News 18:00

BULLETIN 20 February 6 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomes the G20 Foreign ministers to South Africa
# The Public Works minister seeks infrastructure investment in the Middle East
# And soccer: A Spanish court fines Luis Rubiales for a forced kiss

# President Cyril Ramaphosa has officially opened the G20 Foreign ministers meeting at Nasrec in Johannesburg, marking the first meeting under South Africa’s G20 presidency. In his keynote address, Ramaphosa welcomed delegates and highlighted the significance of the summit being held on African soil for the first time. He called for greater cooperation and solidarity among nations to address global challenges like poverty, inequality, and conflict:

# Public Works and Infrastructure minister Dean Macpherson is on a week-long official visit to the Middle East, seeking investment for South African infrastructure projects. Accompanied by Limpopo MEC for Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure Ernest Rachoene, and eThekwini official Thembubuhle Ntuli, Macpherson will engage with government officials, sovereign wealth funds, and private investors in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The delegation aims to unlock new funding opportunities, boost economic growth, and create jobs in South Africa’s infrastructure sector.

# The Freedom Front Plus plans to challenge the Expropriation Act at the Constitutional Court alone after other opposition parties declined to join. The party claims parties like the DA and IFP missed an opportunity to jointly challenge the act. The FF Plus’s Wouter Wessels maintains the provision for expropriation without compensation is unconstitutional, posing risks to property rights and investor confidence:

# The number of firearms permanently removed from circulation by the South African Police Service over the past six year now stand at almost 280-thousand, after another 16-thousand were destroyed this week. The destroyed weapons were seized through operations such as Operation Shanela, and include firearms linked to violent crimes or voluntarily surrendered. The Western Cape had the highest number of destroyed weapons, followed by Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Deputy national commissioner Tebello Mosikili reaffirmed police’s commitment to remove illegal firearms and ammunition from the streets.

# Soccer: A Spanish court convicted the former chief of the country’s governing body, Luis Rubiales, of sexual assault. This follows the forced kiss he gave star forward Jenni Hermoso following Spain’s triumph in the women’s World Cup in Australia in 2023. Rubiales was fined 208-thousand-rand. The court acquitted him and the three other accused of coercion for allegedly trying to convince Hermoso to downplay the incident. Prosecutors had sought a prison term of two-and-a-half years for Rubiales, one year for sexual assault and 18 months for coercion.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-44-cents and the euro at 19-rand-26-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-23-cents and Bitcoin trades at 97-thousand-784-dollars. Gold sells at two-thousand-930-dollars-57-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 76-dollars-26-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….