International and Switzerland-based mining major Glencore has settled UK bribery cases brought by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), accepting a GBP280.9 million (USD314.5 million) penalty ordered by Southwark Crown Court, London.

This followed an SFO investigation revealing that Glencore Energy UK had paid USD29 million in bribes to gain preferential access to oil in Africa between 2011 and 2015.…

INTRODUCTION 

With the textile industry under pressure from consumers, regulators and standards to become more sustainable, companies are looking at all aspects of the supply chain – including upstream to fibre production. Digitalisation has a key role to play here, especially in supplier countries where the use of such technology is weak – such as in Africa.…

Glencore Energy (UK) has been convicted on seven charges of international bribery under the UK Bribery Act 2010, including two of corporate failure to prevent bribery. In a case brought by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), at Southwark Crown Court on June 21, Glencore admitted to multiple counts of paying bribes in Africa to secure preferential access to oil and generate illicit profit.…

While the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a shadow of its former self in the Middle East, it has spawned global affiliates and is still very much in business, posing ongoing terrorist financing threats.

At the peak of its power as a self-declared Islamic Caliphate in 2015, ISIS controlled around a third of Syria’s territory and 40%of Iraq, with some 7.7 million people under its rule.…

Switzerland-based multinational mining and energy group Glencore will pay almost USD1.2 billion in fines and penalties to the US, UK and Brazil for corrupt and dishonest trading, including bribing African officials and illicitly manipulating oil market prices.

With prosecutorial investigations continuing in the Netherlands and Switzerland, Glencore said yesterday (Tuesday 24/5) that it would set aside USD1.5 billion to settle all cases relating to this malpractice.…

Cigar sellers are exploring the potential offered by southern Africa’s two Portuguese-speaking countries, Angola and Mozambique, not only as sustainable growth markets, but also as African cigar production centres. Both countries have tobacco production and growing traditions that date back well into the Portuguese colonial times that ended with independence in 1975.…

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 under-developed system of higher education of African archipelago country São Tomé & Príncipe is growing slowly amidst expanding demand, being assisted by international projects and funds.
One major potential initiative that may cause significant progress, however, involves this Lusophone country being chosen by the Pan African Institute for Development (PAID) to host a future International University of Development Sciences.…

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. …

BRITISH and European Union (EU) confectioners must take care to ensure their products meet new origin rules if they want them covered by the duty free goods provisions of the new EU/UK trade agreement struck on Christmas Eve.

The 1,256-page deal includes complex and comprehensive origin rules, such as for chocolate, which can be deemed made in the EU and Britain if all dairy, eggs and honey used are sourced locally, as well as at least 40% of grains, malt, starches and wheat, (which must also not exceed 30% of costs).…