June 25, 2012

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Natalie Greve.

Making headlines:

ANC leader Jacob Zuma told hundreds of party delegates at the Free State elective conference on Sunday that South Africa needed a second transition otherwise it would remain stagnant like many other African countries after independance.

The second transition relates to a key discussion document for the ANC's national policy conference, which is expected to begin on Tuesday.

According to the document, in the past 18 years the ANC has gone through a first transition into democracy, where it focused on political emancipation.

Now the party needs to introduce a 'second transition' that focuses on the social and economic transformation of South Africa over the next 30 to 50 years.

Egypt’s Mohamed Morsy, of the Muslim Brotherhood has set about building a civilian administration for Egypt that can heal a divisive history of oppression and coax a mistrustful army into relaxing its grip on power.

Behind the scenes, talks are already under way between the Islamists and generals to resolve disputes that blew up this month over steps by the ruling military council to hem in the powers of the first freely elected president Egypt has known.

Cairo's Tahrir Square exploded in joy – and relief – on Sunday as Morsy was declared the narrow but convincing winner of last weekend's presidential run-off against Ahmed Shafik, another scion of the military establishment which has ruled Egypt for 60 years.

Zimbabwean police said on Sunday they had launched an investigation connected with finance minister Tendai Biti. A state-owned newspaper said the probe was over the disappearance of $20-million in a failed bank.

Biti told the Sunday Mail he wasn’t responsible for the missing money, which was part of a 2009 emergency International Monetary Fund (or IMF) facility and intended to help distressed manufacturing firms.

The paper said Biti had transferred the money from the IMF into local bank Interfin, closed this month due to a liquidity crisis.

The $20-million, part of a $500-million IMF emergency package, had been at Interfin for a year without generating interest before it disappeared, the newspaper said.

Also making headlines:

Israeli air raids on Hamas security targets in Gaza killed one militant and wounded 20 people on Saturday, while increased rocket fire by militants wounded an Israeli man.

And, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir dismisses anti-government protests over a severe economic crisis as the work of "a few agitators".

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.