Good morning. President Cyril Ramphosa will have trade top of his mind when he visits the White House today but President Joe Biden wants to talk about Ukraine. Petrol looks set for another price cut next month but diesel could increase. Elon Musk wants a key former Twitter employee to testify on the spam and bot accounts as his legal battle to pull out of the take-over continues.
Biden set to talk Ukraine, Russia with South Africa’s Ramaphosa – Daily Maverick
President Cyril Ramaphosa will meet his counterpart President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington D.C today where the American president will have Russia’s invasion of Ukraine top his mind.
A Biden administration staffer said the two heads of state would discuss the conflict in Ukraine, “and how we get out of it.” So far, South Africa has chosen not to take sides in the conflict while the US has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine.
For Ramaphosa, trade between the two countries will be top of his priority list. Read more here.
Petrol looks set for another price cut, but diesel may be hiked – News24
Motorists can look forward to another round of petrol price cuts in October after the fuel price saw a decrease earlier this month but if you’re a diesel consumer you may find yourself paying more for the fuel next month.
Based on the latest data, the price of 95 unleaded petrol is expected to fall by around R1.45 a litre while the price of 93 petrol could drop by around R1.36 a litre. However, the diesel price is currently on track for a hike of between 66 cents to 74 cents a litre. Read more here.
Musk wants Twitter’s former product chief to testify on bot accounts – MyBroadband
The world’s wealthiest individual, Elon Musk, is demanding that Twitter make the former head of its consumer division answer questions about spam or robot accounts as he is key to Musk’s legal fight to pull out of the $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.
Kayvon Beykpour oversaw 230 million Twitter accounts during his time with the company but has so far evaded efforts to make him turn over documents or provide testimony.
Beykpour’s lawyers say he is currently outside of the US and therefore beyond subpoena power, but Musk’s legal team has argued that Twitter could force him to testify because it is likely paying for his legal representation. Read more here.
Here’s what else we’re reading today:
Expect to see ‘significant improvement’ in airports- Acsa ups maintenance budget – EWN
Eskom seeks 32% power tariff hike in April – Reuters
Deputy president firmly rules out privatisation of Eskom – Tech Central
Uber Probes Hacker’s Claim to Have Penetrated Internal Databases – Bloomberg
Ether Falls as Ethereum Revamp Turns Into ‘Sell-the-News’ Event – Bloomberg
Bid window 5 could be reopened as most energy projects fail to reach financial close – Mantashe – News24
South Africa fears deeper power outages as plants deteriorate – Engineering News