INTRODUCTION 

ACCOUNTING used to be restricted to financially measurable matters of profit and loss; expenditure and revenue; taxes and subsidies; investment and liabilities. But the mathematical and statistical skills underpinning a solid set of books and filed accounts are today increasingly being used to measure the environmental and social sustainability of a product, input, production process and supply chain.…

Sub-Saharan Africa has natural resources that aids the development of renewable energy, it has lots of sun, plentiful wind, and much potentially sustainable biomass. With the development of small-scale affordable renewable energy technologies, such systems have been promoted by major aid agencies keen to prevent deforestation and excessive reliance on fossil fuels, that – even where they are plentiful, have not usually led to widespread economic development.

THE NEED for a proactive effort to improve the teaching and researching of physics in sub-Saharan Africa, as a foundation for critically important scientific work, has been highlighted in a new report from the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and the UK-based Institute of Physics (IOP).…

Malawi, one the world’s largest producer of burley leaf tobacco, is making significant efforts to reduce child labour within its tobacco left sector, but the problem is still endemic.

A key sensitivity is that Malawi’s economy heavily relies on tobacco leaf, which contributes to 52% of the total export value for the country, according to the Malawi ministry of finance 2020 annual economic report.…

Demand for paints and coatings in Kenya is set to recover this year from the impact of Covid-19 epidemic, being driven by the rebound of building construction and other civil engineering works that require use of paints, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics has predicted.…

Academics at Uganda’s Makerere University appear to have taken advantage of the lull in face-to-face teaching caused by Covid-19 to increase their research output, a self-assessment study has suggested. Research publications from Kampala-based Makerere, one of Africa’s oldest universities, rose from 992 papers in 2019 to 1,301 in 2020. …

Low-quality assurance is to blame for the deteriorating quality of university education in Tanzania, after the country embarked on a fast expansion of higher education, a government audit report has shown.

The 2019/2020 report by the country’s Controller and Auditor General (CAG), presented to Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu in late March, documents that the country’s graduates’ competitiveness has been hampered by poor and outdated assurance mechanism.…

Mozambique’s tobacco leaf and processing sector is facing tough times. Cyclones such as this January’s Eloise, and Idai in 2019 have wreaked significant damage on tobacco plantations. Covid-19 has caused processing disruption and harmed legitimate distribution, encouraging an increase in black market cigarette sales.…

The Islamic insurgency experienced in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique’s northernmost province, since 2017, which has already displaced more than 250,000 people and killed more than 1,500, is damaging operations within the region’s higher education institutions.

While confirmed casualties have yet to include academics and students at the region’s higher education institutions, local higher education leaders are concerned about the risks.…

The Internet has hardly developed a reputation for honesty, but blockchain technologies where different computers log transactions in separate units, connected to a web of entries (blocks), are tough to falsify.

Of course, blockchain’s most high-profile use has been to underpin the reliability of cryptocurrencies, but the principle of this unchangeable and autonomous web of ledgers has so many potential uses – the tobacco sector has been exploring them.…

The cutting edge IT field of quantum computing is developing across Africa, with South Africa considered the hub, in part through an IBM centre in Johannesburg that enables academics throughout the continent to freely access its quantum computer network, based in the USA, through the cloud.…

Taking up a new job where you are responsible for overseeing how a business operates in three countries during a global health pandemic is not a task many financial professionals would take on lightly. But that is what Busola Doregos, a Nigerian accountant working in Uganda has just done. …

IT is fair to say that cheese and other processed dairy products have not traditionally played a key role in tickling the Kenyan collective palate, but that was yesterday. Now, as the country, east Africa’s economic dynamo, grows a middle class interested in consumer consumption, there has been exponential growing demand for dairy products of all kinds.…

South Africa’s electronic vaping product (EVP) market is growing fast – at 5% a year, according to management consultant Canback Consulting, and already estimated to be worth South African Rand ZAR1.16 billion (EUR82.8 million/USD68.2 billion). To target such growth, Philip Morris South Africa (PMSA) opened its first standalone IQOS store last August (2019), selling its smoke-free devices and associated product in the upmarket Johannesburg neighbourhood of Sandton, adding to the 11 kiosks in malls it was already operating in the provinces of Gauteng, Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal.…

Kenya will start to grow genetically modified cotton this year, becoming the first country to do so in Eastern Africa. The move is significant as it is likely to inspire other counties in the region start to grow Bt cotton hybrids that are resistant to African bollworm and other pests.…

Beauty markets in sub-Saharan Africa are becoming more sophisticated, and with this comes an increasing desire by consumers to use cosmetics that better match their own skin and hair characteristics, rather than utilising products that of more universal appeal.

Nigeria’s personal care product industry continues to grow, and given its population is the largest in Africa – now estimated by the United Nations at 200 million – this market inevitably has the most potential in the continent.…

Mentorship and sharing experiences will be a key part of the discussions on boost numbers of women in leadership and senior positions within Africa’s higher education sector, when African women vice chancellors meet for their annual symposium in December 2-6.

This meeting of the Forum for African Women Vice Chancellors (FAWoVC) is being staged alongside the annual general meeting of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), to be held at the University of Cape Coast, in Ghana.…

Despite having high solar radiation with between 2,800 and 3,500 hours of sunshine in a year (when there are 8,760 hours for each non-leap year), the solar energy potential in East Africa is yet to be fully exploited.

But in this region, it is not fossil fuels that dominate.…

TANZANIAN authorities have put mining firms that continue to defy sections of the country’s mining laws on notice. 

Simon Msanjila, permanent secretary in the nation’s Ministry of Minerals told Metal Bulletin that all mining companies that fail to pay royalties and adhere to the mining code risk having permits to transport their products cancelled. …

THE TANZANIAN government’s decision to increase levies on dry hair imports and associated wigs, hair pieces and extensions, and which are widely popular in the country, has been met with real concern and some anger by the east African beauty industry.…

AFRICA is without doubt the continent to watch for airport and air traffic control investment in the future. It is the world’s second most populous continent (home to more than 1.2 billion people), and according to Airports Council International (World) – ACI World – Africa was the fastest growing region for air passenger traffic in 2017 and 2018, which rose 6.3% in 2017 year-on-year and 10.8% in 2018 to June year-to-date, year-on-year.…

Digital disruption has been transforming banking services worldwide, and Africa, with its important m-commerce sector, has been in the frontline of this change – a fact not lost on established bank executives, such as Samuel Fredrick Mwogeza, the chief financial officer of Stanbic Bank Uganda Ltd.…

WITH Kenya’s economy still growing fast – its GDP is projected to increase by 5.8% this year (2019) east Africa’s economic hub is expected to provide the paint and coatings sector plenty of extra sales. Such growth in the construction industry is reflected in its neighbouring countries, notably Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, offering additional sales for companies with the scale to score regional sales.…

The UK’s first deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) struck with Standard Bank in 2015, ended successfully on November 30, in a milestone moment for the British criminal justice system. The SFO said that Standard Bank had “fully complied with” the terms of the DPA, including covering SFO costs of GBP330,000 (USD382,135) and in May 2016 paying USD16.8 million in fines, USD8.4 million in disgorgement of profits, and USD6 million in compensation plus USD1,046,196.58 in interest to the government of Tanzania.…

The conventional arms trade has a reputation for using side payment sweeteners to secure multi-million dollar deals. But despite allegations of corruption in numerous jurisdictions, the legitimate arms trade is not on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) radar. Should it be?…

AFRICAN garment and textile manufacturers have a long way to go to increase capacity, develop the supply chain and diversify overall production away from North Africa, an industry conference staged in Cairo has been told. But while north Africa accounts for more than USD10 billion out the continent’s USD13.54 billion in clothing and textile exports (during 2016, according to international trade data), the much discussed potential of Africa as the world’s next sourcing hub is starting to materialise.…

AFRICAN garment and textile manufacturers have a long way to go to increase capacity, develop the supply chain and diversify overall production away from North Africa, an industry conference staged in Cairo has been told. But while north Africa accounts for more than USD10 billion out the continent’s USD13.54 billion in clothing and textile exports (during 2016, according to international trade data), the much discussed potential of Africa as the world’s next sourcing hub is starting to materialise.…

DIGITAL production technologies could help African manufacturers pick up business lost by Chinese rivals because of the trade war in the USA, with brands looking to take advantage of the free trade agreements that many African countries have with the USA and Europe.…

THE PERCEPTION of beauty and hence the design and supply of personal care products is slowly changing in sub-Saharan Africa as its increasingly wealthy middle class consumers take a more personalised approach to how they look. The region has a widely diversified consumer-base, whose varied tastes are pushing brands to rethink personalising cosmetics and personal care products like never before. …

MAJOR universities from six African countries will next year (2019) be able to develop their services through each receiving USD20 million grants from the World Bank, via a regional rural development research initiative, with the money designed to turn these institutions into regional hubs for agricultural learning.…

EAST African countries maybe updating their anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) legislation and strengthening related institutions, but experts warn that a lack of enforcement will aid the proliferation of ML and TF in the region.

In Kenya, a Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering (Amendment) Bill was approved by the country’s parliament last March (2017).…

THE BUSINESS of selling paints and other coating products is expected to skyrocket in Kenya as the government implements President Uhuru Kenyatta’s agenda of providing affordable housing in urban and rural areas and promoting manufacturing industry, over the next five years.…

DEFERRED Prosecution Agreements (DPAs), that allow companies and individuals that admit to wrongdoing and cooperate with investigators and avoid prosecution, are becoming increasingly common worldwide, including for money laundering offences. The systems are particularly useful sticks to force erring financial and other corporate institutions to improve their anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism systems (AML/CFT), with prosecuting agencies deferring criminal cases on condition of sustained AML/CFT reforms.…

TOBACCO farming in Kenya is facing challenging times, with Tobacco Journal International being warned by farmers, government officials and market researchers that large-scale cultivation of the crop has been declining for five years in its traditional western region heartland.

Experts say output decline has been noted in the administrative areas that have dominated Kenyan tobacco leaf production.…

A STALLED project to make and test aviation biofuel in South Africa has offered a test case on how supply chain problems can prevent such innovative initiatives from making progress.

The launch of Project Solaris in 2014 as an international initiative between aviation and fuel sector partners to develop sustainable jet biofuel from the solaris crop attracted substantial media coverage for heralding in a new era in African aviation.…

CORRUPTION saps economic competition that drives productivity improvements and grows emerging market economies – this is a key reason behind the establishment of the Commonwealth Africa Anti-Corruption Centre (CAACC). Another is the established link between the perception of risk from corrupt practices in a country and foreign economic investment.…

SENIOR figures in Somalia’s education and employment sector are calling on the country’s increasingly influential government to bring down the numbers of tertiary colleges and universities to better match the lower number of graduates from secondary schools.

The proliferation of universities within Somalia, especially private organisations, as peace has taken root in the country, has prompted concern among experts that standards of education has weakened.…

WITH tobacco being a key driver of Zambia’s agriculture sector and a past reliable source of export earnings, a recent decline in leaf production has taken a heavy toll on this southern African country’s economy. Indeed, Zambia saw its agricultural foreign exchange earnings (of all farm-based products) fall by USD100 million in 2017, according to Zambia’s agriculture ministry.…

DEFERRED Prosecution Agreements (DPAs), that allow companies and individuals that admit to wrongdoing and cooperate with investigators to pay a fine and avoid prosecution, are becoming increasingly common worldwide. Enabling wrongdoers to avoid being debarred from bidding for many contracts and providing law enforcers with a commitment that companies and individual fraudsters will avoid fraud in future, DPAs offer benefits for police and suspects.…

SUB-SAHARAN Africa continues to grow as a key market for personal care product brands, with enlarging middle classes providing more spending power – however, the region’s most mature market – South Africa – has been experiencing some stagnation.

The rest of the region still is performing as emerging markets should – with growing sales, even when uneven across categories, giving brands much hope for the future.…

METAL ore exploration and production companies are warning Tanzania faces a sharp decline in metal ore output as the government continues to implement stringent laws to regulate the sector.

Tensions between the state and foreign-owned companies have been rising as the government of President John Pombe Magufuli has increased surveillance on the output of mines in the country, blocking exports.…

Ethiopia’s energy sector is undergoing a rapid transformation, becoming a trail blazer for renewables growth in Africa. Although still one of the continent’s poorest nations in Africa (gross national income per capita just USD660 in 2016, says the World Bank), its potential for green energy production is massive.…

JAPAN’S paint and coatings sector is putting on a positive face and playing up overseas expansion efforts, as well as its traditional strength in innovation, but analysts are concerned about the longer-term outlook for domestic companies.

Sales of paint in Japan came to Japanese Yen JPY 675 billion (USD6.10 billion) in 2016, a marginal increase of around 1% on the previous year’s figure, according to the Japan Paint Manufacturers Association.…

ANXIETY has greeted the passage and signing of three sets of laws to regulate the mining sector in Tanzania, even though it could reverse a ban on copper and gold exports imposed in March.

The Natural Wealth and Resources Contracts (Review and re-negotiation of unconscionable terms) Act 2017, The Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act, No 7 of 2017 and The Natural Wealth and Resources (Permanent Sovereignty) Act 2017 were approved by parliamentarians on July 3

Tanzanian President John Magufuli signed the new bills into law on July 5, despite opposition from key industry players.…

THE EVER-intensifying skyline of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, illustrates the rapid economic growth of this equatorial East African country, and its growing workforce is increasingly keen to buy deodorants to keep them dry and comfortable in the office and outside.

An increased focus on banking, industry, manufacturing and construction have raised the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 5.3% year-on-year in 2014 and 5.6% in 2015 (Deloitte Economic Outlook 2016).…

KENYA is east Africa’s economic dynamo and what happens in this jurisdiction has a lot of influence over government policy in neighbouring countries. So, the fact that the Kenyan government is now pushing hard on installing detailed public accounting standards, following in the footsteps of next-door Tanzania – is important.…

GOVERNMENTS in east Africa may have been passing legislation and regulation to control the tobacco sector, but these laws’ effectiveness is being weakened by lax implementation.

Kenya has been leading the local pack with controls, in 2007 enacted its first Tobacco Control Act, and in 2014 ratifying the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC).…

WITH the economies of sub-Saharan Africa emerging from past poverty, informality and occasional chaos, the regularisation of the region’s public sector accounts is increasingly viewed as an important way of ensuring growing tax revenues are spent wisely.

As a result, accounting experts have been encouraged by growing moves to adopt International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS).…

Tanzania is gearing-up for new international public accounting system as it prepares asset assessment policies for all government ministries, agencies and other organisations to promote consolidated public sector bookkeeping. East Africa’s second largest economy has been working on these reforms having adopted International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) from July 1, 2004, both for local and central governments.…

KENYA’S EDUCATION MINISTER CALLS FOR LESS GOVERNMENT MEDDLING IN AFRICAN UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT

Kenya’s education minister has called for African governments to pull away from direct management of their country’s universities, saying such meddling is unnecessary and can hinder the development of effective management.…

SOLAR power of course draws on a free renewable energy to create electricity, but a burgeoning sector is enabling the harnessing of heat for cooking, which can promote energy efficiency in all manner of climates – solar cookers.

Indian solar cooker innovator Deepak Gadhia and Julie Greene, executive director, Solar Cookers International (SCI), co-chaired a 6^th SCI World Conference held in Gujarat, India, this January, that demonstrated how these technologies are entering the mainstream.…

KENYA has long been regarded as east Africa’s economic powerhouse, with residential and industrial construction boosting sales of paints and coatings – and for now there seems to be no halt in this progress. Indeed, the last World Bank assessment of growth in this 45 million people country was that GDP rose by 5.6% in 2015.…

As guns continue to go silent in Somalia’s waning civil conflicts, exponential growth has been witnessed in the country’s higher education sector, although there are mixed reviews about the quality of education offered by the country’s new independent universities.

Before the 1988 civil war and subsequent collapse of the central government in 1991, Somalia had only one state-owned university, the Somali National University.…

CONCERN is growing in Kenya that its clothing manufacturing industry will be kicked out from the European Union’s EU) ‘market access regulation’ (MAR) from October 1, which has granted its exporters duty-free and quota-free access to EU consumers and businesses since 2008.…

LIVESTOCK exporters using the key southern Somalia port of Kismayo are calling for facility improvements to spur this trade, which is of critical importance to the economic health of this war-wracked region.
Inefficiencies, outdated infrastructure and tainted global image courtesy of piracy, is not only holding back livestock exports but curtailing efforts to make Kismayo port profitable, said Ibrahim Ahmed Abdinoor, chief executive officer of the African Shipping Line, which has offices in Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Dubai.…

CONCERN is growing in Kenya that its meat and livestock industry will be kicked out from the European Union’s EU) ‘market access regulation’ (MAR) from October 1, which has granted its exporters duty-free and quota-free access to EU consumers and businesses since 2008.…

MOBILE money transactions surged in 2015 across the world – increasing by 31% to reach 411 million mobile money accounts, and this is a critical platform for expanding financial inclusion globally, according to GSMA, a UK-based global mobile industry association, in its February 2016 annual report on the ‘State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money’. …

Indonesia’s mosquito net industry is facing high demand due to the growing number of middle class consumers in the country and their increasing desire to live a more natural lifestyle, according to Citra Maya, an Indonesian mosquito net supplier.

Arif Novianto, a marketing manager at Citra Maya, told WTiN.com…

An unprecedented spike in rhino poaching has not only threatened the existence of the charismatic species but also shone a spotlight on the highly organised criminal networks responsible. Wildlife crime is no longer seen as victimless or offering little reward but authorities are fighting back with some innovative tactics, reports Mark Rowe. …

THE NEED for sub-Saharan Africa to improve its corporate governance, promoting sustainable development in a region that still trails the rest of the world in many poverty metrics, has been a key theme of accounting conferences. And new initiatives reflecting this understanding have been making progress in east and west Africa, for instance.…

Kenya is the third largest market for industrial paints and coatings in sub-Saharan Africa, ranking behind South Africa and Nigeria, according to regional analysis conducted by market researchers Frost & Sullivan.
According to their report, released last May (2014), the three countries are projected to have a joint market volume of over 140 million litres for industrial paints and coatings by 2017.…

THE TRADE agreement currently being negotiated between the European Union (EU) and the USA could bring significant opportunities for paint machinery manufacturers if the two parties agree to align their technical standards.
The European Commission, which is negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on behalf of the EU, has said it would like to close the gap between the two sides regarding technical regulations affecting the marketing, use and conformity assessment of machinery, as well as electrical and electronic products.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) and the five members of the East African Community (EAC) are now legally scrubbing the text of a free trade agreement (FTA) concluded last October (2014), to prepare it for signature and ratification, according to the European Commission.…

East Africa is emerging as an attractive sourcing alternative for apparel and textile producers around the world as costs in Chinese outsourcing centres rise especially. With cheaper labour and resources, the region has already attracted foreign investment, particularly from Asia.

International apparel and textile producers are looking hard at Ethiopia as an attractive production and sourcing destination.…

Turkey’s rapidly growing nonwovens industry is a rising star that everyone should be paying attention to. This was the general consensus at the second Turkish Nonwovens Symposium in Istanbul on November 10-11, held by EDANA, the leading global association of nonwovens and related industries.…

The Open University of Tanzania (OUT) is reaching out to higher education institutions in other neighbouring countries to establish collaborations that will encourage more foreign students to enroll for distance learning.
University vice chancellor Professor Tolly Mbwette said the institution’s board hoped to spread its influence regionally: “We are now the largest distance learning university in the region and our plan is to take distance learning to most countries in East Africa and those under the Southern African Development Community [SADC] by 2016.”…

AUTOMOTIVE dealers in east Africa have welcomed a comprehensive trade deal, finalised earlier this month (Thursday Oct 16), between the European Union (EU) and the East African Community (EAC) as demand in EAC countries grows for European vehicles.

The deal is designed to boost trade, including automobiles and parts, between the two regions.…

One of the biggest expanding markets for cosmetics and personal care products is sub-Saharan Africa. A key exporter to the region, L’Oréal has estimated that the overall African beauty and personal care market generated EUR6.93 billion (USD8.61 billion) in 2012, growing at between 8% and 10% annually, compared to a global market growth rate near 4%.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) pharmaceutical manufacturers will benefit from two new free trade deals negotiated by the EU – with the East African Community (EAC) and Ecuador. The EAC deal covers the growing markets of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi – and will see these countries phasing out their import tariffs on EU exports over the next 15 years.…

GREATER integration and cooperation among African states is needed to boost business and investment in the cotton, textiles and apparel sector of the continent, a three-day industry conference in Nairobi, Kenya, was told.

The Origin Africa event from November 10-12 brought together clothing and textile industry players and experts heard that national cotton apparel and fabric sectors within Africa were duplicating products when a collaborative approach could be more effective.…

KENYA’S meat industry is worried that east Africa’s meat and livestock sector could suffer from the impact of subsidised European Union (EU) exports now a trade deal has been agreed between the EU and the East African Community (EAC).

Speaking days after an Economic Partnership Agreement (EAP) has been agreed between the two, Qalicha Wario, chief executive officer of the Kenya Livestock Marketing Council, warned: “I think that if they give a subsidy of 80% per cent [to EU farmers] it is not fair.”…

THE AMERICAN government has complained of delays by the outgoing European Commission that leaves office on November 1 regarding the authorisation of new bio-tech food products and ingredients for use in the European Union (EU). In a strongly worded message to the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) disputes settlement body, the US said that the EU had failed to leave decisions to regulatory committees acting on European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) advice.…

A comprehensive trade deal finalised Thursday (Oct 16), between the European Union (EU) and the East African Community (EAC), will boost trade, including textiles and non-wovens, between the two regions.

According to the agreement, tariffs on EU exports to markets in EAC members Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda will be 80% tariff free for the next 15 years.…

The European Union (EU) and the East African Community (EAC) finalised yesterday (Thursday) a comprehensive agreement to boost trade, including of food products, between their regions.
A new ‘economic partnership agreement’ will give food manufacturers in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda open access to the EU market.…

KENYAN knitwear exporters maybe the biggest knitting sector winners from a comprehensive trade deal struck between the European Union (EU) and the East African Community (EAC), which was finalised on October 16. It should boost trade between the two regions – including of yarns and knitted or crocheted clothing and fabrics.…

Plans to build a major textile factory in Ethiopia are closer to being realised for Chinese textile company, Jiangsu Lianfa Textile Co. Ltd, after a pre-investment plan to construct the USD500 million factory was finalised this month (September). 

Its decision to invest in the Horn of Africa country comes after making investment assessments in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.…

COUNTRIES lacking systems engineering capacity to boost their air traffic management by following international blueprints have been offered practical policy implementation kits by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

The launch was a highlight of ICAO’s first Global Aviation Cooperation Symposium (GACS), staged at its Montréal headquarters to assess synergies between technological developments across the civil aviation sector.…

Rapidly increasing continental air traffic has fuelled intense competition among east African countries in constructing and upgrading airport infrastructure. Indeed, investments could exceed USD1.7 billion in the next three years, according to Andrew Luzze, the executive director of the East African Business Council.…

Time was when energy projects funded by developed world institutions in poorer jurisdictions tended to be large – major power plants and large infrastructure projects. And while these have certainly had benefits, the value of smaller smarter investments in rural areas is increasingly appreciated.…

Chinese investment in sub-Saharan Africa’s textile processing sector is creating new capacity for finishing, but progress is uneven. Whilst China’s growing presence in the region is far from universally popular, industry figures consulted by International Dyer across the continent were generally positive about the trend.…

PLANS to exploit Malawi’s oil and gas potential are continuing apace despite a border dispute with neighbouring Tanzania that affects some of the exploration sites.

Geological investigations have indicated that conditions are favourable for oil and gas to exist beneath Lake Malawi and the Lower Shire Valley in southern Malawi, both part of the East African Rift System.…

Botswana’s first private university, the Malaysian-owned Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (Limkokwing Botswana), has continued to flex its muscles in this diamond-rich Southern Africa nation, taking advantage of a fast growing tertiary education sector. Botswana’s college and university student (aged 18-24) enrollment has grown from 11.4% in 2007/08 to 16.4% in 2012, or 46,613 students.…

AFRICA’S promising cotton sector needs to reinvent itself by adding value, because 65% of the crop it grows is exported as raw material, industry leaders are arguing.

Processors need to tap new technology and modernize its machinery, the Kenya- based African Cotton and Textile Industries Federation (ACTIF) chairman Jaswinder Bedi has said.…

A SALUTARY lesson learnt by the western world since the financial meltdown in 2008, is that there is no easy formula for ensuring economic growth. Despite the resilience of the United States and European institutions, markets and skills, restarting the economic engine has proved sluggish.…

BARACK Obama seems ready to accept an extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) for another 15 years before it expires in 2015, but sub-Saharan African textile manufacturers might have mixed feelings.

African ambassadors in Washington DC have been under strict instructions from their governments to lobby the United States Congress to renew the law, forming an ambassadors’ AGOA working group led by Ethiopian ambassador Girma Birru.…

ISLAMIC banks are big business in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, but not thus far in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), however, recently took a USD5 million, 15% equity stake in Kenya’s Gulf African Bank (GAB) to support corporate finance and lending to small and medium businesses – its first in the sub-Saharan Islamic bank sector.…

THE WORLD’S 49 least developed countries have been given another eight years to implement the intellectual property protection rules demanded by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This means that their governments have the freedom to choose whether to protect trademarks, patents, copyright, industrial designs, geographical indications and other rights, potentially harming pharma companies.…

THE WORLD Bank is funding a USD5.5 million project to help harmonise the pharmaceutical regulations of the five countries within the East African Community (EAC): namely Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Under the bank’s schedule, the African Medicine Regulatory Harmonisation Project should be completed by December 2014.…

EXPERTS representing accounting bodies from around the world urged accountants in Africa to help reduce corruption and mismanagement in their governments through effective bookkeeping and auditing, as the continent moves towards sustainable growth. The 2^nd Africa Congress of Accountants (ACOA) gathered in Accra, the capital of Ghana, from May 14-16.…

IF there is one paint ingredient that marketers agree should be left off the label, it has to be lead. General and scientific opinion agrees this metal causes health problems and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), working with the UN Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) has embarked on plans to eliminate architectural and household lead paints in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2020.…

THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has advised the European Union (EU) to launch a series of studies to help assess the risk of Rift Valley Fever being introduced to livestock and humans in north Africa and the Middle East, potentially threatening Europe.…

It is easy to show how vice-chancellors and other senior university officials can lead academic policy and programmes – because that is their job. The role of intellectuals and senior academics without formal power in leadership is harder to define. But some intellectuals are so prominent that they inspire change and development in academia – and such is the case with Professor Dr Mahmood Mamdani, the African historical, political and social commentator.…

BY JONATHAN DYSON, IN ADDIS ABABA

WITH Africa’s second largest population – around 85 million – and one of the world’s fastest-growing economies (expanding 7% annually over recent years), the potential of Ethiopia as a market for cosmetics products is beginning to be realised by the personal care products sector worldwide.…

BY WACHIRA KIGOTHI, IN NAIROBI, AND WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI

China’s powerful clothing and textile industry is looking for continued growth in sub-Saharan Africa, whose local manufacturers and brands are worrying about how to deal with the competition.

According to William Gumede, a senior research fellow at the University of Witwatersrand’s school of public and development management in South Africa, Chinese domination of Africa’s textile markets and its industry has promoted significant job losses.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Customs Organisation (WCO) has launched a crack-down on fraudulent medicines in 16 African countries, seizing more than 82 million doses of illegal pharmaceuticals worth more than USD40 million. A WCO note said: "These results are alarming…" Its officers worked with the Institute of Research against Counterfeit Medicines (IRACM) and 16 national customs administrations in raids called VICE GRIPS 2, targeting seaport containers in Angola, Benin, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Togo.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Customs Organisation (WCO) has launched a crack-down on illicit medicines in 16 African countries, which sparked the seizure of more than 82 million doses of illegal pharmaceuticals. The haul included antimalarial and anti-parasitic drugs, antibiotics, cough syrups, contraceptive pills and infertility treatments, worth more than USD40 million.…

BY ANDREW GREEN, IN KAMPALA

For publishers working in east Africa, textbooks spell survival, but two major western publishers have found recently that the ethical dilemmas of working in the region can be hard to navigate.

With fierce competition for those contracts and limited local oversight capacity, the industry is dogged by persistent rumors of requests for and payments of bribery, money paid to delay rival’s books and other forms of corruption.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, IN CAPE TOWN

SOUTH Africa has deposits of rare earth elements (REEs) to rival that of Australia, and the country is poised to take advantage of this increasingly strategic resource, according to Mintek, the government’s mineral technology organisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN ARM of the Oxford University Press (OUP) will pay GBP1.89 million through a UK High Court civil recovery order for illegally bribing Tanzanian and Kenyan officials to win school textbook contracts. The bribes were made through Oxford Publishing Limited’s (OPL) Kenyan and Tanzanian subsidiaries OUP East Africa and OUP Tanzania.…

BY ANDREW GREEN, WANG FANGQING, PAUL COCHRANE, JONATHAN DYSON AND CARMEN PAUN

THE POLITECNO di Milano, one of Italy’s most prestigious universities, will teach and assess most of its degree courses and all its postgraduate ones entirely in English from 2014, UWN reported recently.…

BY VILLEN ANGANAN, IN BEAU-BASSIN, MAURITIUS

INTERNATIONAL accounting firms are exploring opportunities within Africa, and are using the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius – a regional financial centre – as a stepping stone. All the Big Four: Ernst &Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG and Deloitte are already successfully offering their services to African clients.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UNITED Nations has continued to proactively encourage handwashing with soap, staging a Global Handwashing Day in October, with the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF organising events. It said 8 million children in India’s Rajasthan, more than 1 million children in Pakistan,1.7 million children in Afghanistan from 1,700 schools, plus 326,809 Eritrean children in 1,272 schools participated in handwashing events.…

BY WACHIRA KIGOTHO

RESEARCHERS studying mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are warning illegal uranium mining continues in a country still riven with political violence and weak government authority.

Indeed, militia groups and government soldiers continue to benefit from illegal uranium mining in the eastern DRC, claims Ms Nyambura Githaiga, a researcher with the Nairobi-based African Conflict Prevention Programme.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

IN a drive to combat the illegal exploitation of conflict minerals and create greater transparency of money flows between mining companies and governments, the European Commission is to table a new European Union (EU) law this autumn. It will ask large mining companies to reveal detail about their mining activities and associated financial transactions to shareholders.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IMPROVEMENTS are being made to Tanzania airports with the help of international organisation investment. The European Investment Bank (EIB) has developed plans to lend Euro EUR55 million to the Tanzania Airport Authority (TAA) to rehabilitate and improve facilities at five regional airports: Bukoba, Kigoma, Tabora, Shinyanga and Sumbawanga.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

THE POOREST countries in the world have an unprecedented opportunity to attract investment in the pharmaceutical sector, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The study stressed how large research and development-based pharmaceutical transnational corporations facing the expiration of blockbuster drug patents are entering into partnerships with profitable generic manufacturers in developing countries as a survival strategy.…

BY MARK GODFREY

THE HEADLINES said it all. Chinese newspapers have recently been heavy with editorials and op-ed pieces largely favourable to nuclear power: among them ‘This Is Not the End of Nuke Power’ a half-page op-ed in the China Daily, the preferred conduit of China’s official thinking to foreign diplomats and executives.…

BY BILL CORCORAN

Mozambique’s fledgling tobacco leaf industry faces tough challenges

Mozambique’s young tobacco leaf industry is growing despite sometimes difficult climactic conditions. It mainly grows Burley – which is under pressure from World Health Organisation guidelines. And Zimbabwe competition is a potential complication.…

BY JOHN K AGUNDA

IF there was one African country where a business forum on ethics was most appropriate, it might well be Tanzania, given its immediate post-independence history of socialism and self-reliance.

Those purist 1960s and 1970s days of former President Julius Nyerere and his ‘ujamaa’ leftism are now history, of course, with Tanzania, very much part of the gloablised liberal capitalist mainstream.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Bank’s 2009-10 Water and Sanitation media campaign encouraged hand-washing with soap among 20 million (potentially child-bearing) women aged 15-49 and children aged 5-9 in Peru, Senegal, Tanzania, and Vietnam, claimed an assessment. It added more than 800,000 people were also encouraged to wash their hands with soap through linked personal advice in these countries.…

BY ANDY HOLDER

THE INTERNATIONAL gold market may be relatively small, but the metal’s rapid rise in price in the past 18 months to over US dollars USD1,400/oz(up from USD900) has given fraudsters the opportunity they need to tempt investors with some pretty audacious offers to join the ‘gold bug’ club.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

SALES of new cars are still holding up surprisingly well despite the global downturn, but within a few years of their purchase, how many of them will be running on retread tyres?

The signs are that the market for retread and recycled tyres will grow, as world demand for rubber grows, particularly in China.…

BY MOHAMMED YUSUF

Aga Khan University plans major new Tanzania campus

Mohammed Yusuf

The Aga Khan University – the Pakistan-based international multi-site higher-education institution – is planning to open a new campus in Arusha, Tanzania. The campus would house an arts and science faculties and educate up to 3,000 students from across east Africa.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SIGNIFICANT benefits to tobacco and tobacco product companies will present themselves if a deal on the long-running Doha Development Round is clinched next year at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). And some diplomats at the WTO’s base in Geneva are asking if agreement is not reached next year, whether the current negotiations will be scrapped.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Bank is planning to sink US dollars USD57.5 million into three Tanzania regional airports: Bukoba, Kigoma and Tabora. The financing will be managed by the Tanzanian Airports Authority (TAA), which will itself be spending USD11.7 million on these projects.…

BY WACHIRA KIGOTHO

TO say Somalia is a mixed bag for the tobacco industry is an understatement. On the one hand, there is a very weak formal government, whose writ does not run in much of the country. So no public place smoking bans, advertising restrictions and ingredient controls to worry about in this east African country: tobacco is sold freely through a thriving private sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Bank has predicted "biofuels is unlikely to become a new source of growth for the cotton oil market". The verdict comes in a report analysing cotton by-product industries in Uganda, Tanzania, Benin, and Burkina Faso. The bank says other oils are likely to meet "the recent surge in demand for commodities used as feedstocks for biofuels".…

BY WACHIRA KIGOTHO

EAST Africa is developing as an important source of biofuels and biofuel feedstock, with governments keen to attract foreign direct investment for this potentially strategic rural development option.

Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Sudan, and Tanzania are countries where foreign companies are competing to acquire land for biofuel projects.…

BY AHMAD PATHONI, ALYSHAH HASHAM, MARK ROWE and KEITH NUTHALL

GIVEN the constant flow of news about tougher tobacco industry regulations from all continents, tobacco executives could be forgiven for thinking there are no countries where they have a relative free hand to sell their products.…

BY BILL CORCORAN and ALAN OSBORN

IT is now some five years since a group of London-based multinationals, among them British American Tobacco (BAT), set up a group aimed at improving the conditions for doing business with and through Africa – named the Business Action for Improving Customs Administration in Africa (BAFICAA) initiative.…

BY GEORGE STONE

GHANA, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are Africa’s latest upstream hotspots as major energy firms seek new provinces outside of regional heavyweight oil producers Nigeria and Angola. But jockeying for position has already led to friction between governments and the industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is claiming bio-pesticides can defeat locust infestation, having claimed success in fighting the destructive insect in Tanzania with the ‘Green Muscle’ pesticide. This includes spores of the fungus ‘Metarhizium anisopliae’ and a mixture of mineral oils.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

"THE STONE Age did not end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil," said Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani in 2003, former oil minister of Saudi Arabia. Six years on Mr Yamani’s words appear to ring true more than ever before – with alternative fuels becoming a viable petroleum substitute.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, JULIAN RYALL, in Tokyo, EMMA JACKSON and LEAH GERMAIN

TIME was when counterfeit personal care products were commonly crude fake perfumes pedalled in markets and workplaces during the Christmas and other festive periods to bargain hunters who knew they were buying rubbish.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A BOUNTY of cheap carbon free energy is lurking beneath many developing countries in the shape of geothermal power generation, with new technology making it cheaper and easier to source than ever before. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Kenyan power company KenGen have carried out a demonstration project testing advanced seismic and drilling techniques to make geothermal power plants cheaper to build.…

BY ALAN OSBORN and MONICA DOBIE

A SIMPLE surgical checklist to be introduced by the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) for major operations in the UK from February 2010 has been welcomed by Diane Gilmour, president of the Association for Perioperative Practice (AFPP).…

BY CLEMENCE MANYUKWE

ZIMBABWE tobacco farmer Kobus Joubert looks to the heavens gloomily as he prepares to sleep by the roadside next to his Chegutu farm. Those who know him say they have only seen that look when there is an impending drought.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, in Lilongwe, Malawi

THE WIDESPREAD implementation of new technological developments in Malawi’s flue-cured tobacco process could enable local producers to dramatically increase their output and its quality, according to industry experts.

Results from tests run during Malawi’s latest tobacco curing season using a new method of heating have shown a dramatic improvement in energy efficiency over standard methods, and an improved quality of the end product compared to traditionally cured tobacco.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

LARGE mining companies take the environment seriously today, maybe rather more than in times past. They are devoting significant resources to reducing or mitigating the environmental problems caused by mining. But what about the small and artisanal mines that pepper much of the developing world?…

BY BILL CORCORAN, in Lilongwe, Malawi

THE WIDESPREAD implementation of new technological developments in Malawi’s flue-cured tobacco process could enable local producers to dramatically increase their output and its quality, according to industry experts.

Results from tests run during Malawi’s latest tobacco curing season using a new method of heating have shown a dramatic improvement in energy efficiency over standard methods, and an improved quality of the end product compared to traditionally cured tobacco.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round moves towards completion, a big push is underway to see a wine and spirits geographical indication register established within final deal. A WTO special group for the issue met yesterday (Mon Dec 3) and supporters of the register pushed for full negotiations on the issue, ending technical discussions that have dragged on for years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round moves towards completion, a big push is underway to see a wine and spirits geographical indication register established within final deal. A WTO special group for the issue met yesterday (Mon Dec 3) and supporters of the register pushed for full negotiations on the issue, ending technical discussions that have dragged on for years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round moves towards completion, a big push is underway to see a wine and spirits geographical indication register established within final deal. A WTO special group for the issue met yesterday (Mon Dec 3) and supporters of the register pushed for full negotiations on the issue, ending technical discussions that have dragged on for years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

"TEA is known to be good for you, now it is also getting better for the environment:" so said UN Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Achim Steiner, when launching renewable power initiatives in east Africa. UNEP is coordinating two Global Environment Facility (GEF)-financed projects greening tea production in the region, where it is a pivotal industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SECURITY of nuclear power installations may be a priority in terrorism-fearing rich countries, but not in poorer states, with many other problems. But it is equally important of course: nuclear accidents, sabotage and terror attacks are devastating wherever they occur.…

BY MARK ROWE

A FUEL marker so complex that it is all but impossible for thieves to replicate has been developed by scientists; the marker is so sensitive, it can identify illegal stolen fuel by using nanotechnology-based components.
This nanotech-based tracer, developed by Authentix, a nano-science company based in Dallas, Texas, uses hand-held LSX-based technology, and which has already been taken up by Luke Oil, Shell and BP in the United States.…

BY MARK ROWE, in London
NANOTECHNOLOGY has huge implications for the oil and gas industry, according to leading scientists who attended a conference on the impact of this cutting edge science on the environment at the Royal Society in London. They stressed the technology offers the prospect of carbon emission reduction, resource use minimisation, hazardous chemical substitution, the chance to dramatically reduce fraud, and pollution reversal techniques.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
WITH every new piece of European Union (EU)-inspired road and vehicle-safety legislation brings a new opportunity to make and sell the kit to local authorities so that they can comply. Speed limiters may not be the newest story in safety equipment, but the requirements to fit them had a further boost on January 1 this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THERE is a large and growing list of regional money laundering organisations, with formal or informal links with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), so a question mark could hang over why the Commonwealth is getting involved in fighting dirty money.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

SUB-SAHARAN Africa’s biggest cotton producer Mali is mulling GM cotton trials, a development which could open up cheap cotton supplies for the textile and clothing trade.

But resistance from local farmers to high seed costs and tough times for existing GM cotton growers in South Africa – the only African country where GM is commercially grown – may mean that Africa’s potential as a key supplier is still some way off.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

CENTRAL bankers, drug barons, warlords, corporate bosses and small town crooks in Africa are all washing their money despite attempts by governments and international law enforcement agencies to bring them to book. But financial crime has never been as lucrative as now on the world’s poorest continent.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

AFRICA’S tobacco leaf producers are facing troubled times.

Instead of capitalising on crop and currency woes in rival Brazil, too many producers across the world’s poorest continent are battling drought and low selling prices.

Brazil’s problems should have opened a door of opportunity for leading African producers to claim back at least part of the world leaf market lost to south American and other producers when Zimbabwe’s crop collapsed amid the violent seizure of white-owned farm land.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

THE FORTEEN countries of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) have their AML/CFT work cut out. Under-funded, lacking resources, short of political will and working in a region that leaks money like a sieve…it is a demanding context for the group’s daunting tasks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, is the international organisation companies turn to when they want to invest in a jurisdiction where their assets might not be that safe. Non-ferrous metal miners and processors use MIGA to cover risks that are too tough for the private insurance industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, is the international organisation companies turn to when they want to invest in a jurisdiction where their assets might not be that safe. Mining companies have long used MIGA to cover risks that are too tasty for the private insurance industry, and the agency has issued 58 guarantees for the sector since it was formed in 1988.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A WELL-FINANCED international programme to remove stocks of obsolete pesticides from Africa has been launched, protecting communities from persistent organic pollutants. The first phase of the Africa Stockpiles Programme (ASP-P1) has now been approved by the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL team of scientists will cooperate for the next five years in a Euro 7 million research project developing odour traps and effective repellents to keep malarial mosquitoes away from potential human hosts. This Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative will unite US, Dutch, Tanzania and Gambia researchers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, is the international organisation companies turn to when they want to invest in a jurisdiction where their assets might not be that safe. Mining companies have long used MIGA to cover risks that are too tasty for the private insurance industry, and the agency has issued 58 guarantees for the sector since it was formed in 1988.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is staging regional training and research programmes to cut the thousands of gallons of milk spoiled in east Africa every week. It estimates that US$59.7 million dairy products are lost annually in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT could be the most underestimated commercial crime in the world, the illegal trade in wildlife and their products. Some estimates put its value at US$5 billion-a-year, but governments do not really seem to care. Keith Nuthall reports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE NEED to help developing countries acquire the software and technical know-how to interpret space imagery that boosts the environmental management of their territories has been examined at an international conference in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. This regional workshop on the use of space technology for natural resources management, environmental monitoring and disaster management, staged by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, the European Space Agency and the Sudanese government, heard an appeal from Tanzania for assistance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
Generally the application of geo-spatial technology for sustainable management of Tanzania’s forests and woodlands is still low. Thus, there is a big gap between developed countries and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in application of space science and technologies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NOBODY likes to be on a blacklist, especially one written by the American government. But every year, the US state department issues a comprehensive rogues gallery of countries involved in the narcotics trade and related criminal problems. One surprising entrant: the United States.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AFTER a long period of consultation, a comprehensive directive protecting the European Union’s (EU) groundwater reserves has been proposed by the European Commission, which would force Member States to establish and police locally sensitive pollution limits. The legislation would insist that national governments carefully monitor groundwater quality and take steps to reverse its pollution, where it has exceeded these self-imposed thresholds.…

BY RICHARD HURST
SOUTH African mining company AngloGold recently announced that it was seeking to divest from some of its Australian gold fields to continue other diversification efforts outside South Africa. AngloGold Australia ‘s general manager, Barrie Parker, said that the company’s current properties in the central Australian Tanami Desert, particularly the Coyote deposit, had been earmarked for sale in to raise money for AngloGold’s recent explorations in Ghana, Mongolia, Canada and South America.…

BY ALAN OSBORN and MARK ROWE, in London, MONICA DOBIE and PHILIP FINE in Montreal, MATTHEW BRACE in Brisbane, and RICHARD HURST in Johannesburg

Introduction

Europe

Cuts to EU catch quotas

New sources of fish

Affect on fish producers

Wild alternatives to cod

Farmed cod

North America

USA – Healthier local stocks

USA – Demand up

USA – Fish imports

Canada – Farmed fish exports

Canada – GM issues

Australasia

Australia – New wild sources

Australia – Aquaculture

Australia – Wild fish innovation

Australia and New Zealand – sustainability

South Africa – Export increase and conservation

Japan – Local and regional supply

Japan – Maintaining quality

Japan – Non-Asian sources

Introduction

ONCE it was said, cod was so abundant that fishermen in some parts of the world boasted they could walk on the backs of the fish to find their catch.…

BY RICHARD HURST
MONEY laundering is all about fake respectability, transforming the seedy and ill-gotten into the legitimate and well-earned; so in Africa, where better to launder criminal money than through the continent’s most developed economy, South Africa.

Mike Savage, partner at Ernst & Young South Africa, said that the biggest problem facing African governments wanting to seriously tackle money laundering is to pinpoint the movement of funds that are moved across porous borders in a bid to cover tracks and conceal sources.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ONE of Britain’s best-known food safety experts, Deirdre Hutton, has been appointed to the board of the newly formed European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Ms Hutton, who is chairman of the National Consumer Council, led a recent DTI panel on the Food Chain and Crops for Industry and was a member of the government’s Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food (the Curry report).…

BY RICHARD HURST
USA President George W. Bush has approved 35 African countries as eligible for tariff preferences regarding clothing and textile exports to America under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), with Zimbabwe and Gambia being notable sub-Saharan African pariahs from the move.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MORATORIUM in the trade of illegally exploited Congolese minerals has been proposed by a panel of experts, which has examined how the stripping of resources by foreign military forces has prolonged the ongoing war in the country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HOLISTIC global campaign against HIV/AIDS has been agreed by Rome-based UN agencies: the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Fund for Agriculture Development and the World Food Programme. The trio will work to minimise the effect on food production of AIDS epidemics in countries where the disease is particularly widespread, namely Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Bank and the European Investment Bank are to lend US$183 and Euro 55 million respectively to Tanzania, where the money will establish Songas, a privately owned and managed natural gas and power utility. The company will develop Tanzania’s natural gas field on Songo Songo Island and construct a 230 km pipeline to bring the gas to a power plant, which will be refurbished and converted to gas production.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FINLAND is the world’s most technologically advanced country, according to a United Nations Development Programme, (UNDP), report, which puts the UK at number seven in its league table, also behind the USA, Sweden, Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FINLAND is the world’s most technologically advanced country, according to a United Nations Development Programme, (UNDP), report, which puts the UK at number seven in its league table, also behind the USA, Sweden, Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands.…