News 13:00

BULLETIN 7 May 1 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The EFF calls for the scrapping of the expiration mandates for unused prepaid data and airtime
# A second fighter jet falls off a US aircraft carrier
# And motorsport: Jack Doohan has been dropped by Alpine and is replaced by Franco Colapinto

# The EFF is calling for the immediate scrapping of the expiration mandates for prepaid mobile data and airtime, calling it exploitative and unconstitutional. The party says the Independent Communications Authority informed them it was in the process of reviewing expiration mandates and would embark on a process of public hearings in due course. The EFF says however, to date the party had not received a detailed breakdown on the process to be undertaken to legislate the restriction of expiry of prepaid data and airtime.

# The African Transformation Movement has described the Constitutional Court ruling on the Citizenship Act as reckless. The court affirmed an earlier ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeal that a section of Act 88 of 1995 is unconstitutional. The provision stipulates that South Africans who voluntarily acquire the citizenship of another country, outside of marriage, cease to be South Africans. ATM’s spokesperson, Zama Ntshona, says the ruling is a betrayal of the country’s sovereignty:

# FNB senior agricultural economist, Paul Makube, says the latest fuel price cut has come at the right time amid elevated agricultural activity. Petrol has dropped by 22-cents a litre at midnight, while the two grades of diesel saw decreases of 42 and 41-cents a litre respectively. This follows a decline in global oil prices due to oversupply and trade tensions. Makube says this will boost farmer profitability as fuel accounts for almost 13-percent of input costs in grain production:

# A multi-million-dollar US warplane failed to land on the Harry S Truman aircraft carrier and plummeted into the Red Sea. This is the second jet lost from the ship in just over a week. The two-seater F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jet, worth around 1.2-billion-rand, went overboard after an unsuccessful attempt to slow it down as it landed. A defense official told the US Naval Institute that the hook of the aircraft failed to catch the arresting wire on the vessel.

# Motorsport: Formula One team Alpine has confirmed that reserve driver Franco Colapinto will replace Jack Doohan for the next five races, starting with next weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola in Italy. Doohan has struggled to match teammate Pierre Gasly and has failed to score a single point after six rounds of his rookie F1 campaign. The 22-year-old Australian will remain with Alpine as a reserve driver. This follows yesterday’s announcement that team principal Oliver Oakes had resigned with immediate effect.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-33-cents and the euro at 20-rand-80-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-41-cents and Bitcoin trades at 96-thousand-936-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-373-dollars-57-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 62-dollars-33-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….