News 14:00

BULLETIN 3 July 2 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The DA says the rejected Matlala plea deal exposes prosecutorial failures
# Iran begins with public mourning for the Ayatollah who was killed in February
# And Pick n Pay launches an A-I-driven online shopping companion

# The DA has called for accountability over the handling of the tenderpreneur Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala’s plea and sentence agreement after the Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crimes Court rejected it. The party’s Glynnis Breytenbach has urged National Director of Public Prosecutions Andy Mothibi to explain who approved the agreement in the multi-million-rand police Medicare24 tender case, and what steps will be taken to prevent a similar situation in future:

# The Madlanga commission has heard that directors of Carnilinx Tobacco Company were misled into believing a legal advisor could influence senior SARS officials. The evidence emerged during testimony linked to suspended Crime Intelligence deputy head Feroz Khan. Evidence leader Adila Hassim says the advisor repeatedly claimed to have contacts, including Johann van Loggerenberg and Ivan Pillay. Hassim says the directors later realised the claims were false:

Moving abroad:

# Iran has begun several days of public mourning and funeral processions for its former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, more than four months after he was killed in US and Israeli strikes. His body will lie in state in Tehran’s Grand Mosalla from today, ahead of his burial in his hometown of Mashhad on Thursday. Iranian authorities say 12- to 20-million people are expected to attend which they are calling the funeral of the century.

# Rugby: Louis Rees-Zammit will play in his favourite position of wing for Wales in tomorrow’s Nations Championship Test against Fiji in Cardiff. He played all five the team’s Six Nations matches at fullback. Head coach Steve Tandy made six changes to the squad that beat the Barbarians 33-31 at Twickenham last weekend, giving the number 15 jersey to Blair Murray. Earlier it was reported former fullback Leigh Halfpenny had joined Wales’ managerial staff as kicking coach for the championship.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 16-rand-21-cents and the euro at 18-rand-55-cents. One British pound costs 21-rand-64-cents and Bitcoin trades at 61-thousand-672-dollars. Gold sells at four-thousand-177-dollars-58-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 71-dollars-92-cents a barrel.

# And finally: Pick n Pay launched a new artificial intelligence-powered shopping companion on its Asap! on-demand grocery delivery platform. Customers can now ask the A-I agent, named Penny, for what they need via voice commands and the agent will add the items to their baskets. The retailer says the agent responds in any language, and customers can also use text or photos to have the agent add products to their baskets. It will be rolled out to all customers from Monday.

Stay tuned for more news………….