November 1, 2013
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Shannon de Ryhove.
Making headlines:

Parliament adopts the Youth Wage Subsidy Bill.
Thousands in the contested Abyei region vote to join South Sudan while risking tensions.
And, FDI inflows to South Africa show a recovery.

Parliament adopted the Employment Tax Incentive Bill on Thursday as the Treasury prevailed in its three-year battle with the trade union movement over a youth wage subsidy.

Although all opposition parties voted in favour of the bill, they said the standoff had watered it down, let down job-seekers and undermined the National Education Development and Labour Council.

The cost of the subsidy has been reduced by lawmakers scrapping initial plans to extend it to existing workers and to workers in entry level, part-time jobs without sectoral determinations.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions bitterly opposed the subsidy, arguing that it would encourage employers to fire experienced workers to employ younger ones to receive the tax concession.

Permanent residents of the disputed Abyei region overwhelmingly voted to join South Sudan on Thursday in a symbolic referendum that could antagonise heavily armed Arab nomads who drive their livestock through the area and claim it for Sudan.

Local leaders said they held the poll because they were tired of waiting for a long-promised official plebiscite on the ownership of the remote region on the border of Sudan and South Sudan, which has seen several clashes between their troops.

The one-sided vote by the Dinka Ngok people, who occupy most of Abyei's permanent settlements and are loyal to South Sudan, had already been dismissed by both Khartoum and Juba who said it would carry no legal weight.

The ownership of Abyei, which has rich pastureland and small oil reserves, was left undecided when South Sudan declared independence from Sudan in 2011.

Foreign direct investment (or FDI) inflows to South Africa recovered in the first half of 2013 to $3.3-billion from the $2.1-billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2012, a new United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (or Unctad) report shows.

The increase is reflected in Unctad’s latest ‘Global Investment Trends Monitor’, which also shows that FDI flows to Africa as a whole decreased by 5% over the same period, despite developing and transition economies accounting for a record share of more than 60% of global FDI flows.

The report, however, doesn’t offer an explanation for South Africa’s recovery, saying only that inflows to the country “resumed their growth”.

Also making headlines:

Tens of thousands of Mozambicans marched in the capital Maputo and two other cities on Thursday to protest against the threat of armed conflict in the country and a spate of kidnappings by criminal gangs.

The Kenyan military said its warplanes bombed targets held by al Qaeda-linked Islamists in Somalia on Thursday, in retaliation for an attack on a Nairobi mall that killed at least 67 people.

And, a senior US official said the recent military advances by UN-backed Congolese troops in crushing a 20-month rebellion in the east are a major step, but it’s too soon to say if the M23 rebels are on the brink of defeat.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.