March 25, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Dylan Stewart.
Making headlines:

Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene says he’s concerned about the suspensions at Eskom.
Islamic State claims the suicide bombing in Libya's Benghazi.
And, Zimbabwe wants talks with Berlin in an effort to resolve the $739-million debt it owes Germany.

South Africa's Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene told parliamentarians on Tuesday that the temporary suspensions of key officials at the State-owned power utility Eskom was a concern. However, he noted that the firm's financial stability was on course.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the struggling Eskom to junk last week, underlining the fragile state of South Africa's economy and the suspension of the utility's chief executive officer and three other senior executives, which it said reduced the agency's confidence in the utility. The rating downgrade is likely to raise borrowing costs for the cash-strapped utility.

The government has said it aimed to sell "noncore" assets to raise R23-billion for Eskom this year, which faces a funding gap to 2018 of up to R200-billion as it struggles to keep the lights on and build new power plants.

Islamic State militants claimed a suicide bombing that killed seven people at an army checkpoint in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday and triggered retaliatory air strikes by army forces.

In a separate incident in Libya's second-largest city, where army forces are fighting Islamist militants, a rocket hit a residential building, killing a 17-year old girl and another person, medics said.

Three others were wounded. It was unclear who fired the rocket.

The violence in Benghazi typifies chaos in Libya where two rival governments and parliaments allied to armed factions are competing for power four years after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.

Zimbabwe is planning talks with Germany on how to resolve a $739-million debt it owes to the euro zone's biggest economy.

President Robert Mugabe's government owes foreign creditors, including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, $9-billion and is intensifying efforts to have the debt cancelled or rescheduled to allow it to access new loans.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said Harare wanted to restore ties with Germany, the largest Paris Club creditor before the European Union and US slapped Mugabe's government with travel and financial sanctions in 2000.

Georg Schmidt, Germany's regional director for sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel, said that Berlin would take a cue from the southern African country's engagement with the IMF.

Also making headlines:

Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Employment Statistics reveal that the number of people employed in the formal non-agricultural sector increased in December.

The G77 and China says it remains averse to the repackaging of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Gauteng province has spent R939-million on education infrastructure in the 2014/15 financial year.

And, President Jacob Zuma has urged municipalities to reduce dependence on consultants, to improve efficiency in local government.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.