Features

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – The U.K.’s opposition Labour Party said it’s already drafted laws to nationalize water and energy utilities as the prospect of a general election looms. Taking control of energy transmission and distribution networks as well as water companies will help bring down bills for consumers and allow the government to pursue a strategy to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Rebecca Long-Bailey, the party’s business spokeswoman, said on Sunday. “We’ve got the legislation…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – The white-haired Supreme Court judge leaned forward with a stern look, interrupting a lawyer who argued that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s suspension of Parliament was unlawful. Justice Nicholas Wilson was miffed at Ronan Lavery for describing the Brexit risks to peace in Northern Ireland. That exposed the decade-old court to an accusation it’s been at pains to disprove: that it has become a player in the U.K.’s political arena. Played…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Boris Johnson will start a week of intense diplomacy on Monday, as he tries to push for a Brexit deal on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The British prime minister will hold meetings this week with all the key players — Germany’s Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and European Council President Donald Tusk. He will try to persuade them to renegotiate the divorce…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Could Boris Johnson break the Brexit impasse by binding Northern Ireland — rather than all of the U.K. as pushed by his predecessor — closely to the European Union until another arrangement was reached? On one hand, Johnson has ruled it out. On the other hand, he’s floated the idea of an all-Irish food zone as a way of avoiding checks along the frontier between Ireland, which is part of the…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – The agonizing effort to leave the European Union is taking up every breath of U.K. politics, so most people haven’t taken note of the 10th anniversary of one of the root causes of the country’s discontent. In September 2009 a group of researchers, academics, and management consultants hired by a think tank led by a Conservative Party grandee published its recommendations for simplifying Britain’s complex social security system. It…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria’s biggest tomato plant is counting on the government’s restriction of food imports to sustain operations after going idle again six months after it resumed operations from an almost three-year shutdown. When Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, decided to set up the plant, it was with the clear goal of supplanting imports of tomato paste mostly from China but that has suffered setbacks. Currently, the 1,200-ton-a-day tomato-processing factory near the…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee split over the Trump administration’s plan for freeing Fannie Maeand Freddie Mac from federal control, a sign of the uphill battle Congress faces in overhauling the mortgage giants. Idaho Republican Senator Mike Crapo, the banking panel’s chairman, said his preference is for lawmakers to take the lead on freeing the companies from federal control, but added that the administration should…