March 9, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

Eskom says the power system is stable.

Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram pledges allegiance to Islamic State.

And,  Minister of Communications Faith Muthambi confirms that the country will miss the deadline to switch to digital broadcasting transmission.

 

Power utility Eskom said on Monday that the power system was stable.

It said, however, that should anything unexpected happen, the utility may need to go into load shedding.

Meanwhile, Eskom announced last week that Unit six at its newly-built Medupi power station in Limpopo had produced power for the first time.

South Africa would see Medupi Unit six's full potential of 794 megawatts being fed into the South African national grid within three months.

 

Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram pledged allegiance to Islamic State (or IS) on the weekend, according to an audio clip posted online. IS rules a self-declared caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.

The symbolic move highlighted the increased coordination between jihadi movements across north Africa and the Middle East. The movement prompted an appeal from Nigeria's government for greater international help in tackling the Boko Haram insurgency.

Boko Haram has killed thousands and kidnapped hundreds during its six-year campaign to carve out an Islamist state in northern Nigeria. In recent months it has increased cross-border raids into Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

 

Minister of Communications Faith Muthambi has confirmed that South Africa would miss the June deadline to switch to digital broadcasting transmission.

This followed the announcement last week that government, after approving the Broadcasting Digital Migration Amendment Policy, planned to adopt a control system for the 100%-subsided set-top boxes (or STBs) it would provide for five-million of South Africa’s poorest households.

Muthambi said the International Telecommunication Union’s agreed deadline for the switch-off of analogue television signals was June 17.

She said South Africa would not meet the deadline, indicating that the extensive industry disagreements over the STB control systems had been to blame for the latest delays to a project that was already six years overdue.

 

Also making headlines:

In the past 20 years the world's women and girls have made significant progress in health, education and legal rights but wide gender gaps remain in economic participation, political leadership and security, says a new research report.

Burundi's Roman Catholic Church, representing more than two thirds of the population in the central African nation, said the incumbent President Pierre Nkurunziza should not stand for a third term in the June elections.

The European Union is discussing with the United Nations ways to bolster security in Libya, including a naval presence, if UN-backed peace talks lead to a settlement.

And, a series of bombings killed one person and injured nine in Egypt's second city of Alexandria on Sunday and an attack by unidentified gunmen in another province wounded two others.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.