Features

HARARE (Capital Markets in Africa) Zimbabwe hired U.S. lobbyists linked to President Donald Trump’s 2016 election race in a bid to have sanctions it says are hindering its economy scrapped. The southern African nation, where the economy has all but collapsed after a series of disputed elections, took on Ballard Partners Inc. — run by Brian Ballard, a fundraiser for Trump’s campaign — according to Nick Mangwana, Zimbabwe’s secretary for information. Trump renewed sanctions against a number of Zimbabwean individuals and…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – A retired Swiss oil executive who previously said he had knowledge of illicit dealings over a Nigerian oil block involving Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA reversed his statements at a trial in Milan Wednesday. “I’ve never had contact with Shell,” ex-executive Richard Granier-Deferre said. “I’ve never had relations with people from Eni in my entire career.” The trial centers on Oil Prospecting License 245, offshore Nigeria, which has snowballed into one…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – It’s been a long 16 months for investors who were devastated when global retailer Steinhoff International Holdings NVshocked markets with its accounting scandal, but now South African police and regulators are finally saying their investigations have progressed. With four separate cases lodged, the police’s serious commercial crimes unit has taken 21 statements to probe potential fraud and theft involving Steinhoff directors. While the cops are closing in, South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct…

ALGIERS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Arab Spring-style protests have rocked Europe’s third-biggest natural gas supplier. Thousands of young Algerians have taken to the streets, fed up with an octogenarian president who’s been in power for 20 years and a weak economy that doesn’t generate enough jobs. While the rare public display of dissatisfaction has sparked a political crisis in the authoritarian state, the country’s energy exports haven’t been disrupted. What’s going on in Algeria?…

ALGIERS (Capital Markets in Africa) – When the Arab Spring rolled across North Africa in 2011, it seemed almost to skip over Algeria. Although the country was ripe for revolution — like its neighbors, it had the combustible combination of chronic youth unemployment and corrupt, repressive leadership — the protests there were almost desultory in comparison with demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt. As a result, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika did not suffer the fate of his…

TRIPOLI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Libya needs more help from the United States to overcome its political divisions, the country’s interior minister said, warning that Islamic State was taking advantage of the chaos to regroup. While the Washington-backed fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has reduced the territory the self-styled “caliphate” holds, its militants are using the Libyan desert to regroup despite a 2016 U.S.-backed anti-terror campaign that pushed them from the…