Features

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – This essay is going to scare you. There is a better-than-average chance that, at some point in the last several years, your personal information was stolen. Not something small like a credit card account, but the good stuff, your Social Security number coupled with your birthdate. In fairness to thieves, we have all made this very easy for them to do. You and I hand over this information…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – With arable land declining and the population soaring, countries along the the Sahara’s southern border face humanitarian disaster. Strong and sustained global growth has enabled living standards throughout most of the world to converge on an upward course. Even throughout Africa, the world’s poorest continent, there have been drastic improvements in health, education and governance. Countries such as Ethiopia and Tanzania are seeing the start of industrialization. Yet a few parts of the world…

HARARE (Capital Marketds in Africa) – Zimbabweans are relying on Tesla Inc. to help them pay their bills. Amid power outages of as long as 18 hours a day, Econet Wireless Ltd., Zimbabwe’s biggest mobile-phone operator, is turning to the Palo Alto, California-based automaker and storable-energy company for batteries that can keep its base stations running. The southern African country faces chronic shortages of physical cash, so almost all transactions are done digitally, and many via mobile phones….

LONDON (Capital Marketds in Africa) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “do or die” pledge to exit the European Union by Oct. 31 has increased the likelihood for the hardest form of Brexit, one with no deal in place at all. Without a formal withdrawal accord at the time of the divorce, the U.K. will lose frictionless, duty-free access to the EU, the world’s largest trading bloc. The U.K.-EU trade relationship would immediately revert to commercial rules negotiated…

LONDON (Capital Marketds in Africa) – Boris Johnson’s summer is over. The week that could determine how long he remains prime minister — and how or whether Britain leaves the European Union — is about to begin. The rules of the U.K.’s unwritten constitution are being stretched to the limit, with new precedents being set and cries of foul play arising nearly every day. Johnson’s goal is to stay in power by uniting hard-line Brexit…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – A Scottish judge refused to block Boris Johnson’s plan to suspend Parliament, dealing a blow to lawmakers who argued that there isn’t enough time to thwart a no-deal Brexit. Judge Raymond Doherty in Edinburgh held off granting an emergency injunction against the prime minister’s plan, saying that there is time to hold more hearings on the issue next week. A Belfast court on Friday also put off a decision on…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Senior Tories seeking to stop the U.K. leaving the European Union without a deal and thwart Boris Johnson’s move to suspend Parliament from the middle of next month stepped up their preparations for a showdown with the prime minister next week. Oliver Letwin, the former minister leading efforts in Parliament to stop a no-deal Brexit, said he’s confident he has a plan that will work around the suspension, while ex-Prime…