of decision-making as to what the grant beneficiary will do with the extra R200 or R300. They can then start to question how they can invest the extra money to create some kind of income stream for themselves,' Abrahams said. He added that the two-year research project found that 67 of the 100 grant beneficiaries involved used the money to develop alternative income streams, such as growing extra food and selling it, thus alleviating some of the pressures of the cost-of-living crisis. DM
Daily Maverick
5 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
SA's National Development Plan 2030 — a laudable, but naive vision that's far from fruition
We are five years from the South Africa imagined in the National Development Plan (NDP) that was presented to Parliament in August 2012. The NDP was accepted unanimously by legislators and endorsed by the executive. Disclosure: I left the secretariat of the National Planning Commission (NPC) 10 years and a couple of months ago. I played a minuscule role in its formulation. I think 10 years is long enough for a self-imposed gardening leave. I have a lot of respect for most of the people who put together that first NDP under the leadership of Cyril Ramaphosa and Trevor Manuel. I write now as a complete outsider, and wilfully emerge from a veil of ignorance; I write as if I know little to nothing (which is about right in almost every aspect). There are very many parts of the plan that are open for questioning, scrutiny and evaluation. The thing that has struck me most about the NDP and the NPC in general is how little most of us know about the workings of the commission. Perhaps I have not paid enough attention, but I don't recall any public service announcement or statement about progress with implementation. I want to believe that the woman in Cofimvaba has seen a marked improvement in the lives of her family. The NPC needs to come out and provide an honest appraisal of their work; their successes and failures… They might not convince everyone of any successes. Do it, and they'll regret it. Don't do it, and they will also regret it. So do it, anyway. Among our compatriots are people who are unwilling to accept that two things can be true at the same time, and remind me of the Orwellian observation, 'However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing, as it were, behind your back.' Never mind. Let me start this discussion with the easy part: the Vision Statement. I'm probably opening up space for vitriol and vituperation, mantric claims, rhetoric and cant about corruption, incompetence, State Capture, Phala Phala — which are all valid, mind you, but very often stem from a cruel gloating and dancing on South Africa's grave. The vision part is important. I previously discussed the lack of vision (on the part, first of colonists in the late 19th century, settler-colonists in the 20th century, and African nationalists after 1994) in the context of Johannesburg's crumbling inner city. The vision stated in the NDP 2030 is laudable, but as I have come to learn, it's naive and has counted too much on goodwill and trust among the population. Of all the things that have gone wrong or turned sour in South Africa, trust is our greatest loss. Whenever I write about these things, I should always remind the reader that I am profoundly pessimistic — not just about South Africa. To paraphrase Dante, each day starts, at least for me, with accepting that I have to abandon all hope. 2030: A country remade The vision statement is a lengthy and prosaic declaration. At the lowest point of my day, I think of it as verging on mythopoetic because it relies so heavily on myth, hypothesis and romantic-utopianism. Utopianism can be good. It is dangerous when it is coupled with romanticism… Anyway, the opening passage of the Vision Statement reads: 'Now in 2030 we live in a country which we have remade. We have created a home where everybody feels free yet bounded to others; where everyone embraces their full potential. We are proud to be a community that cares.' Fifty million of us, infants and toddlers included, would probably like to be happy and prosper in that society. But the political-economic part is where our wish-dreams, kind of, fall apart: ' Through our service we show our solidarity. We enjoy the same quality of service. We are connected through our caring. The beating heart of our country is a community that has all the enablers of modern life: We have water. We use a toilet. We have food on the table. We fall asleep without fear. We listen to the rain on the roof. We gather together in front of heat. 'What we contribute in our taxes, we get back through the high quality of our public services. That is why we have: Good clinics and hospitals with well trained, caring doctors, administrators, nurses who rush to our aid with empathy and expertise; Affordable effective medicines, because they were made for all of us; Good schools with well educated, trained and caring teachers.' I don't believe that these latter, especially political matters and matters of professionalism and caring, have moved the length of a single breath towards Vision 2030. From Mitchells Plain to Diepkloof, from Shoshanguve, KwaZakhele, Zwide, Inanda to KwaMashu, you would be hard pressed to find a teacher who is well qualified (these data are a bit outdated, but things have become worse) or a nurse who takes care of a patient with empathy. I had major surgery a year ago, and was terrified by the lack of empathy and professionalism of the nursing staff. I remember having very major surgery at the old Coronationville Hospital (Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital) in 1979, and at night the nurses (all black) would do rounds, quietly, with care and a sense of responsibility, checking on patients. Last year, while I was recuperating from surgery, nurses held conversations, loud and across 20m spaces, dropping needles and trays of instruments. Air bubbles in sacks of intravenous fluids and tubes were probably harmless, but frightening nonetheless… I was more scared of the nursing care than I was of the major surgery I had had. That was a personal experience, but recall the patient abuse at Tonga Hospital in Nkomazi, Mpumalanga, reported by the SABC in March. Nurses also get abused by patients. What incidents like these suggest is a lack of caring, of empathy and of respect and trust. We don't trust the police, we don't trust teachers, we don't trust nurses. Doctors and nurses are simply packing up and leaving the country. The data show the extent of the emigration. Data from Statistics Canada show that between January 2020 and July 2024, that country issued 7,781 temporary work permits to South Africans, 600 of whom were healthcare professionals, with around 350 being specialists like cardiologists, neurologists and emergency physicians. That was data from only one source. So much, then, for the 'good clinics and hospitals with well trained, caring doctors, administrators, nurses who rush to our aid with empathy and expertise' or 'good schools with well educated, trained and caring teachers'. There are many more elements of the vision that can be weighed up against the life world (the entirety of the experienced world of people across society) of South Africans. We must, necessarily, wait for two things. First, we have to ask the NPC to sit down and tell the public, not in the closed confines of Parliamentary committees where braskap and tall poppy syndrome are the rules of engagement. Second, we have to wait for 2030, five years from now, to reach what the NPC vision stated. It is worth presenting it here, more fully: 'The welfare of each of us is the welfare of all. Everybody lives longer. We experience fulfilment in life, living it in the successful society we are creating. We feel prosperous. Our connectedness across time and distance is the central principle of our nationhood. We are a people who have come together and shared extraordinarily to remake our society.' And 'We know our leaders as we have elected them and pledged them into office: They are wise in the use of our wealth; Wise in knowing and understanding our wishes and needs; Wise in expecting us to express ourselves to them in any appropriate manner we have agreed to be allowable; Wise in not silencing those who criticise, but enable them, through our rules of engagement, to be even more rigorous in supporting a just society. 'Our leaders' wisdom is ours, because we sense our wisdom in theirs. Someone who is better qualified than me should try to explain all of that. The only good thing that can be said today is that we have another five years to get much of this vision to come to fruition. DM
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
You Can Suddenly Sense Elon Musk's Desperation
After eviscerating Tesla's brand through his political mayhem, billionaire Elon Musk is suddenly singing a dramatically different tune. This month, he abruptly proclaimed that he had "done enough," announcing that he would substantially cut down the time he spent reshaping the federal government, efforts that have left permanent scars on Tesla's credibility and image. Instead, he promised that he would refocus the majority of his time on his ailing businesses, news that was met with his EV maker's shares rallying after a precipitous decline in sales and stock value during his period of intense political activity. Meanwhile, Musk spent much of this week publicly addressing the development of SpaceX's Starship. He chatted with automotive engineer Sandy Munro, ran Tim "Everyday Astronaut" Dodd through the company's progress, and was seemingly on his best behavior during an interview with Ars Technica's Eric Berger. It's a dramatic change of tune, considering Musk had spent much of this year raging against the mainstream media, spreading racist conspiracy theories, wearing ridiculous hats during cabinet meetings, and lashing out against his many critics. What inspired Musk to — at least temporarily — return to the character of the detail-oriented businessman? It's especially striking after he hit a new low last week, making a bafflingly childish appearance at Bloomberg's Qatar Economic Forum, accusing the interviewer of being an "NPC" and getting rattled by some tough questions. His reputation and popularity have taken a major hit following his descent into far-right extremism and largely fruitless ripping up of government contracts. Even Republican lawmakers in the White House have reportedly had enough of his overzealousness and cringy humor, resulting in shouting matches with Trump officials. Now that he's dragged his EV maker's brand through the mud and spawned a global anti-Tesla movement, Musk is seemingly trying to play Mr. Nice Guy once again. There's good reason. Musk has made himself a historically unpopular figure over the last couple of months, greatly undermining his credibility as an entrepreneur and exposing an alarming degree of callousness and lack of empathy. And as SpaceX continues to struggle getting its enormous Starship both off the ground and safely back to the launch pad, Musk's latest actions give off a sense of desperation. "Give me the rundown," Dodd asked Musk during a Tuesday afternoon interview. "Right now, we're T-minus four and a half hours. What's going through your head right now?" A visibly stressed Musk pulled both of his hands through his hair, giving off the impression of a man in dire straits. "I have a lot going through my head, actually," he finally answered. "Just thinking about the various ways the rocket can fail, which I'm sure are many." Tuesday's test flight, the company's ninth, turned out to be yet another setback. The rocket spun out of control minutes into the launch, with SpaceX giving up on the deployment of a test batch of mock Starlink satellites since the cargo pay wouldn't fully open. Perhaps it was a symbolic development for Musk's reinvigorated enthusiasm for his ailing businesses. After all, the billionaire has gouged some deep scars that aren't going to heal overnight. More on Musk: Self-Driving Tesla Suddenly Swerves Off the Road and Crashes
