December 8, 2014.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

An American and a South African hostage have died in a rescue attempt in Yemen.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe promoted his wife to the top ranks of his ZANU-PF party on the weekend but delayed filling vacant senior posts.

And, a Liberian court lifts an order suspending election campaigning due to Ebola.

US special forces stormed a walled compound in a remote Yemeni village early on Saturday in an attempt to free Western hostages held by an al Qaeda unit, but an American journalist and a South African teacher were killed by their captors, officials said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and a Yemeni intelligence official said 33-year-old Luke Somers and  56-year-old South African Pierre Korkie were shot by their kidnappers shortly after the raid began in the arid Wadi Abadan district of Shabwa, a province long seen as one of al Qaeda's most formidable strongholds.

It was the second US attempt to free Somers in 10 days and Kerry said it had been approved because of information that Somers' life was in imminent danger.

Meanwhile, the Gift of the Givers relief group, which was trying to secure Korkie's release, said it had negotiated for the teacher to be freed and had expected that to happen on Sunday and for him to be returned to his family.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is seen by Washington as one of al Qaeda's most dangerous branches. The US has worked with Yemen's government and via drone strikes to attack its leaders in southern and eastern Yemen.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe promoted his wife to the top ranks of his Zanu-PF party this weekend but delayed filling vacant senior posts, prolonging anxiety over his lack of successor.  

Africa's oldest head of state and the only leader Zimbabwe has known since independence from Britain in 1980 was elected unopposed at the five-yearly Zanu-PF meeting, putting him on track to contest the 2018 presidential elections, when he will be 94 years old.

After this week's sacking of vice-president Joice Mujuru, who only three months ago was the favourite to succeed him, Mugabe said that he needed more time to vet candidates for the Politburo, the party's top decision-making body, and the two deputy posts.

Mugabe told some 12 000 Zanu-PF party members crammed into a vast marquee erected on a dusty parade ground in central Harare that he didn’t want to rush into appointing his deputies but promised to reveal them by mid next week.

His wife, Grace, has acceded to the top of the powerful Women's League, capping a meteoric three-month political rise based in part on her vitriolic public attacks on Mujuru.

At the start of the three-day congress, Mugabe accused Mujuru of leading a 'treacherous cabal' trying to end his 34-year grip on power, effectively crushing any immediate political ambitions she may have harboured.

Mujuru did not attend any part of the congress, choosing instead to watch proceedings on television at her Harare home, according to a source close to her.

Liberia's Supreme Court on Sunday lifted a government order suspending campaigning in and around the capital for next week's Senate election imposed on the grounds that electioneering risks spreading the Ebola virus.

Liberia is the country hardest hit by the epidemic and has recorded more than 3 000 deaths out of a total from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea of 6 055 victims, according to World Health Organisation (or WHO) figures last Wednesday.

The country's epidemic is gradually being brought under control, but the toll has damaged healthcare and has caused a delay in Senate elections which had been set for October in a country that emerged from a long civil war in 2003.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's government imposed the executive order last week banning the holding of political rallies in Montserrado County, which includes the capital, because the area has been hard hit by Ebola.

Also making headlines:

South African power utility Eskom said it would resume the national rolling blackouts on Monday after three units at its Majuba station did not contribute to grid as expected.

President Barack Obama's National Security Council has voiced concern over Gambia's moves to block access to top United Nations human rights investigators and enact tough new legislation against homosexuality.

And, Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila announced the formation of a new government on Sunday in a shake-up apparently aimed at broadening his political base ahead of a possible constitutional showdown.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines.