News 16:00

BULLETIN 7 February 4 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Vodacom heads to the Constitutional Court over the Please Call Me ruling 
# ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba urges a reflection on 30-years of democracy
# And Cricket: The Joburg Super Kings wants to go all the way after sneaking into the playoffs 

# Vodacom plans to approach the Constitutional Court after the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled yesterday it has to determine new compensation for former employee Nkosana Makate for his “Please Call Me” invention. The court ordered Vodacom to determine a new offer of five- tot 7.5-percent of the total revenue of the product over the past 18 years. CEO Shameel Joosub was ordered to finalise the new offer within a month. The court set aside Joosub’s determination of 47-million-rand, with Makate saying his invention earned Vodacom about 70-billion-rand.

# ActionSA aims to address the root causes of societal challenges, declaring corruption as public enemy number one, and securing borders while facilitating legal immigration. The party today unveiled a comprehensive set of plans covering economic revitalisation, education reform, end load-shedding, crime reduction, and border security. In his address, ActionSA president Herman Mashaba pledged to end Eskom’s monopoly and incentivise private investment in solar power. Mashaba encouraged citizens to judge the government based on the past 30-years:

# Eskom announced its electricity recovery operations in the Central Karoo are in full swing with the aim to fully restore power supply by next Thursday. Remote farms in Sutherland and Buffelspoort have been restored while areas like Roggeveld, Laingsburg, Ladismith, Leeu-Gamka, Swartberg, Merweville, Matjiesfontein, Prince Albert and Fraserburg are still without power. Eskom assures that repair teams are on site for major operations to restore power to affected areas.

# The Ugandan judge who voted against all emergency measures ordered by the International Court of Justice against Israel, had been elected vice president of the court. Julia Sebutinde joined the United Nations court in 2012. She will be in her new position for the next three years. Sebutinde made headlines last month for being the only one of the 17 judges voting against the six measures the court granted South Africa against Israel. Judge Nawaf Salam, who was born in Lebanon, takes over from American Joan Donoghue as president.

# Cricket: The Joburg Super Kings and Paarl Royals go head-to-head in today’s SA20 eliminator at the Wanderers in Johannesburg. The two sides have taken contrasting routes to the playoffs. The Royals qualified in third position with two games to spare, while the Super Kings won their last round-robin game to sneak into the last qualifying place. Super Kings captain Faf du Plessis says anything can happen in the playoffs:

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-91-cents and the euro at 20-rand-37-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-88-cents and Bitcoin trades at 42-thousand-944-dollars-55-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-and-31-dollars-80-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 79-dollars-19-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….