September 11, 2012
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

The United Nations’ food relief agency World Food Programme appeals for $30-million to feed Malawi.

Turbulent Somalia gets a new president in a vote for change.

And, Business Leadership South Africa chairperson Bobby Godsell says that accountability for the Marikana murders is a must to avoid a Sicilian-type revenge pattern.

The World Food Programme (or WFP) is seeking $30-million to feed more than one-million people in Malawi facing severe shortages. This is a result of a disastrous fight that the former President of the southern African country, Bingu wa Mutharika, picked with international donors.

WFP country director Abdoulaye Diop said that the institution is appealing for urgent donations so that food can be procured and pre-positioned ahead of the rainy season when remote areas become hard to access.

The UN's food relief agency said that prolonged dry spells, high food prices and economic difficulties have left many people across Malawi struggling to find enough to eat this year.

Government officials last week said the number of people facing food shortages has increased by 200 000 since 2011, to 1.63-million. This is 11% of the population.

Members of parliament overwhelmingly elected political newcomer Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as president of Somalia on Monday. The result is hailed by supporters as a vote for change in the war-ravaged country.

Bursts of celebratory gunfire crackled through the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, after the first vote of its kind in decades in Somalia drew to a close.

Mohamud won in a secret ballot with 190 votes, against 79 lawmakers voting for incumbent President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed.

Although Mohamud is a relatively new face in Somali politics, the one-time academic will be confronted by old problems such as acrimonious clan politics, rampant corruption, maritime piracy and a stubborn Islamist insurgency.

Business Leadership South Africa chairperson Bobby Godsell says it’s tremendously important that the perpetrators of the Marikana murders are held accountable to avoid ending up with a Sicilian-type pattern of revenge killings.

Godsell said that violent conflicts in a Constitutional democracy like South Africa’s were completely outrageous, and that if people are not held accountable for murder, it will continue, and that sort of violence should be made impossible.

He added that the failing Marikana negotiations had to be made to work. The negotiating process has to be inclusive and has to deliver broadly acceptable outcomes.

Police support is needed and it is crucial that unions accepted that their right to strike went together with the right of those workers who choose not to strike, and continue to work.

Also making headlines:

South Africa’s power supply tightens as industry ramps up demand.

Stakeholder relations are prioritised as Sasol recalibrates to the post-Marikana world.

And, Sudan's army clashes with rebels in the bordering state.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.