June 17, 2014
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

The Gauteng provincial government takes a 'second look' at e-tolls.

Tunisia eyes autumn elections to anchor the country’s democracy.

And, gunmen kill at least 50 people in Kenya during a World Cup TV screening.

 

The Gauteng government is taking a second look at e-tolls as a funding source for building highways in the province.

A Sunday newspaper reported Gauteng roads and transport MEC Ismail Vadi as saying government had conducted long discussions with both the Gauteng ANC  branch and government and had concluded that there was still dissatisfaction with the funding model.

Vadi said that government was also looking at settling debt in the e-toll system.

He said that while e-tolls still remained a valid option, there were also discussions about a provincial fuel levy or a provincial tax or shadow tolling to cover the costs.

He added, however, that government wouldn’t scrap e-tolls as it was considered important infrastructure.
 

Tunisia's election authority has proposed a parliamentary vote on October 26 and the first round of presidential polls a month later. This move marks the final step towards full democracy in the cradle of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

The North African state has been run of late by a caretaker government that saw through the adoption of a new constitution lauded as a model of democratic evolution in an unstable region.

It is widely expected that the Tunis parliament will in the coming days approve the dates after politicians patched up disputes over conditions for the election last week.

Setting a date for elections could restore investor confidence in the Tunisian economy, which has unravelled amid bouts of political turmoil and government mismanagement.

At least 50 people were killed when gunmen in two minibuses sped into a town on Kenya's coast, shooting soccer fans watching a World Cup match in a television hall and targeting two hotels, a police post and a bank, officials and witnesses said on Monday.

Police said Somalia's al Shabaab Islamist group was most likely to blame for Sunday night's assault on the town of Mpeketoni, which lies on the Indian Ocean coastline that runs north from Kenya's main port of Mombasa to the Somali border.

Kenya's interior minister referred to the attackers as "bandits". There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the assault, in the latest in a spate of gun and bomb attacks in recent months that have hurt the country’s struggling tourist industry.

Kenya, which has blamed al Shabaab for previous attacks, had said it would be on alert during the World Cup to ensure public showings of matches were kept safe.
 

Also making headlines:
 

Ratings agency Standard and Poor's lowers South Africa's long-term foreign currency credit rating one notch to BBB negative from BBB.

And, Egypt swears in its new Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb, who has promised to tackle economic woes.
 

That’s a roundup of news-making headlines today.