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

Transport Minister Dipuo Peters says e-tolling will be implemented by year end.

Envoys seek a Syria UN resolution as France and Russia squabble.

And, a Tunisian labour union offers a plan to end the political crisis in that country.

Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has said the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project will still be implemented this year. However, the commencement date for e-tolling has yet to be determined.

In a written reply to a parliamentary question, she said the transport department was awaiting the promulgation of the Transport Laws and Related Matters Amendment Bill. On September 5, the presidency said Zuma was still considering the bill.

The e-tolls have been challenged by several political parties, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance.

Diplomats from five key nations kicked off talks on Tuesday on a Western-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons even as France and Russia clashed over Moscow's insistence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is innocent of a August 21 poison gas attack on civilians.

The negotiations in New York among the American, British, French, Russian and Chinese diplomats focused on a draft resolution on Syria's chemical weapons arsenal to be put before the 15-nation UN Security Council.

The US-British-French draft is intended to support an American-Russian deal reached in Geneva last Saturday calling for Syria to account for its chemical weapons within a week and for the removal and destruction of the arsenal by mid-2014.

However, UN diplomats said it remained unclear when a vote on the resolution could take place. The current draft leaves the door open to the use of force in the event of non-compliance by Syria, though diplomats said Russia would almost certainly demand such provisions be deleted.

Tunisia's powerful labour union proposed a timetable on Tuesday to end the country's political deadlock, calling for the Islamist-led government to step down in three weeks and make way for a caretaker administration to oversee elections.

The small North African country whose 2011 overthrow of an autocratic president began the "Arab Spring" revolts has been in crisis for weeks, with secular opponents demanding the Islamist-led coalition government resign immediately.

Angered by the assassinations of two of its leaders and emboldened by Egypt's army-backed ousting of an Islamist president, Tunisia's opposition held protests against the ruling Islamist Ennahda party. The government agrees it will step down, but wants guarantees of a fair handover.

The UGTT labour movement negotiating between the two sides said the new proposal calls for the government to resign in three weeks, after the start of new negotiations. A date for elections would be set during those three weeks of talks.

Also making headlines:

A United Nations peacekeeping force in Democratic Republic of Congo calls for a revamp plan to protect Congo civilians.
 

And, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson reveals that government has developed a national policy on food and nutrition security for South Africa.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.