September 25, 2013.
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Carina Barralho.
Making headlines:
 

President Jacob Zuma says the United Nations Security Council remains undemocratic to developing nations.

Thousands protest in Sudan against the government’s lifting of fuel subsidies.

And, the UN’s envoy for Somalia, Nicholas Kay, calls for the stepping up of the fight against al Shabaab.

President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday that the United Nations Security Council (or UNSC) remains undemocratic, unrepresentative and unfair to developing nations and small states. He was addressing the general debate of the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly, in New York.

According to an edited copy of his speech, Zuma said, that nearly 70 years after its establishment, the UNSC also still disenfranchised most of the member states of the United Nations, which formed the majority in the general assembly. He said there had been too much talk about the need to reform, and too little action.

The president challenged the assembly to set a target for a reformed, more inclusive, democratic and representative UNSC by 2015, when the UN celebrates its 70th anniversary.

Zuma, who spoke on a variety of issues, also said the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, set in 2000 to eradicate extreme poverty, remained the key priority on the development agenda for the next two years.

Sudanese police fired tear gas to break up anti-government protests in four cities on Tuesday, witnesses said, as public discontent grew over the lifting of fuel subsidies.

More than 1 000 demonstrators protested in Khartoum's twin city Omdurman. A witness said protesters also torched an office of the ruling National Congress Party, blocked several main roads and stoned police officers who were firing tear gas volleys into the crowd.

Veteran President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been in power since 1989, has avoided the sort of "Arab Spring" uprising that has ousted autocrats in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. But dissent is rising over corruption and a worsening economic crisis.

The Arab African country's economy has been in turmoil since losing three-quarters of its oil reserves – its main source of revenues and of dollars for food imports – when South Sudan became independent in 2011.
 

The UN special representative for Somalia Nicholas Kay, has called for additional African troops to counter al Shabaab, which he said numbered some 5 000 people and posed an international threat.

The United Nations envoy condemned the deadly attack on Westgate mall in Kenya, which the Islamist militant group has claimed responsibility for, and said that there was a "once-in-a-generation" opportunity to help bring peace to Somalia.

Kay said security remained the number one challenge, with the control and the defeat of al Shabaab being key to this. He also said the amount of money that's required for the extra effort in Somalia would be very small, compared with the cost of walking away.

Also making headlines:

As Kenya begins three days of mourning for at least 67 people killed in the siege of a Nairobi mall, it remains unclear how many more hostages may have died with the Somali Islamist attackers buried in the rubble.

Tunisia's ruling Islamists reject a plan to step down pending elections and deepening confrontations with secular opponents.

And, the e-tolls challenge will be heard in the Supreme Court of Appeal today.
 

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.