Features

ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa) – African air disasters always used to lead to the same conclusion — with the airline blamed for poor maintenance, ancient planes or poorly trained pilots, and often a combination of all three. But when an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing Co. 737 crashed near Addis Ababa last month, a curious thing happened: Industry experts immediately began to question the safety not of the carrier, but the plane itself. The focus on Boeing’s new Max…

ADDIS ABABA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Pilots on the Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed last month followed protocol set by planemaker Boeing Co. to manually disable an automated anti-stall system as they tried to save the Boeing Co. 737 Max jet, a person familiar with the situation said. The Manuevering Characteristics Augmentation System turned itself on numerous times during the short flight, the person said. MCAS, which is programmed to push down a plane’s…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The OPEC+ deal to curb oil production probably will be extended, “hopefully for another six months” beyond the end of June, Nigerian oil minister Emmanuel Kachikwu said. The agreement has stabilized the oil market and easing the curbs could bring back excess supply, he told reporters at a conference in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. However, Nigeria, which has pumped more crude than it pledged to under the deal, will find it challenging…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria is improving the security of its waterways and harbors, the nation’s ports authority said, as the U.S. reportedly imposed restrictions on the West African country. The U.S. Coast Guard will apply conditions of entry to ships that recently visited some of Nigeria’s port terminals, Ships & Ports reported, citing the U.S. organization. The entry restrictions will begin April 12 and aim to protect the U.S. from vessels arriving from countries…

ALGEIRS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bowing to almost two months of mass protests, Algeria’s ailing, octogenarian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigned. The announcement may not be enough to quell the unrest that’s being watched closely in Europe and elsewhere and that’s invoked comparisons to the Arab Spring of 2011. Algeria is not only one of Africa’s largest energy producers but has been a bulwark against Islamist militancy and undocumented migration from other parts of the…

ALGEIRS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who led Algeria out of civil war to become its longest-serving president, has resigned after throngs of protesters and even his military allies told the ailing president he’d overstayed his welcome. Though Bouteflika has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013, his political demise will deepen uncertainty in the North African OPECmember. His resignation late on Tuesday might not be enough to assuage demonstrators whose demands have expanded…

ALGEIRS (Capital Markets in Africa) –  Battered by more than a month of protests, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said he would step down before the end of his fourth term on April 28, but suggested he would still craft the foundations of the transition to come. The announcement on Monday appeared aimed at avoiding what could be a military-sanctioned, and embarrassing, constitutional push to have him declared unfit for office. It was also unclear whether it would…