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January 20, 2014
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

Central African Republic lawmakers shortlist eight candidates to run for interim president.

Malawian President Joyce Banda hopes the International Monetary Fund review will unlock frozen aid for the country.

And, Rwanda asks for the UN report on Congo’s sanctions to be dismissed.
 

Central African Republic lawmakers shortlisted eight candidates, including two sons of former leaders, to run for interim president in a vote on Monday and pull the country out of months of turmoil and sectarian killings.

Whoever is chosen will face the challenge of ending a cycle of violence that on Sunday saw crowds kill two men they said were Muslims and drag their bodies through the streets of the capital Bangui, then set them on fire.

Members of the transitional assembly were expected to select one of the candidates as interim president on Monday after former Seleka leader Michel Djotodia resigned as president under international pressure over his failure to end the bloodshed.

Assembly vice president Lea Koyassoum Doumta said the eight included Bangui mayor Catherine Samba-Panza; Desiré Kolingba, son of former president Andre Kolingba; and businessperson Sylvain Patasse, son of ex-president Ange-Felix Patasse.

President Joyce Banda said on Saturday that Malawi was on the right track after an economic review by the International Monetary Fund (or IMF) and expressed hopes that donors would release funds frozen over graft allegations.

Banda, who took office in April 2012, implemented austerity measures that led to a restoration of a $79-million IMF aid programme suspended due to a conflict with her predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika. She also took a personal pay cut and put Mutharika's presidential jet up for sale.

The IMF on Friday rated the southern African nation's economic performance "broadly satisfactory" after completing its third and fourth reviews under a credit facility, enabling the IMF to disburse around $20-million.

 

Rwanda asked a UN Security Council sanctions committee on Friday to dismiss a report that says the defeated M23 rebels in Democratic Republic of Congo are still recruiting fighters in Rwanda and Congolese troops are involved in rights abuses.

The experts monitor UN sanctions on Congo and report on violations to a UN Security Council sanctions committee, which is made up of all 15 council members. The committee met on Friday afternoon to discuss the experts' report.

The confidential report by independent experts also said it had "credible information that sanctioned M23 leaders are moving freely in Uganda and that M23 continued to recruit in Rwanda."

Rwanda, which just started its second year of a two-year term on the Security Council, said the allegations against it in the report "have no relevance in the current circumstances," and could undermine regional efforts to bring peace to the volatile, resource-rich eastern Congo.
 

Also making headlines:
 

Algeria will hold exploratory talks with rebel groups from neighbouring Mali in an attempt to revive peace negotiations there.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika signed a decree on Friday authorizing a formal start to campaigning for the April 17 presidential election in the country.

And, Egypt's president Adly Mansour is expected to announce that presidential elections will be held in March.
 

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.