August 19, 2013.
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

Southern African leaders endorse the re-election of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe.

US lawmakers call for the Obama administration to shut off aid to Egypt.

And, former rebel leader Michel Djotodia is sworn in as Central African Republic president.

Southern African leaders on Sunday endorsed the re-election of veteran President Robert Mugabe, brushing aside a campaign from Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (or MDC) who said the vote in July was rigged and its results should be overturned.

The decision by the 15-nation Southern African Development Community, which helped broker a power-sharing deal after disputed elections in 2008, clears the way for Mugabe, to be sworn as early as this week for a fresh five-year term.

At its meeting in Malawi's capital Lilongwe, the group also named Mugabe, Africa's oldest leader, as its deputy chairperson and said it would hold a summit next year in Zimbabwe's capital.

Some US lawmakers are calling for the Obama administration to shut off aid to Egypt in the aftermath of the army's lethal crackdown on protesters. However, untangling the aid relationship with Cairo wouldn’t be simple and could be costly for the US as well as Egypt.

President Barack Obama said on Thursday that normal cooperation with Cairo couldn’t continue and announced the cancellation of military exercises with Egypt next month. But an aid cutoff – which might see Washington losing what limited leverage it has with Egypt's interim military government – doesn’t appear imminent.

There have been calls from both ends of the US political spectrum for Obama to follow a US law that triggers an aid cutoff if a military coup against a democratically elected government has taken place.  However, the Obama administration says it hasn’t determined whether the military's actions in Cairo in the departure of President Mohamed Mursi amounted to a coup.

Former rebel leader Michel Djotodia was formally sworn in as the Central African Republic's president on Sunday, starting the clock on his interim administration's 18-month deadline to restore order and organise elections.

Djotodia has been in charge of the country since the chaos that followed the rebels' seizure of control in March, when they swept into power from their northern bases, overpowering South African forces protecting former leader Francois Bozize.

However, UN officials have warned that CAR is on the brink of collapse and the top UN envoy for the country called on the Security Council to back an expanded African Union peacekeeping force in the country. Meanwhile, Djotodia confirmed after his swearing in that he wouldn’t stand for elections at the end of the transition.
 

Also making headlines:
 

Madagascar's electoral court has barred the incumbent president, Andry Rajoelina, and the wife of a long-standing rival Lalao Ravalomanana from standing in the next presidential election.

And, Some 38 Muslim Brotherhood supporters died in disputed circumstances at a prison on Sunday, as the leader of Egypt's powerful army warned he wouldn’t tolerate violence, urging Islamists to change course.
 

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.