Morocco Seeks to Defeat U.S. With Fifth Soccer World Cup Bid

Morocco Seeks to Defeat U.S. With Fifth Soccer World Cup Bid

CASABLANCA (Capital Markets in Africa) – It has campaigned unsuccessfully four times before and is the sole challenger to a formidable joint bid by the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Yet Morocco still believes it has a shot at hosting the 2026 soccer World Cup. At the campaign’s launch in Casablanca on Tuesday, Moroccan officials argued the country was located in a more convenient time zone for the majority of fans, while pledging not to exploit…

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U.S. Offers Mozambique Help as Attacks Roil Gas-Rich North

U.S. Offers Mozambique Help as Attacks Roil Gas-Rich North

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) – The U.S. government is offering Mozambique help to end fatal attacks by suspected militants in the gas-rich Cabo Delgado region, the top American diplomat in the country said. Police have arrested more than 300 people since October after raids in Mocimboa da Praia in the country’s northeast, the first of which targeted police stations and the government blamed on a “radical Islamic sect.” Sporadic attacks have continued, including this month on…

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Mnangagwa Urges Zimbabwe to Move on From Ndebele Massacres

Mnangagwa Urges Zimbabwe to Move on From Ndebele Massacres

HARARE (Capital Markets in Africa) – Zimbabwe’s new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is urging the southern African nation to put behind it one of its most painful episodes: the army’s massacre of as many as 20,000 people from the minority Ndebele ethnic group in the 1980s. Mnangagwa, who replaced Robert Mugabe as president in November, was minister of state security at the time of the killings that started in 1983, three years after independence from the U.K. Opposition leaders,…

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African Development Bank to Add $2 Billion to Nigeria Loans

African Development Bank to Add $2 Billion to Nigeria Loans

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The African Development Bank plans to increase its loans to Nigeria by more than $2 billion next year with investments in energy, infrastructure and agriculture, its President Akinwumi Adesina said. “The total portfolio we have in Nigeria is $6 billion,” Adesina said in a Jan. 18 interview in Abuja, the capital. “We expect that by the year 2019, we will grow that into a little bit over $8 billion.” The Abidjan, Ivory Coast-based…

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Eskom Suspended CFO Quits Before Facing S. African Lawmakers

Eskom Suspended CFO Quits Before Facing S. African Lawmakers

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa)  – The suspended chief financial officer of South Africa’s cash-strapped power utility resigned a day before he’s due to face a parliamentary inquiry on mismanagement of funds and two days after the government overhauled the company’s board. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. received a letter of resignation from Anoj Singh’s attorneys Monday, the Johannesburg-based electricity producer said by email. He resigned with immediate effect, it said. Eskom suspended Singh in late September…

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Infighting Plagues South Africa Opposition as Election Looms

Infighting Plagues South Africa Opposition as Election Looms

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa’s main opposition party is proving to be its own worst enemy as it bids to topple the ruling African National Congress from power in next year’s elections. Instead of capitalising on voter antagonism toward the ANC and President Jacob Zuma over a succession of scandals, the Democratic Alliance has stumbled, with its mayors’ performance drawing criticism in several of the biggest cities it runs, including Cape Town and…

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Zimbabwe May End Local Ownership Rule on Platinum, Diamonds

Zimbabwe May End Local Ownership Rule on Platinum, Diamonds

HARARE (Capital Markets in Africa) – Zimbabwe, which has the world’s second-biggest platinum reserves, may lift a requirement that companies mining the metal or diamonds must be at least 51 percent owned by black citizens of the country, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said. Mnangagwa, who became president in November after Robert Mugabe resigned under pressure from the military, has announced that the ownership requirement on all other minerals will be abolished. The government needs to assess its platinum and…

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