August 17, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

The Southern African Development Community look into ways to cut down on reliance on donor funding.

Libya's government urges Arab air strikes against Islamic State in Sirte.

And, Sierra Leone lifts its last major Ebola quarantine as cases recede.

Ministers of the Southern African Development Community (or SADC) have described the regional body’s dependence on foreign funding as a “profound weakness” and have called for alternatives.

Zimbabwean foreign minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi told a meeting of the SADC council of ministers over the weekend in Gaborone that “as long as they are unable to fund their own organisation, the future of their programmes and activities would remain uncertain and SADC would not be wholly theirs”.

More than half of SADC’s $79-million annual budget this year came from donors.

Mumbengegwi said although SADC’s responsibilities had expanded, resources were dwindling, and the organisation should re-think if it could afford programmes that member states could not fund.

The council meeting resolved to look at sustainable ways of financing SADC programmes and to reduce financial dependency on donors.

Libya's internationally recognised government has asked fellow Arab states to conduct air strikes against Islamic State in the coastal city of Sirte.

In the past few days, Islamic State has crushed a revolt by a Salafist Muslim group and armed residents trying to break its grip on the city. Dozens of people have been killed.

The fighting typifies chaos in Libya, where two rival governments and parliaments, together with an assortment of Islamists, tribesmen and armed groups, are battling for control of cities and regions, four years after the ousting of veteran leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Sierra Leone lifted its last major Ebola quarantine on Friday as President Ernest Bai Koroma expressed confidence that the country would soon be free of the virus.

He was sure that within August Sierra Leone would start counting the first 21 days of zero new cases of Ebola. He was referring to the incubation period of the virus.

The 18-month epidemic has killed more than 11 200 people in West Africa but case numbers have fallen sharply, with just one reported in Sierra Leone and two in Guinea last week.

Neighbouring Liberia, which has the highest death toll from the epidemic, has no current cases.

Also making headlines:

The 1 870 megawatt Gibe III hydroelectric power plant is set to be commissioned just in time for the Ethiopian New Year. 

Separatists in Mali have accused a pro-government militia of breaching a two-month-old ceasefire, leading to a fierce exchange of fire, with the militia claiming that the separatists were the aggressors.

And, former Islamist warlord Ahmed Madobe won re-election as president of Somalia's southern region of Jubbaland, a territory partly controlled by al Shabaab militants and at odds with the central government of the Horn of Africa country.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.