Features

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Several senior members of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s official opposition, have considered breaking away to form a new party because of disputes about its policy direction, according to people familiar with the matter. Some officials are concerned by the adoption of policies that shift it away from liberal roots ahead of national elections on May 8, including a “Secure our Borders” campaign that analysts say is a populist appeal…

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) – Tropical Cyclone Kenneth continued to grow stronger as it swirled toward the coast of Mozambique, where Anadarko Petroleum Corp. has halted all flights to and from its liquefied natural gas site. Mozambican authorities declared a “red alert” in Cabo Delgado province as they prepared to evacuate people from the northern region. Relief agencies in the country are already stretched as they deal with the aftermath of Cyclone Idai, which struck…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa’s Labor Department said it intends to deregister one of the country’s biggest and most aggressive mining unions, just weeks before crucial platinum-industry wage talks are expected to begin. A relative upstart compared with the more-established National Union of Mineworkers, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union has shaken up the country’s mining industry over the past decade. It gained prominence in a dispute at Lonmin Plc that…

SOUTH SUDAN (Capital Markets in Africa) – After five years of civil war, South Sudan’s biggest danger may not be loaded guns but empty bellies. Even as the government and rebels prepare to join forces to end a conflict that’s claimed almost 400,000 lives, the threat of famine is stalking the East African country. With local farming yet to recover, almost seven million people — more than half the population — may face severe food shortages between…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – The Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s biggest opposition party, would reduce the size of the government to help curb the country’s ratio of debt to gross domestic product, leader Mmusi Maimane said. The continent’s most-industrialized economy has to “deal with the question of a bloated state,” he said in an interview on Bloomberg TV Thursday, three weeks before general elections. Given the opportunity, the party would also sell state-owned companies, allowing international partners…

ADDIS ABABA (Capital Markets in Africa) – The family of a Kenyan man who died in a Boeing Co. 737 Max 8 that crashed in Ethiopia last month filed a complaint against the planemaker in a court in Illinois. George Kabau was an engineer with General Electric Co., according to his brother Tom Kabau. He was among the 157 people who died when the 737 Max plane went down shortly after take off from the Ethiopian capital,…

GABORONE (Capital Markets in Africa) – The president of Botswana, the nation with the world’s largest elephant population, likened the country’s travails with its numerous pachyderms to the number of Africans who have migrated to Europe to find a better life. Botswana, where the number of elephants is estimated at anything between 115,000 and a quarter of a million, has been praised for its wildlife policies, which have included a ban on both the hunting…