April 16, 2015. 
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

President Jacob Zuma calls for an end to the killing linked to the xenophobic attacks.

Two independent candidates withdraw from Sudan's presidential election.

And, South Africa's rand has weakened due to widespread electricity cuts and attacks against foreign nationals.

 

President Jacob Zuma called for an end to the killings linked to the xenophobic attacks on Wednesday that has left five people dead in the Durban area, and put parts of Johannesburg on edge.   

Zuma said the attacks were unacceptable, adding that foreign countries didn’t chase South Africans away when they were fighting for liberation. 

Johannesburg's metro police and South African Police Service officers were in a joint operation positioned near hostels south east of Johannesburg and in other hot spots around the city, after bricks were thrown at an Ethiopian man, passing motorists’ cars were stoned and many shops in the CBD were shuttered.

In Durban and surrounding areas, national police commissioner Riah Phiyega said as many as 800 police officers were fanned around trouble spots in the province, which included Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Isipingo after the five deaths, as well as looting took place.

Thousands of foreigners have been evacuated to safety in KwaZulu-Natal and were living in difficult conditions, with one man in Isipingo saying up to 70 men were living in one tent.

 

 

Two independent candidates withdrew from Sudan's presidential election on Wednesday, citing irregularities in the polling process. This was after the election commission extended voting by a day.

Most of the main opposition parties had already boycotted the election, which started on Monday and had been due to end on Wednesday. They said they had been denied the opportunity to compete fairly against President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who had been in power since 1989. 

With little effective opposition, Bashir appears certain to be re-elected. A parliamentary election is also being held.

One of the candidates who withdrew from the elections Ahmed al-Radi Jaber  said the decision to extend voting until Thursday was an attempt to manipulate the result.

However, the commission said that logistics problems had hampered voting in some areas on Tuesday and the extension was intended to ensure that everyone had the opportunity to vote.

 

South Africa's rand weakened on Wednesday as power supplier Eskom implemented widespread electricity cuts for the fourth straight day, while attacks against foreign nationals also weighed on sentiment.

South Africa lost a quarter of its power supply on Tuesday in one of its worst outages in years.

Power supply was also unstable on Wednesday, and Eskom said it would reduce power supply, citing a shortage of generation capacity.

Meanwhile, traders said the currency was also affected by negative sentiment following a wave of anti-foreigner violence that has killed at least four people.

 

Also making headlines:

Eskom will implement stage 1 load-shedding and load curtailment from 06:00 am on Thursday morning, and this is likely to continue until 10:00 pm this evening.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced concerns about violence in the run-up to Burundi's presidential election and urged the government to ensure that the vote is free and fair.

And, about 6 000 Burundians have fled into Rwanda over the past month, fearing violence in the build up to a presidential election.

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That’s  a roundup of news making headlines today.