{"id":157135,"date":"2017-02-14T08:23:22","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T06:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=157135"},"modified":"2017-02-14T08:23:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T06:23:22","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/157135\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-5\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thepresidency.gov.za\/press-statements\/president-zuma-had-telephonic-discussions-president-trump-usa\">US president Donald Trump and president Jacob Zuma had their first telephone conversation &#8211; with the general conversation being about committing to trade agreements that are already in place<\/a><\/strong>. The two presidents reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening the already strong bilateral relations between the two countries, and\u00a0also discussed the need to work together on multilateral issues as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2017\/02\/14\/Gloves-off-for-Sona-debate1\">South Africa&#8217;s political parties are gearing up for a strong fight as president Jacob Zuma&#8217;s SONA is scheduled to be debated in Parliament this week. <\/a><\/strong>Both the EFF and the DA &#8211; as well as some smaller parties &#8211; were not present for the president&#8217;s speech. The DA walked out after the EFF were forcibly removed. The EFF might also be absent from the SONA debate, as Parliamentary rules state that evicted MPs are suspended from attending meetings for 5 days.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/02\/14\/ct-only-has-around-135-days-of-usable-water-left\">Cape Town residents are in trouble, with the city reporting that it only has 135 days of usable water left<\/a><\/strong>. Water use has been reined in while the region continues to be hit by a drought, but with dam levels at 25%, and 700 million litres still being consumed daily, the city says it may need to introduce further restrictions, as the current targets are still not being met.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/02\/14\/police-plead-ignorance-for-re-arresting-paul-o-sullivan\">Infighting between South Africa&#8217;s policing agencies continues as forensic investigor Paul O&#8217;Sullivan was arrested on Monday, and released on Tuesday after the intervention of a High Court judge<\/a><\/strong>. O&#8217;Sullivan is currently investigating\u00a0acting national police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane for alleged fraud. He was arrested on charges of impersonating an official from the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand edged higher on Monday, lifted by improved risk sentiment globally as fears receded over the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s trade policies. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Tuesday the rand was trading at R13.25 to the dollar, R16.62 to the pound and R14.07 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zuma and Trump have their first phone call; political parties gear up for a fight in this year&#8217;s SONA debate; Cape Town&#8217;s water crisis is getting worse; and the police arrest the man investigating their national commissioner for fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":132189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-157135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157153,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157135\/revisions\/157153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}