June 25, 2014
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Pimani Baloyi.
Making headlines:
 

As FDI flows recover to $8.2billion, South African firms emerge as the top African investors.

US lawmakers say Egypt's 'descent toward despotism' risks the country losing aid from the US.

And, Kenya’s opposition leader demands a dialogue after a spate of violent attacks.

Foreign direct investment (or FDI) into South Africa recovered to $8.2-billion in 2013, from $4.6-billion in 2012. This was notwithstanding ongoing anxiety about the state of the South African economy and its attractiveness as an investment destination.

In addition, a new international report shows that outward FDI by South African companies, much of it into the rest of the continent, also almost doubled to $5.6-billion. This was powered by investments in telecommunications, mining and retail.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (or Unctad’s) World Investment Report 2014 says the strong South African inflows, together with record inflows of $5.9-billion to Mozambique, stimulated a near doubling in Southern African FDI during 2013 when compared with the prior year.

The Industrial Development Corporation’s Jorge Maia, who released the report on behalf of Unctad in South Africa on Tuesday, reported that the Southern African region experienced investment inflows of $13.2-billion, up from $6.7-billion in 2012. This helped raise overall African inflows by 4% to $57-billion.

 

Senior US lawmakers said on Tuesday they were rethinking the more than $1-billion in military aid Washington sends to Cairo after Egyptian courts handed out mass death sentences to opposition figures and long prison terms for journalists.

The chairperson of the US Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign aid said further funds should be withheld until Egypt's leaders demonstrate a commitment to human rights. Meanwhile, a senior member of the equivalent House of Representatives panel offered legislation to redistribute some of the US money.

Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said that withholding military aid to the Egyptian regime had let its leaders know that repressive actions and abuses of human rights and the rule of law were deeply concerning to the American people, and to many in Congress.

Egypt has been the second-largest recipient of US foreign aid since its landmark peace treaty with Israel in 1979. But the policy was upended by the political transformations triggered by the 2011 popular uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

 

Kenya's veteran opposition leader, Raila Odinga, on Tuesday demanded a national dialogue by July 7 and sought a timetable to pull Kenyan troops out of Somalia, hours after a fresh attack on the coast killed five people.

Odinga, who was President Uhuru Kenyatta's main challenger in last year's election, has called for nationwide rallies next month over what he said were public worries that include security failings, corruption and rising living costs.

His comments have set him on a collision course with the government, which has dismissed the deadline as a bid by the 69-year-old former prime minister to create a crisis that will haul him back to the centre of politics in the east African nation.
Both sides may be playing with fire, say diplomats and analysts, in a nation where political loyalties tend to follow ethnic lines and rivalries have flared before, notably after the contested 2007 election when tribal violence left about 1 200 people dead.

Meanwhile, the presidency says there is no basis for national talks as there is no breakdown in institutions or constitutional order.
 

Also making headlines:

Two days of clashes kill more than 50 people in Central African Republic.

And, platinum majors finally signed a three-year wage agreement with labour union AMCU putting the final “nail in the coffin” of an unprecedented five-month strike in the platinum sector that has sent tremors through the South African economy.
 

Also on Polity today:
 

Watch discussions with researcher and analyst Professor Raymond Suttner on Mandela’s life in prison as well as his weekly commentary on South Africa’s political scene in Suttner’s View.

Don’t forget to vote in the latest Polity Poll and give your opinion on Julius Malema’s first conduct in Parliament.

For news at it unfolds and the latest in analysis go to our twitter handle
@PolityZA,
 

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.