September 2, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Schalk Burger.
Making headlines:

The Democratic Alliance’s motion to impeach President Jacob Zuma falls flat as the opposition parties fail to close ranks.

China welcomes Sudan's war crime-accused President Omar Hassan al-Bashir as an 'old friend'. 
 
And, the Democratic Alliance says swift action is needed against corrupt officials.

The Democratic Alliance’s (DA's) motion to set up a committee to consider impeaching President Jacob Zuma was voted down in the National Assembly on Tuesday as opposition failed to unite behind it.

This happens five and a half months after a DA vote of no confidence in the president met the same fate. It was voted down by 211 to 100 votes, with 17 abstentions.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and United Democratic Movement (UDM) said they would whole-heartedly support the impeachment of the president but could not agree with the reason advanced by DA leader Mmusi Maimane. He said it was a matter of fact that Zuma failed to uphold the law and the Constitution when the government chose not to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on South African soil in June.

The EFF’s Godrich Gardee said his party wanted Zuma to be removed from office for a host of reasons, ranging from over-spending on his Nkandla home, to the Marikana shooting of mine workers, but the DA had not chosen one they could support. 

Inkatha Freedom Party and the Freedom Front Plus were the only opposition parties who backed the motion. 

 

Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, an accused war criminal, as an "old friend" on Tuesday, as China's foreign ministry defended his invitation to a military parade to mark the end of World War Two.

The Hague-based International Criminal Court (or ICC) issued arrest warrants for Bashir in 2009 and 2010, accusing him of masterminding genocide and other atrocities in his campaign to crush a revolt in the western Darfur region.

Members of the ICC are obliged to act on arrest warrants, but China is not a member.

In June, Bashir was forced to flee South Africa, however, after a court had ruled that he should be banned from leaving pending the outcome of a hearing on his possible arrest.

 

The Democratic Alliance (or DA) said the Gauteng provincial government had promised to investigate officials implicated in corruption in the Expanded Public Works Programme (or EPWP). However, it claimed that remedial action was too slow.

Alan Fuchs, MPL for infrastructure development, said the EPWP was aimed at providing temporary work opportunities to the unemployed across the province.

"At a recent infrastructure portfolio committee meeting, a number of participants in the programme complained that they were paid different amounts from month to month, and in some cases they were treated poorly by their supervisors," Fuchs said in a statement.

In a statement issued on Sunday, MEC Nandi Mayathula-Khoza said an investigation was to be launched into allegations of cronyism and corruption within certain Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development programmes.

 

Also making headlines:

A Limpopo biofuel crop has been certified as sustainable.

Durban is named as the 2022 Commonwealth Games host city.

Congolese militia leader Bosco Ntaganda goes on trial at the International Criminal Court accused of crimes including murder and the rape of his own child soldiers during the early 2000s.

And, US President Barack Obama urged an international conference on the Arctic to unite now to slow climate change, or else face a dire future.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.