News 11:00

BULLETIN 24 January 11 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The State Attorney is seeking to recover over 28-million-rand in taxpayer funds from Jacob Zuma
# Action Society accuses the police of complicity in the illicit firearms trade
# And tennis, Dayana Yastremska and Daniil Medvedev are through to the Australian Open semifinals

# The State Attorney together with the Presidency has launched legal action against former president Jacob Zuma, to recover over 28-million-rand in taxpayer funds spent on his corruption trial defence. The Gauteng High Court in Pretoria as well as the Supreme Court of Appeal, previously ruled that Zuma was not entitled to the unrestrained funding of his trial defence the Presidency had been providing him with since 2005. Zuma has always maintained he was entitled to full state funding for his litigation costs because he was accused of crimes directly linked to his role in government.

# Action Society claims the South African Police Service is likely the biggest supplier of illicit firearms. The accusation follows the arrest of a Mitchells Plain, Cape Town, police member after 15 firearms went missing from the storeroom in November last year. According to the organisation, between 2005 and 2017, police could not account for more than 26-thousand firearm issued to members. Action Society’s Director of Community Safety, Ian Cameron, says police are providing weapons to major criminal networks, contributing to the murders of innocent citizens:

# The GOOD Party in the Western Cape says the Western Cape Provincial Powers Bill, currently open for public comment, is an embarrassing document purporting to be serious legislation. The controversial bill proposes to devolve specific national governmental powers to provincial and local authorities that are considered adequate to manage them. The party’s Peter de Villiers says the bill is a government-sponsored manifesto for the DA and is unashamedly unconstitutional.

# Former South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, says she won’t suspend her Republican presidential campaign as the race is far from over. This is despite former president Donald Trump winning the New Hampshire primary, likely cementing his place as the party’s presidential nominee. The former president last week had a landslide victory in Iowa’s caucuses. Haley has blamed Trump for Republicans’ disappointing performances in the 2018 and 2022 midterms and the 2020 presidential election, saying he is a chaotic candidate:

# Tennis: Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska has become the first qualifier to reach the semifinals of the women’s singles draw at the Australian Open since 1978. The 23-year-old defeated unseeded 19-year-old Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic, 6-3, 6-4, to reach her first Grand Slam semifinal. Yastremska will either play China’s Zheng Qinwen or Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya for a place in Saturday’s final. In the men’s draw, Russia’s Daniil Medvedev is through to his third Australian Open semifinal in four years, after battling past Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz, 7-6, 2-6, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-95-cents and the euro at 20-rand-60-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-9-cents and Bitcoin trades at 39-thousand-909-dollars-54-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-and-27-dollars-71-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 79-dollars-58-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….