May 20, 2014
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

The South African National Roads Agency Limited denies stopping motorists to check for e-tags.

The US moves more forces closer to Libya as unrest in the country grows.

And, suspected al Shabaab militants kill at least 12 people in a northern Kenya ambush.
 

The South African National Roads Agency Limited (or Sanral) says it is not working with the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (or JMPD) to check whether road users are e-tagged or not.

According to the agency, acquiring an e-tag is optional and no road user should be stopped for not having an e-tag. Some road users called a radio station over the weekend claiming that the JMPD on city roads stopped them and checked whether they had e-tags.

Sanral spokesperson Vusi Mona categorically denied that there was any partnership with the JMPD on this. No vehicles on any road were being checked to see whether they were e-tag registered. The JMPD has in the past distanced itself from this claim and so does Sanral, he said.

Sanral urged any road user, who had been stopped purportedly to check if they have an e-tag, to contact Sanral. Similarly, it said if anyone posing as a JMPD officer has stopped any motorist, such a road user must contact the JMPD.

 

The US has increased the number of Marines and aircraft stationed in Sicily who could be called upon to evacuate Americans from the US embassy in Tripoli as unrest in Libya grows, two US officials said on Monday.

This comes after heavily armed gunmen stormed Libya's parliament on Sunday and gunfire erupted across Tripoli, where rival militias clashed in some of the worst violence in the city since the end of the 2011 war against Muammar Gaddafi.

About 60 more Marines and another four Osprey aircraft, whose tilt-rotar engines allow it to land like a helicopter but fly like an airplane, were being sent to Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily from their base in Spain.

Underscoring the turmoil, the commander of Libyan army special forces said on Monday he had allied with renegade general Khalifa Haftar in his campaign against militant Islamists. Haftar has been denounced by the Tripoli government as attempting to stage a coup.

 

Suspected Somali al Shabaab militants killed at least 12 people in an ambush in northern Kenya on Monday. This came a day after Kenyan jets pounded the Islamists' bases over the border, disaster and police officials said.

The east African nation, which sent its troops into Somalia in October 2011 to pursue the militants, has suffered a string of gun, bomb and grenade attacks that it blames on al Shabaab, including an attack in the capital Nairobi last week.

Britain, the US and other Western governments have warned holidaymakers against visiting Kenya.
 

Also making headlines:
 

Energy and chemicals group Sasol and the Development Bank of Southern Africa have signed a memorandum of agreement, opening the way for collaboration on infrastructure development in the Govan Mbeki municipality, in Mpumalanga, and Metsimaholo municipality, in the Free State.

The US has warned that northern Mali risks sliding back into war, while calling for the government and Tuareg separatists to return to talks after deadly clashes in a traditional rebel stronghold.

And, an Egyptian court acquitted 169 Muslim Brotherhood supporters charged in connection with unrest that followed the overthrow of president Mohamed Mursi last year, breaking a pattern of mass convictions at trials involving the Islamist opposition.
 

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.