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.

South Africa’s dairy sector has been dealing with a triple whammy of low economic growth, the Covid-19 pandemic, and a spate of unrest in July in parts of the country that caused major damage to retail outlets and the spoilage and wastage of up to 1 million litres of milk.…

The higher education system in Equatorial Guinea has been trying to move studies online because of Covid-19, but students still struggle to get computers and an affordable and fast Internet.  

It is hard to ignore the socio-economic backdrop of Equatorial Guinea, Africa’s only independent Spanish-speaking country, when assessing its higher education.…

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.…

IT is maybe not a common occurrence for the tobacco industry to find itself on the right side of judicial rulings, but in December, South Africa’s Western Cape High Court ruled that a four-and-a-half month national ban on sales of tobacco products, justified to prevent the spread of Covid-19, had been unconstitutional.…

Covid-19 has ripped through the economy of the Indian Ocean country Mauritius, but it has helped island business advisory agency managing director Sheila Ujoodha make her case to clients that risk assessments and contingency planning are important.

The owner of SmarTree Consulting (SCL) since she created the company in 2018, Ujoodha is busy suggesting how businesses can cope with the pandemic, through its services of internal audit, risk assessment and regulatory consulting.…

IF there was a sub-Saharan African country expected to steer a middle course between World Health Organisation (WHO) demands on smoking and protecting a stable and prosperous tobacco industry and market, it would surely be relatively wealthy Botswana – with an average per capital income in 2018 USD7,750.…

AFRICA is commonly hailed as the world’s next big focus of economic growth, but for the civil aviation industry, this prospect will require significant investment in new intra-African routes and related airport and ATC infrastructure. It will also require governments to remove immigration barriers preventing African air travellers flying to other countries on their home continent.…

Gosego Motsamai, the new managing partner and country manager at KPMG Botswana, has blazed a trail by being the first woman to secure such a post in a Big Four firm within this dynamic emerging market country.

With 23 years’ experience, Motsamai still brims with passion for the profession and often works late into the evening to ensure deadlines are met, a tidy habit she has developed from her early days as an accountant.…

Refugees have welcomed an international initiative at Gulu University, in northern Uganda, that is equipping them with skills on agribusiness and micro-enterprise development, helping them become financially independent.

Gulu is one of two African universities implementing the Mastercard Foundation-funded Transforming African Agricultural Universities project whose goal is meaningfully contributing to Africa’s growth and development.…

*EU member states have been given temporary permission to use so-called reverse charge mechanisms to collect VAT, involving shifting liability to pay from suppliers to customers, to fight fraud. The EU Council of Ministers has approved a directive allowing governments to reverse charge VAT on domestic supplies of goods and services above EUR17,500 per transaction until June 2022, when a country is losing 25% or more of VAT to carousel fraud.…

THE POLITICAL career of Zimbabwe’s longtime President Robert Mugabe may have been consigned to history last November (2017), when he was forced from power, but the patronage system and corruption of his 38-year rule in Zimbabwe continues to be felt, both on the streets and in boardrooms.…

CHINA’S State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) aims to between 2016 and 2020 double domestic sales of premium cigarettes whose retail prices exceed Chinese Yuan Renminbi CNY200/carton of 10 packs (USD29.10), or CNY20 per pack, (‘category one’ in Chinese language), compared to 2011-2015 sales.…

SUB-SAHARAN Africa may not have been the most fertile ground for technological innovation in the clothing, textile and fibre sectors but speakers at an International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) conference in Nairobi, Kenya, September 7-9, stressed the best way ahead.…

EDUCATIONALISTS have called upon Kenyan universities to include social justice and transformation in their teaching curriculum, to prepare graduates to serve their societies selflessly and diligently.

At a conference called ‘Touching Hearts, Teaching Minds and Transforming Lives’, staged at Tangaza University College, in the capital Nairobi, delegates were told Kenyan students are not fully prepared for the society they are expected work and serve within, upon graduation in the current system.…

Zimbabwe’s parliament has approved new mining legislation and measures that reform controls imposed under the ex-President Robert Mugabe, with the goal of boosting production and wooing investors. The liberalising measures dovetail with declarations from new President Emmerson Mnangagwa that the country – which has extensive lithium and chrome deposits – is now open for business.…

For the first time since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980, the African country’s tobacco selling season opened on March 21 this year with long time ruler Robert Mugabe no longer in power.

Former President Mugabe resigned last November (2017), faced with impeachment proceedings from Zimbabwe’s lawmakers, with the country’s generals and his own ZANU-PF party having turned against him.…

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.…

*A newly approved European Union (EU) directive on transparency requirements for tax intermediaries will insist that accountants designing or promoting aggressive tax planning schemes report them to national tax authorities. The requirements, approved by the EU Council of Ministers, apply from July 1, 2020, and member states will have to fine intermediaries, including lawyers and bankers, that fail to report.…

THE IMPORTANCE of Brazil as the world’s top supplier of internationally-traded tobacco leaf and manufactured products has been waning for the past decade, with India, notably, improving its position. New statistical analysis released by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) shows that this market share fall for Brazil also represented a decline in volume sales, given the global trade in tobacco leaf and products has shrunk since 2013 – until 2016, the year for which the latest data is available.…

ZIMBABWE government plans to roll out a USD300 million livestock development programme aimed at resuscitating the country’s ailing meat production sector have prompted mixed reactions from industry experts. Agriculture minister Dr Joseph Made last week (June 22) announced this ‘Command Livestock’ scheme, saying it would be backed by financing from the Preferential Trade Area Bank, a development institution for southern and eastern Africa, and private financiers.…

Demand is growing for a major international programme designed to support developing countries build up their tax audit capacity and – critically – the funding is there to meet that need. Launched as a joint initiative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in July 2015 after an initial pilot phase, Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) sees tax experts work side-by-side with local officials in developing and emerging markets.…

TOBACCO has been among Zimbabwe’s foreign exchange earners for decades, and the country remains Africa’s top producer of the golden leaf, despite the disruption that its agricultural sector faced in the early 2000s.

These days, the country’s cash-strapped government is supportive and is pinning its hopes on tobacco exports to spearhead an elusive economic recovery.…

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.…

­­THE ZIMBABWE government has put in place a raft of measures to resuscitate the country’s weak textile industry, but players in the sector say lack of consultation, bureaucracy and the general economic hardship threaten full recovery.

The southern African country’s textile industry is operating between 30%-35% of its full capacity, and President Robert Mugabe’s government is keen to turnaround this key industry’s fortunes.…

THE ANCIENT Celts has a saying: “To the brave belong all things.” And in business, this remains true. Companies prepared to take big risks, can reap big spoils. But they can also stumble into disaster. Such calculations are always made when foreign companies consider trading or investing in so-called ‘failed states’ or those at risk of failure.…

THE MODERATION of growth across sub-Saharan Africa last year to 1.5%, (according to the World Bank), from an average 5-7% per annum in the previous 10 years, may signal that the region needs to firm up its financial professions and institutions to help preserve its recent economic gains.…

ZIMBABWE President Robert Mugabe has opened an upgraded Victoria Falls International Airport, built by development projects group China Jiangsu International, backed by a USD150 million loan from the Export-Import Bank of China. The renovated airport can now handle 1.5 million passengers annually, with a new international terminal building, 4 km runway, control tower, fire station, associated road networks, and a refurbished domestic terminal plus extended aircraft parking areas.…

Japan’s automobile manufacturers are increasingly looking to set up plants in – or, at least, very close to – their target markets, and paint companies with expertise in the auto coatings sector are following their lead.

“In 2015, the overall Japanese paints and varnishes market recorded 0.3 per cent growth, with producers struggling to remain competitive because production in Japan is pricier due to environmental requirements and higher labour costs,” said Andrius Balsys, a research analyst who monitors the paints sector for London-based market researcher, Euromonitor International.…

Paint and varnish manufacturers in Japan experienced a disappointing 2015, with sluggish purchasing from the construction and automotive sectors translating into meagre 0.3% growth over the fiscal year. Analysts predict that growth will pick up in the short term, in part as a result of a spike in demand from the construction sector ahead of Tokyo hosting the 2020 Olympic Games – although industry players are concerned about the longer-term outlook for the sector.…

China pharmaceutical industry investors want to help sub-Saharan African countries meet growing domestic demand for medicine in return for tax breaks and private-public partnership initiatives. But there are difficulties – including product quality and standards issues that impede the flow of Chinese Yuan into African pharma production.…

The scale of Zimbabwe’s reforestation programmes needs to vastly increase if they are going to counter the decimation of the country’s forests by the tobacco industry, a leading agricultural expert has warned.
Harare-based agriculture consultant Charles Taffs believes that if the current rate of deforestation continues without significant intervention, in less than seven years the 80,000 small-scale tobacco producers who supply the industry will have no wood left to burn for the leaf curing process.…

State -owned universities in Zimbabwe have started gearing for full commercialisation of their activities after the cash-strapped government warned it could cut its salary obligations to state higher education institutions by 50% in the near future.
Although there has been no official policy pronouncement from the Zanu-PF government, University World News has been told that its higher and tertiary education minister Oppah Muchinguri has advised vice chancellors from all state universities to start focusing on commercial projects.…

The Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring), Moscow’s financial intelligence unit (FIU), has singled out individual and commercial customers using Russian banks from 41 countries for special transactions reports. Among these countries on the “blacklist” are the U.S., Canada, the European Union (28 states), Australia, Norway, Iran, Syria, Sudan, New Zealand, Argentina, Mexico Switzerland, North Korea and Zimbabwe.…

Mwana Africa’s Zimbabwe subsidiary Bindura Nickel Corporation (BNC) says it is on course to restart its nickel smelter in the first half of this year as the nickel giant moves to increase revenue and cut operating costs. The company plans that it will initially produce high quality nickel cathodes, copper sulphide and cobalt hydroxide, processing 195,000 tonnes of ore per quarter year.…

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.”…

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%.…

THE FINANCIAL Action Task Force (FATF) has warned Iran it faces tighter international scrutiny of its financial services and dealings, should it fail to criminalise terrorist financing and boost its suspicious transaction reporting (STR) requirements.

In its latest assessment of jurisdictions failing to comply with FATF anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) recommendations, the global AML body singled out the Islamic republic, giving Tehran until February (2015) to make reforms, or face the consequences.…

The Zimbabwean government has been urged by a major domestic meat processor to take steps that will make local meat more price-competitive and attractive to external markets as it prepares to undertake a meat export drive.

Chief executive of Colcom, Theo Kumalo, argued that the government needed to address the problem of high stock feeds, which continue to inflate costs.…

The Zimbabwe government last week (Sept 11) announced a USD51.2million livestock support scheme in its mid-term policy review, with the goal of producing 400,000 tonnes of beef per annum by 2018, in line with the country’s economic blueprint, Zim Asset.

A key focus of the policy is to benefit 1.6 million household livestock farmers, who would, for example, be supplied with 500g of tick grease, 1 litre of de-wormer solution, and 500ml of wound medicine.…

Zimbabwe will soon start exporting beef to Russia, which continues to seek new supplies after banning imports from the USA and European Union (EU), the southern African country’s agriculture minister Joseph Made has said.

In an interview, Made said Russia will soon dispatch a technical team to Harare to examine beef export systems and checks, while exploring the potential for buying additional foodstuffs.…

The Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) is now operating at its permanent home in country’s Central District, having moved from temporary premises near the capital Gabarone.
The project, promoted by the country’s former president Festus Mogae, has been launched to boost science, engineering and technology degree programmes within Botswana, boosting the quality of its labour force.…

THE WORLD’S tobacco trade is not always a straightforward affair, being held up by export and import licence applications, port dues, quality checks, corruption and unusual red tape. A new World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Trade Facilitation, struck last December, is designed to ease some of these difficulties.…

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.…

SUB-SAHARAN African makers of cosmetics and personal care products are profiting from a growing and increasingly stable regional market, where economic growth is increasing demand for personal luxuries.

A report, ‘Business in Africa – Corporate Insights’ by Dianna Games, Standard Bank South Africa estimates that more than half of Africa’s population would be living in urban areas by 2030 and 60% by 2050, when the population would be about 2.4 billion, compared to 1 billion now.…

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.…

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is seeking special powers to combat the country’s deep-seated epidemic of corruption; this while the country is gripped with severe economic problems, marked by shortages of consumer goods and a lack of foreign currency vital to the business sector.…

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.…

CHANGE is coming to Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda International Airport, with the Zambian government embarking on an ambitious airports renewal programme, which will renovate Kenneth Kuanda International, along with three other international airports. These are Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula International Airport, in Livingstone; the Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International Airport, in Ndola and the Mfuwe International Airport, in the country’s eastern province.…

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 POORNA RODRIGO

A WAVE of high profile corruption cases and a growing range of commercial crimes have swept the South Asian archipelago of Maldives. Some cases have prompted Interpol red notices while others have run into long-drawn court battles, hurting investor confidence.…

BY ANDREW GREEN, IN KAMPALA

Uganda is undergoing a higher education boom. The result of introducing universal primary education in 1997 and universal secondary education a decade later is a surplus of students looking for a university placement. Uganda’s 30 public and private universities offer 50,000 spots for qualified secondary school graduates.…

BY GEORGE STONE, IN CAPE TOWN

It is part of the accountancy profession’s faith that good honest financial reporting and dealings can promote economic growth because of the commercial trust that it engenders. And maybe nowhere can the case be made more strongly than in Africa.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, IN CAPE TOWN; MOHAMMED YUSUF, IN NAIROBI; AND KEITH NUTHALL

A BOOK launched at last December’s Durban international climate change conference has focused on the growing potential for sugar to be a biofuel feedstock in Africa. ‘Bioenergy for Sustainable Development and International Competitiveness:

The Role of Sugar Cane in Africa’ was written by 44 authors representing 30 organisations in 16 countries and was published by Routledge.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, IN NEW DELHI

THE INDIAN government is considering lifting its 25 year ban on issuing new asbestos mine licences, Industrial Minerals can reveal. A senior government mining official said in an exclusive interview that "the matter is under consideration"

BP Sinha, deputy director general of the Indian Bureau of Mines, based in Nagpur, Maharashtra, told Industrial Minerals that the central Ministry of Mines is exploring the possibility of reopening the asbestos mines, now mining companies have access to better technology for ensuring the health and safety of the workers.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, WACHIRA KIGOTHO, PAUL COCHRANE; and KEITH NUTHALL

SUB-SAHARAN Africa has always been regarded as a problem zone for air traffic control, with weak states struggling to provide the sophisticated and flexible communications required for state of the art ATC.…

BY CLEMENCE MANYUKWE

Zimbabwe tobacco output is bouncing back after a decade of decline; but can the country sustain growth in the industry?

After nearly ten years of plummeting production due to controversial agrarian reforms by Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, the African country’s tobacco output has finally surpassed the 100 million-kilogram mark for the second year running.…

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 MARK GODFREY

IF uranium suppliers are looking for reasons to feel confident that China will continue its hunt for nuclear fuel supplies worldwide, they should remember how deeply the country is invested in this process. Indeed, it has been a sign of how hungry China has become for uranium that even private firms in this officially communist country are being allowed to hunt for overseas uranium assets.…

BY MARK GODFREY

IT is a sign of how hungry China has become for uranium that even private firms here are being allowed hunt for overseas uranium assets. New to the uranium market, Sichuan-based conglomerate Hanlong Energy joined a string of state-run procuring companies late last year when it invested US dollars USD5 million in Australia’s Marenica to dig for uranium in Namibia.…

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 Alyshah Hasham, International News Services

The UK is by no means an exception to this trend. A recent study from the University of Plymouth concluded that the most dangerous climate-change linked threat to Britain’s environmental health could be vector borne diseases (such as Leishmaniasis – carried by the sand fly) which could spread to new areas because of warming temperatures.…

BY ALYSHAH HASHAM

AS negotiators at the recent United Nations climate change conference in Cancun wrapped up their work, one problem concentrating minds enough to secure a partial deal was the spread of disease on the coat-tails of global warming. Infectious diseases are spreading to regions where they were previously absent, driven by warmer temperatures and changing rainfall patterns.…

BY ALYSHAH HASHAM

AS negotiators at the recent United Nations climate change conference in Cancun wrapped up their work, one problem concentrating minds enough to secure a partial deal was the spread of disease on the coat-tails of global warming. Infectious diseases are spreading to regions where they were previously absent, driven by warmer temperatures and changing rainfall patterns.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and ALYSHAH HASHAM

CANADA – long a difficult jurisdiction for the tobacco sector – became tougher still on July 5, when a national ban on manufacturing and selling most flavoured cigarettes, cigarillos and blunt wraps came into force.…

BY ALISON MOODIE

THE SOUTHERN African knitwear industry has taken a serious knock over the past decade. Tough Chinese competition, a global recession and as regards the regional powerhouse South Africa – an overvalued currency – these are just some of its problems.…

BY CLEMENCE MANYUKWE

AFTER being allocated a piece of land in the year 2000 as part of the country’s controversial and often violent land reform, it has taken nearly a decade for small scale tobacco farmer Tendai Dambanjera to commercially justify the claim of what he says is his ancestral land.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON, PACIFICA GODDARD, GAVIN BLAIR and KEITH NUTHALL

NEW technologies devour new resources and the move towards hybrid and electric vehicles could make some currently impoverished countries rich. As the world moves away from fossil fuels, the soft metal lithium will become increasingly in demand as a critical component of auto batteries for green cars.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON, PACIFICA GODDARD, GAVIN BLAIR and KEITH NUTHALL

NEW technologies devour new resources and the move towards hybrid and electric vehicles could make some currently impoverished countries rich. As the world moves away from fossil fuels, the soft metal lithium will become increasingly in demand as a critical component of auto batteries for green cars.…

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 PACIFICA GODDARD

CIGARETTE MARKET

With a population of 192 million, Brazil is among the top 10 cigarette markets in the world. In 2008, 91.09 billion sticks were sold, valued at US$8.58 billion according to Abifumo, the Brazilian tobacco manufacturers association.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A KILLER disease is decimating fish stocks in the Zambezi river valley, threatening rural livelihoods in Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned. Its ‘global information and early warning system’ (GIEWS) says the disease ‘epizootic ulcerative syndrome’ (EUS) (caused by a fungus ‘aphanomyces invadans’ with "a high rate of mortality") is spreading through the Zambesi system.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH

WHISTLEBLOWER MEP Paul van Buitenen, who is standing down from the European Parliament in June, will shortly apply to re-join his previous employer, the European Commission, following an unpaid leave of absence for the past five years.

Under its personnel rules, the Commission must take back former officials who left to serve on the parliament.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

UNITED Nations experts have said the global food price crisis continues, despite the global recession and linked oil price falls. Economists from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) told a World Trade Organisation agriculture committee meeting its global food price index is still 51% higher than in September 2006, albeit at its lowest for nine months.…

BY CLEMENCE MANYUKWE

SHYLETTE Chifamba, 38, works for 12 hours each day at Harare’s Baines Avenues Clinic, one of the country’s elite private hospitals. Mrs Chifamba has worked for 13 years as an operating theatre nurse, five of which were at the government-run Harare Central Hospital, where she was also trained.…

BY CLEMENCE MANYUKWE

"DO not shake hands with anyone," Ropafadzo Hunduru, a city health worker bellowed into his loud hailer early last month in Chitungwiza town in Zimbabwe. Hunduru was warning residents in the face of a cholera outbreak that claimed the lives of four people with city authorities saying they were verifying the death of eight others.…

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 CLEMENCE MANYUKWE

"IMAGINE a country with no Coca Cola," a headline in Zimbabwe’s weekly independent newspaper the Financial Gazette asked its readers recently.

The article quoted from the Bible, Proverbs chapter 31 verse 7 that reads: "Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more", aptly summing up the drinking patterns in a nation where poverty is widespread due to a current world record inflation of 11.7 million % (and rising).…

By Eric Lyman in Rome

There are problems in the world that cannot be confronted with any success by a single state, no matter how powerful. Big environmental issues and world hunger and poverty immediately come to mind, along with many regional peacekeeping needs and most economic and trade-related problems.

Enter multilateralism, the consensus-driven process that democratically pulls countries together for collective problem solving, usually under the auspices of an umbrella organisation such as the United Nations or the World Trade Organisation.

Multilateralism has been hailed as the natural evolution from the bipolar world order that marked the period after World War II – with influence split between the camps of US and the Soviet Union – and the unipolar order based on the power and influence of the US since the end of the Cold War.…

BY BILL CORCORAN

WITH a crippled economy, inflation running at over 2.2 million per cent and a government partial to confiscating the assets and local operations of foreign companies when it sees fit, doing business in Zimbabwe is undoubtedly a risky undertaking.…

BY LUCY JONES, in Dallas; ALAN OSBORN, in London; KARRYN CARTELLE, in Tokyo; BILL CORCORAN, in Johannesburg; PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut; RACHEL JONES, in Caracas; MARK ROWE; and KEITH NUTHALL

WITH the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round being slow to proceed since its 2001 launch – and only this year approaching something resembling and end game – free traders wanting to encourage global commerce have looked to bilateral and regional trade deals.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, in South Africa

SOUTH Africa is in a race against time to ensure the country’s

burgeoning economy is not crippled by fuel shortages, forcing its oil and gas companies to innovate to ensure security of supply, notably from neighbouring countries.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, at Lake Kariba, Zambia

THE SIGHT of thousands of decomposing semi-submerged trees protruding from its murky waters is an eerie clue to the traumatic origins of southern Africa’s Lake Kariba, a 200km long manmade reservoir wedged between Zimbabwe and Zambia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IT is common currency amongst extreme British Eurosceptics that business and government on the continent of Europe is a cesspit of dishonesty and corruption, against which Britain shines like a beacon of virtue and decency.

Allowing "Europeans" who lack Britain’s traditional sense of fair play and transparency control over the laws and regulations mandated by the "Mother of Parliaments" is heresy to such folk.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, in Johannesburg
AS Zimbabwe descends further into economic and political meltdown the country’s ruling elite are continuing to enrich themselves through fraud, theft and bribery. Bill Corcoran reports from Johannesburg.

UNLIKE politically stable countries where large scale commercial crime is just as likely to occur in the private sector as it is in the public, troubled Zimbabwe’s major fraudsters and thieves are today predominantly found in state run companies or government departments.…

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

ONGOING recruitment of South African nurses to the UK is pushing South Africa’s already hard pressed public health system close to the brink of collapse and putting patient care at risk, the country’s lead nursing union and health experts have warned.…

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 RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg

THE PAINT and coatings industries in the Southern African states of Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zambia are closely linked to that of the regional economic giant South Africa in the that the major manufacturing plants are located in the industrialised area of South Africa’s Gauteng province with branch offices in the neighbouring states acting as agents for the parent companies in South Africa.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LATEST World Health Organisation (WHO) figures on HIV/AIDS indicate some heavily afflicted countries are seeing infection rates fall. Kenya and Zimbabwe are among those with declining infections: amongst all adults in Kenya, from 10% in the late 1990s to 7% in 2003; and among pregnant women in Zimbabwe falling, from 26% in 2003 to 21% in 2004.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS in Johannesburg

DROUGHT-HIT and AIDS-ravaged southern Africa is faced with a looming humanitarian crisis with almost 12 million people in need of food aid. But genetically modified (GM) crops remain off the menu for most African governments who remain reluctant to allow their farmers to do business with GM giants Monsanto and Syngenta.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LATEST World Health Organisation (WHO) figures on HIV/AIDS indicate some heavily afflicted countries are seeing infection rates fall. Kenya and Zimbabwe are among those with declining infections: amongst all adults in Kenya, from 10% in the late 1990s to 7% in 2003; and among pregnant women in Zimbabwe falling, from 26% in 2003 to 21% in 2004.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

DROUGHT-HIT and AIDS-ravaged southern Africa is faced with a looming humanitarian crisis with almost 12 million people in need of food aid. But genetically modified (GM) crops remain off the menu for most African governments who remain reluctant to allow their farmers to do business with GM giants Monsanto and Syngenta.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg

THE PAINT and coatings industries in the Southern African states of Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zambia are closely linked to that of the regional economic giant South Africa in the that the major manufacturing plants are located in the industrialised area of South Africa’s Gauteng province with branch offices in the neighbouring states acting as agents for the parent companies in South Africa.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HIV and AIDS are savagely shrinking life expectancy rates in southern Africa, said the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In Zambia, 32.7% HIV infection rates for adults aged 15-49 has cut average mortality ages from 47.4 in 1990 to 32.7 in 2002.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HIV and AIDS are so-ravaging southern Africa that local life expectancy rates are tumbling to where 30-year-olds are considered old men. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has reported cataclysmic falls in life expectancy in Zambia, where 32.7% HIV infection rates for adults aged 15-49 has cut average mortality ages from 47.4 in 1990 to 32.7 in 2002.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALL but one of the commonly used forms of asbestos have been added to a United Nations blacklist, enabling countries to block further imports without being challenged in global tribunals such as the World Trade Organisation. Amosite, actinolite, anthophyllite and tremolite were added to the Rotterdam Convention Prior Informed Consent (PIC) list by an intergovernmental negotiating committee, meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SUPERMARKET boom in sub-Saharan Africa is raising standards in food production and distribution, which many small producers struggle to meet, said the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It says the growth of mass retail in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland is having “a direct impact on the lives of millions of small farmers.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FOOT and Mouth Disease has broken out in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland East province, an area of the country free of FMD since 1989 and from where farms have been allowed to export their beef. The Organisation International des Épizooties has reported 485 cases.…

BY RICHARD HURST
THE SOUTH African tobacco sector is surviving despite the unfavourable conditions imposed by its government and an increasingly hostile marketing environment. Nonetheless, the industry contributes Rand 5.5 billion in excise and tax to the government exchequer, equivalent to a quarter of the nation’s health care expenditure.…

BY RICHARD HURST
TENDERS for dam construction, building and upgrading main access roads and bridge construction have been awarded for Anglo American’s first Zimbabwe platinum project, the Unki mine. AA has not yet released the names of the successful companies, beyond saying that they have a “strong black South African economic empowerment component.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS with many projects inspired by the start of the next 997 years and the last three, the framing of the United Nations’ (UN) Millennium Development Goals was an ambitious enterprise.

Imposing statistically measurable targets for international organisations and national governments in making improvements in global poverty, education, gender equality, health, the environment and education, they have proved tough to attain.…

BY MARK ROWE
WARS are usually fought over coveted resources, such as oil, diamonds or fertile land. Now water, the most indispensable of mankind’s needs, is seen as the resource which may spark the armed conflicts of the 21st century.

Indeed, United Nations (UN) cultural and scientific organisation UNESCO is stepping up efforts to calm tension in some of the world’s most water-stressed areas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT is rare that an international organisation report on a scandal involving crime, corruption, war and environmental degradation names and shames high profile companies, but that is what is contained within the latest United Nations (UN) Security Council report on the Congo.…

BY RICHARD HURST
THE MANAGING Director of Zimbabwe Platinum has welcomed several incentives recently introduced by the Zimbabwean government that are designed to assist the platinum group metals industry develop in the country.

Roy Pitchford, managing director of Zimbabwe Platinum said that he was confident that investors would have a safe return on investments despite the political and economic uncertainty surrounding the rule of president Robert Mugabe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
*A supermarket boom in sub-Saharan Africa is raising food production and distribution standards, which many small farmers cannot meet, said the UN’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It called for the funding of cooperatives, micro-loans and training, especially in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONSERVATIONISTS have welcomed a controversial United Nations (UN) report identifying wealthy western companies allegedly involved in wartime projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) they say may endanger rare great apes.

It says Barclays Bank, diamonds giant De Beers, British mining corporation Anglo American, Belgian bankers Fortis, South African miners Iscor, and the United Arab Emirates’ Standard Chartered Bank and 79 other companies have broken OECD multinational good behaviour guidelines by their association with mining, logging or road building in the Congo.…

BY RICHARD HURST
THE ZIMBABWE subsidiary of the Rio Tinto Zinc group has announced that it has finalised a study to determine the feasibility of developing a US$35 million open cast diamond mine in the south west of the country. Aaron Mudhuwiwa, spokesman for the company, said that confirmed deposits have two medium sized pipes and a smaller one.…

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 KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is facing a mass attack on its sugar export subsidies at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). They have been formally challenged by both Australia and Brazil, with the Ivory Coast, Congo, Madagascar, Columbia, Canada, Kenya, Barbados, India, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Jamaica, Swaziland, Fiji, Guyana and Mauritius expected to line up behind them in support.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FINANCIAL restrictions should be imposed on companies, businessmen, ministers and soldiers charged with involvement in the shameless plundering of the mineral resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a United Nations (UN) committee established to investigate the problem has concluded.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
THREE software programmes developed by Australia’s Cooperative Research Centre for Mining Technology and Equipment are enabling mines to make better use of powerful geo-sensing techniques. By providing a cheap and easy way to process and interpret data, the programmes are removing impediments to the use of tools that provide much greater geological certainty.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
CIGARETTES have changed a great deal in recent years though not all smokers may realise by just how much. Once it was commonplace to roll your own, using local tobaccos. Today the market is dominated by filters and international brands, many of them ranking among the world’s best-known consumer products.…

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 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 RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
THE UNITED States’ House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to double the quota of clothing and textile products that a group of African countries can export to the US duty free, increasing them from 1.5 per cent of overall US imports to three per cent.…

BY RICHARD HURST
THE SOUTH African government is reported to be considering a proposal by Zimbabwe and Mauritius for the removal of clothing and textile tariffs to be brought forward from the year 2006 to 2004.

The two countries have also asked the Department of Trade and Industry in Pretoria to amend its rules of origin, to speed up the implementation of the existing Southern African Development Community, (SADC), agreement.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
THE SOUTH African government is considering a request from Zimbabwe and Mauritius to expedite the removal of tariffs on textiles and clothing imports from their countries. The existing agreement in the Southern African Development Community, (SADC), caters for the removal of such tariffs by the year 2006.…