Features

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Kenya Airways Plc. is in discussions with Airbus SE to acquire an unspecified number of planes from the Toulouse, France-based company, but remains a “happy and loyal customer” of Boeing Co., according to Chief Executive Officer Sebastian Mikosz. Sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest carrier, which wants to add 50 airliners to its fleet over the next six years to ward off competition from the rest of Africa and the Middle East, is “seriously thinking” about…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in  Africa) – Comoros opposition leader Soilihi Mohamed, a former chief of staff in the coup-prone nation’s army, announced the formation of a transitional council as he demanded the results of this week’s presidential election be invalidated. He was arrested shortly afterward. The Indian Ocean archipelago’s electoral commission said Tuesday that Azali Assoumani won a second consecutive presidential term with 61 percent of ballots cast. The opposition had already questioned the credibility of the…

HARARE (Capital Markets in Africa) – As Zimbabwe reels from surging inflation and the effects of a devastating cyclone, President Emmerson Mnangagwa is drawing the wrath of the nation’s long-suffering residents with frequent trips abroad. Mnangagwa was in South Africa on Tuesday for a conference discussing regional support for the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, a region of Morocco that wants independence. It’s the third time in the past week he’s traveled outside Zimbabwe, where flooding caused by…

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) – A cyclone that tore across southern Africa this month may have destroyed more than $1 billion of infrastructure, the United Nations said, as the death toll from the storm climbed to more than 700. After devastating Mozambique’s port city of Beira, Tropical Cyclone Idai damaged roads, bridges and dams as it moved toward eastern Zimbabwe. More than 100,000 houses were partially or completely destroyed, according to the UN. It also ruined…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – The U.K. Parliament seized control of the Brexit process from Prime Minister Theresa May and will now seek to decide how Britain exits the European Union. In a vote late Monday, the House of Commons split 329 to 302 to schedule votes on a series of alternative strategies, potentially including a second referendum, keeping the U.K. in the bloc’s customs union, leaving without a deal and even canceling Brexit altogether. The pound rose immediately after…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Alassane Dicko used to lead his cattle each day through the grasslands of central Mali until gunmen burned down his village and took all his animals. Now he lives on the edge of a landfill in the capital, Bamako. Dicko, 38, is one of hundreds of ethnic Fulanis who fled their homes in recent months because of violent disputes over land and water, pitting herders against crop farmers and…

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) – Deaths from flooding in the wake of Cyclone Idai climbed to more than 380 as Mozambique’s government battled to deal with the devastation wrought by one of southern Africa’s most deadly recorded storms. The toll may rise dramatically yet as thousands remain stranded. Almost a week after the Category 3 storm made landfall, heavy rains continued in Mozambique’s Sofala province. Rescue workers have saved 3,000 of 15,000 families stranded…