January 25, 2013.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Natalie Greve.

Making headlines:

South Africa is winning the ‘currency war by default’.
Mali’s Islamist group splits, with the faction leader requesting talks.
And, the South African Reserve Bank holds the repo rate at 5%.

Econometrix chief economist Dr Azar Jammine observed on Thursday at a seminar addressing the outlook for the South African economy in 2013, that South Africa was winning the “currency war by default”.

Jammine remarked that recent labour and social ructions, together with robust political statements, had been more effective in weakening the rand than interventions by the South African Reserve Bank and policy initiatives taken under the New Growth Path.

South Africa’s rand weakened materially over the past six months and was one of the worst performing currencies of 2013, having fallen nearly 5% since the start of January and breaching the R9 to the dollar level earlier in the week.

 

A split emerged on Thursday in the alliance of Islamist militant groups occupying northern Mali, as French and African troops prepared an offensive aimed at driving them from their safe haven in the Sahara.

A senior negotiator from the Ansar Dine rebels who helped seize the north from Mali's government last year said he was now part of a faction that wanted talks and rejected the group's alliance with al Qaeda's North African franchise AQIM.

It was unclear how many fighters had joined the new Islamic Movement of Azawad (or MIA) faction. But the announcement will encourage international negotiators who have long sought to prise apart the Islamist alliance, seen as a major threat by Washington and other Western and regional powers.

 

South Africa's Reserve Bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 5% on Thursday, citing concerns about rising food prices and a depreciating rand exchange rate in a period of slowing growth.

Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus said the current monetary policy stance was "accommodative and appropriate", while further monetary easing was constrained by upside risks to the inflation outlook.

The bank's inflation forecasts for this year deteriorated from the last MPC meeting two months ago, with CPI expected to average 5.8% in 2013 compared with a previous forecast of 5.6%.

Marcus said the forecasts didn’t take into account a new inflation basket, which will be used from January, and is expected to contribute to a marginal quickening of the inflation trend.

 

Also making headlines:

The UN Security Council allows peacekeepers to use surveillance drones in eastern DRC.
Trade union Fedusa seeks inclusion in Minister Blade Nzimande’s university transformation committee.
And, South Africa should shift its focus from imports to local manufacturing.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.