News 12:00

BULLETIN 20 February 12 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The EFF in Gauteng says premier Panyaza Lesufi has no capacity to end e-tolls 
# Cape Town’s mayor urges the Finance minister not to cut pro-poor grant funding 
# And Cricket: Brendon McCullum backs Jonny Bairstow to come good with his batting 

# The EFF in Gauteng has rejected the 2024 state of the province address delivered by premier Panyaza Lesufi. The party says Lesufi continues to lie to the people of Gauteng. In his previous speech, he promised that e-tolls will be a thing of the past. The EFF’s Naledi Chirwa-Mpungose says Lesufi has no capacity to end e-tolls:

# Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis is calling on Finance minister Enoch Godongwana not to cut grant funding to municipalities and provinces as part of budget austerity measures. The minister will deliver the budget speech tomorrow. Over 107-million-rand has already been cut from housing and informal settlements grants to Cape Town in the current 2023/2024 financial year alone, as part of nationwide cuts. Hill-Lewis says they strongly object to any further anti-poor budget cuts to national funding:

# The UK government has rejected calls to consider a prisoner swap to free dual British-Russian citizen, Vladimir Kara-Murza. A former journalist, he is serving a 25-year sentence for treason in Moscow. Kara-Murza has twice survived poisonings that he blamed on the Russian authorities and rejected the charges against him as punishment for standing up to president Vladimir Putin. UK members of Parliament have expressed fear that Kara-Murza could be next, after the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Government says every effort is being made for Kara-Murza’s release.

# Cricket: England coach Brendon McCullum has backed Jonny Bairstow, saying he has no plans to drop him for the fourth Test against India. The 34-year-old has come under some criticism for his batting, scoring just 102 runs in the first three Test matches. He scored only four runs in England’s 434-run thrashing in the third test in Rajkot. McCullum has acknowledged that Bairstow has underperformed in this series but says they have to keep on giving him confidence and block out a lot of the external noise.

# And finally: Actress and singer, Vanessa Williams, is set to portray Runway‘s intimidating editor-in-chief, Miranda Priestly, in the West End musical The Devil Wears Prada. The show is based on the bestselling novel and hit 2006 movie starring Meryl Streep as Miranda and Anne Hathaway as her less-than-fashion-forward assistant Andy Sachs. The musical will feature an original score by five-time Grammy winner, Elton John, and choreography by Tony winner Jerry Mitchell. It will open at the Dominion Theater in October.

Stay tuned for more news………….