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Daily podcast – March 18, 2013.

18th March 2013

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March 18, 2013.
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

Reports states that the ANC Youth League has been disbanded.

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Zimbabwe moves toward elections after a referendum on President Robert Mugabe's powers.

And, thousands of Tunisians call for the Islamist government to step down.

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Reports on Monday revealed that the ruling party has disbanded the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League. A daily newspaper and State broadcaster SABC said ANCYL Gauteng secretary Ayanda Kasa-Ntsobi had confirmed that the league had been disbanded, adding that the youth league wouldn’t oppose the decision.

The ANC also reportedly decided to disband the executive committee of Limpopo province and give Limpopo premier Cassel Mathale the boot.

The ANC and ANC Youth League have held two meetings this year to discuss weaknesses within the party's youth wing, including its lack of a permanent leader. The ANC Youth League has been led by its deputy president Ronald Lamola since its former president Julius Malema was expelled from the ANC last year.

 

Zimbabweans look set to endorse a new constitution that will curb the presidency’s power, in a step toward elections to determine whether Robert Mugabe will add to three decades in power.

While the vote on the constitution, which will limit the number of times a president can serve, was largely free from violence, police raided an office of Mugabe's arch-rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and arrested five people.

Early results posted outside polling stations showed that voters had overwhelmingly backed the new document as expected, although polls were marked by low turnout. Both Mugabe and Tsvangirai, who are rivals in the election expected in the second half of this year, had backed the new constitution.

The new charter would set a maximum of two five-year terms for the president. The limit won’t apply retroactively, meaning that Mugabe could rule for another two terms. More than two-million people have voted, compared to six-million eligible, said electoral official Rita Makarau. Results were being verified and officials have five days to announce them.

 

Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets of the capital Tunis on Saturday to call for an end to an Islamist government they blame for the assassination of a leading secular politician 40 days earlier.

The demonstration was the biggest since Chokri Belaid was gunned down outside his house on February 6, igniting the worst unrest since the Jasmine Revolution that toppled strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 and started the Arab Spring.

Protesters on Saturday blamed the ruling party for Belaid's murder, however, no one has claimed responsibility for the killing, which Belaid's family blames on Ennahda. The party denies involvement and police say the killer was a radical Salafist Islamist.

 

Also making headlines: 

Sudanese Rebels fight government troops in south Darfur.

A fifth French soldier has been killed in Mali 's nine-week-old military campaign against Islamist rebels.

And, an Egyptian court delays a state elections appeal hearing for a week in a case which has thrown the final stage of Egypt's transition to democracy up in the air.

 

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.

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