June 9, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

Corruption charges against President Jacob Zuma should never have been dropped.

A positive outlook on Africa ahead of the 25th African Union summit in South Africa is marred by crises such as Burundi.

And, there is a high chance of evening power cuts today. 

The senior prosecutor in the corruption case against President Jacob Zuma has broken ranks with the National Prosecuting Authority (or NPA) and maintains that the charges against Zuma should never have been dropped.

In a startling development, Advocate Billy Downer has submitted a confirmatory affidavit in the Democratic Alliance’s ‘spy tapes’ case in which he contradicts some of the statements made by Advocate Willie Hofmeyr, who filed the main affidavit on behalf of the NPA.

In the affidavit Hofmeyr filed in March, he defends the NPA’s decision to drop the case against Zuma, arguing that the decision was taken with regard to abuse of prosecutorial process and not just the merits of the charges against Zuma.

But in his affidavit, Downer reveals that even though he was “reduced to tears” by the contents of the so called spy tapes that got Zuma off the hook on the corruption charges, he felt their contents did not justify a decision to drop the prosecution.

Africa’s political leaders are gathering in Johannesburg and Pretoria this week to try to prevent a rash of conflicts and crises derailing the continent’s promising growth prospects.

The leaders of the 54 members States of African Union (or AU) would be meeting for their twenty-fifth ordinary summit just after the expected launch in Egypt on Wednesday of a Tripartite Free Trade Area (or T-FTA) spanning 26 countries of Southern and Eastern Africa and creating a market of 625-million people with a gross domestic product of more than $1-trillion.

The creation of the T-FTA which was envisaged as a stepping stone to an Africa-wide free trade area by 2017 comes on top of more than a decade of plus-5% a year growth on average in African economies.

The T-FTA was on the agenda of this week’s AU summit in South Africa where the theme was how to increase the empowerment and development of women.

However, persistent civil wars in South Sudan and Libya, ongoing terror threats posed by the jihadist extremist groups Boko Haram in West Africa and Al-Shabaab in East Africa, and the destabilising impact of a leader trying to cling to power in Burundi – and potentially other countries – could push such promising developments down the agenda, the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies warned in its latest AU Peace and Security Council report.

Chances of load-shedding are low for the morning, but high for the evening, Eskom warned on Tuesday.

The utility started load-shedding again on Sunday evening after ten consecutive days of no load-shedding, as it struggled to meet the increased winter demand for electricity.

On Monday Eskom moved quickly from stage 1 to stage 2 "due to a further shortage of generation capacity".

Eskom said in a statement on Tuesday morning it had adequate generating capacity to meet the demand in electricity.

It, however, warned that the power system was expected to be constrained during the evening peak period of 17:00 to 21:00 mainly as a result of increased electricity demand.

The power utility also urged its users to consider energy efficient ways of keeping warm.

Also making headlines:

International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane pledged R1 000 of her own “hard-earned” money to boost the African Union’s ability to fund its own programmes.

United Nations negotiators handed Libya's warring factions a draft proposal for forming a unity government in an attempt to end a conflict that threatens to push the North African country toward failed-state status.

Human Rights Watch said the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's one-year tenure in office has witnessed human rights abuses and an escalation in violence by armed groups and the government.

And, the knives are out for KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Sihle Zikalala as disgruntled members of the ANC Youth League accuse him of convening an illegal, fraudulent and unconstitutional congress at the weekend.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today