December 6, 2012.
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

China demands a timetable to the $100-billion in climate aid for the developing world.

Tunisia’s largest union calls for a protest strike against the Islamic government.

And, Cosatu’s e-toll protest begins on Johannesburg’s highways.

China led developing nations on Wednesday in demanding that rich countries give details of a promised surge in aid to $100-billion a year by 2020 to help the poor cope with global warming.

However, most rich nations, facing economic slowdown at home that cut overall development aid in 2011, said they were unable to stake out a timetable for rising aid at deadlocked global climate talks.

Head of China's delegation Xie Zhenhua said that "the core issue was finance, which was the big block to a modest deal to keep UN climate efforts on track. He added that a deal on finance would "create very good conditions for the settlement of other issues" in Doha as it is also seeking a symbolic extension of the UN's Kyoto Protocol for curbing greenhouse gas emissions by rich nations beyond 2012.

Tunisia's largest union has called for a general protest strike next week against the Islamist-led government. This follows an escalation of protests that resulted in violent clashes in the capital this week.

The union said it had decided to go on strike on December 13 following the attack on the central trade unions and trade unionists on Tuesday. The announcement came as Tunisia prepared to mark the second anniversary of a street peddler's self-immolation on December 17, 2010, that led to a revolution in Tunisia and set the region on the path to uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain.

UGTT Secretary-General Hussein Abassi accused supporters of the Ennahda party, which leads the government, of being behind the recent clash.

However, the head of Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi, condemned the violence and said some leaders of UGTT wanted to overthrow the government.

The "drive-slow" protest against e-tolling started just after 09:00 on Thursday in Braamfontein and Katlehong, east of Johannesburg. People were singing "Senzeni na" outside Cosatu House to kickstart the protest. There was a similar atmosphere in Braamfontein, where protest stickers and posters were handed to motorists and were stuck on cars.

Protesters were told to keep a three-car space distance between them. The two protests would take place on the N1, M2, M1, N3, N12, R24, and R21 highways.

The South African National Roads Agency Limited has been at the forefront of the e-tolling project in Gauteng, but the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance brought a court application to have the project scrapped. The court has yet to make a ruling following a judicial review of the system.

Congress of South African Trade Unions provincial chairperson Phutas Tseki said protesters would not interfere with the toll gantries, despite calls for them to be removed last week.

Also making headlines:

Egyptian rivals clash as President Mohammed Mursi seeks to end the crisis in Egypt.

South Africa’s public sector drops further in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index.

And, South Africa awards a R51-billion train deal to France's Alstom.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.