News 15:00

BULLETIN 1 July 3 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# South African motorists face major fuel price increases from tomorrow
# The DA lays criminal charges against minister Nobuhle Nkabane for deceiving Parliament
# And Turkey arrests journalists over an alleged cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad

# Motorists will feel more pain at the pumps from midnight, as the price of 93-octane petrol will go up by 55-cents a litre, and 95-octane by 52-cents. Diesel prices will rise by up to 84-cents, while the price of illuminating paraffin increases by 89-cents a litre. Robert Maake of the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources blames the increases on rising global oil prices due to Middle East tensions:

# The DA has laid criminal charges against Higher Education minister Nobuhle Nkabane in Cape Town today for lying to Parliament about ANC cadre appointments. The party says she falsely claimed an independent panel made the fraudulent appointments of ANC-linked individuals to Sector Education and Training Authority boards. The chairperson of the DA’s federal council, Helen Zille, says the party will vote against Nkabane’s department’s budget and other budgets led by corrupt ANC ministers:

# Three officials from the City of Tshwane’s municipal depot have been arrested this morning, accused of stealing transformers worth seven-million-rand from the Laudium substation. Police spokesperson Samuel Thine alleges they are part of a transformer syndicate. Thine says the theft is linked to the area’s severe power cuts jeopardising essential infrastructure and crippling the economy:

# Four employees of a satirical magazine in Turkey have been arrested for publishing a cartoon that appears to show the Prophet Muhammad. The sacred religious figure’s depiction is forbidden in Islam. Interior minister Ali Yerlikaya condemned LeMan magazine’s drawing as shameless, announcing that its editor-in-chief, graphic designer, institutional director and cartoonist had been detained. The magazine denied in a post on social media its cartoon was a caricature of Muhammad, saying the work does not refer to the prophet in any way.

# Cricket: England named an unchanged team for the second Test against India, starting at Edgbaston tomorrow, after winning the first match at Headingley by five wickets. This means there still isn’t a return for pace bowler Jofra Archer after an absence of four years, but he will join the squad today. India had never won a Test in Birmingham, losing seven and drawing one since their first appearance in 1967. The rest of the Tests will be played at Lord’s, Old Trafford and The Oval in London.  

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-58-cents and the euro at 20-rand-76-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-20-cents and Bitcoin trades at 106-thousand-452-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-350-dollars-45-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 67-dollars-3-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….