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Focus: Western miners lag as oil powers enter race for Africa’s critical metals

Focus: Western miners lag as oil powers enter race for Africa’s critical metals

RISK aversion is likely to leave major Western miners lagging in a race to tap Africa's reserves of critical raw materials that has gathered pace now Middle Eastern oil powers have begun to emulate China's years of investment on the continent. Attracting the capital needed to advance copper, cobalt, nickel and lithium projects in Africa will be high on the agenda when executives, bankers and government officials gather in Cape Town, South Africa, for the annual African Mining Indaba beginning on Monday. For the big listed miners, the problem is convincing board members anxious to keep shareholders' onside, an issue…
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Suspected militants kill four Nigerian police officers

Suspected militants kill four Nigerian police officers

AT least four police officers were killed in Nigeria's northeast Borno state after a gun battle with suspected Islamist insurgents, a police spokesperson said. Borno has been the heartland of an insurgency by Boko Haram and splinter outfit Islamist State West Africa Province (ISWAP) for more than a decade in the northeast, where they continue to carry out deadly attacks against civilian and security targets. Borno state police spokesperson Nahum Daso Kenneth said the militants had on Friday night attacked Gajiram town in the Nganzai local government area, some 82 kilometres (51 miles) from Maiduguri, the state capital. "Our men…
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Senegalese President Sall postpones presidential vote

Senegalese President Sall postpones presidential vote

PRESIDENT Macky Sall postponed Senegal's planned February 25 presidential election, announcing in a televised address to the nation on Saturday that he had cancelled the relevant law due to electoral issues he warned would fuel disputes. With little more than three weeks to go before the vote, the unprecedented step of delaying the poll, to an unspecified date, pitches Senegal into uncharted constitutional waters that some opposition and civil society groups said amounted to an "institutional coup." One opposition coalition has already vowed to challenge the move in the courts, raising the prospect of a protracted legal battle that could…
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Kenya gas truck explosion torches Nairobi cylinder depot, kills 3

Kenya gas truck explosion torches Nairobi cylinder depot, kills 3

A gas truck exploded in Kenya's capital Nairobi, sending a huge fireball into the night sky and causing a blaze that killed at least three people and injured 300, authorities and first responders said. Residents in a nearby building screamed as a column of flame shot hundreds of feet into the air just before midnight, briefly forming a mushroom cloud, a video posted on social media and verified by Reuters showed. The government said three people had died in the explosion at a gas refilling plant and 280 more were being treated at hospitals around Nairobi. The Kenyan Red Cross…
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Ties that bind: Closely-related players who made AFCON 2023 a family affair

Ties that bind: Closely-related players who made AFCON 2023 a family affair

IN the history of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), a number of closely-related players have graced the tournament with six siblings winning the trophy. Ethiopians Italo and Luciano Vassallo won it together in 1962, Congolese brothers Albert Bwanga and Robert Kazadi were part of the 1974 winning team, Cameroonians Andre and Francois Biyik claimed the crown in 1988 while Egyptians Hossam and Ibrahim Hassan triumphed together twice in 1986 and 1998. Most recently, Zambia’s Christopher and his brother Felix Katongo won the AFCON in 2012 before the Touré brothers of Yaya and Kolo claimed the trophy for Ivory Coast…
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Cape Town to mint 6,100 new millionaires in projected wealth boom

Cape Town to mint 6,100 new millionaires in projected wealth boom

CAPE TOWN is forecast to become the fourth fastest-growing wealth hub per capita among the BRICS states, according to new insights from Henley & Partners (H&P). The picturesque city is forecast to add 6,100 millionaires over the next ten years, over and above the current 7,400, representing an 85% jump. "It is currently benefiting from the ongoing ‘semigration’ of large numbers of HNWIs from other parts of South Africa (especially Johannesburg and Pretoria)," H&P notes in its inaugural BRICS Wealth Report. "It is also an increasingly popular retirement destination for migrating HNWIs from Africa, Europe, Russia, and the UK. Cape…
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Main candidates in Senegal’s presidential election

Main candidates in Senegal’s presidential election

SENEGAL heads to the polls on February 25 to choose a successor to President Macky Sall who is not seeking a third term. For the first time in the West African nation's history, the incumbent is not on the ballot. His handpicked successor, Prime Minister Amadou Ba, is among 20 candidates cleared by Senegal's constitutional council to run. To avoid a runoff, a candidate must secure over 50% of the vote. Campaigning starts on February 4. Following are profiles of the main contenders: PRIME MINISTER AMADOU BA A former economy and foreign minister, Ba, 62, was named prime minister in September 2022. He ran…
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Algeria pushes UN Security Council to demand Gaza ceasefire

Algeria pushes UN Security Council to demand Gaza ceasefire

ALGERIA has drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, a move that the United States - a council veto power - opposes because it says it would only benefit the Palestinian militants. The draft, seen by Reuters on Thursday, also "rejects the forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population" and again demands all parties comply with international law and calls for full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access into and throughout the entire Gaza Strip. Algeria shared the draft with the 15-member council on Wednesday, diplomats said, after the body met to…
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Namibia’s President Hage Geingob, 82, dies after cancer diagnosis

Namibia’s President Hage Geingob, 82, dies after cancer diagnosis

NAMIBIA'S President Hage Geingob, 82, died in hospital early, the presidency said, weeks after he was diagnosed with cancer. Geingob had been in charge of the thinly populated and mostly arid southern African country since 2015, the year he announced he had survived prostate cancer. Vice President Nangolo Mbumba takes the helm in Namibia - a mining hotspot with significant deposits of diamonds and the electric car battery ingredient lithium - until presidential and parliamentary elections at the end of the year. A presidency post on social media platform X did not give a cause of death, but late last month the…
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Tunisian opposition leader Ghannouchi sentenced to three years in prison

Tunisian opposition leader Ghannouchi sentenced to three years in prison

A Tunisian judge sentenced opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi, a fierce critic of President Kais Saied, to three years in prison on charges of accepting external financing, his lawyer Monia Bouali told Reuters. Ghannouchi, 82, head of the Ennahda main opposition party, has been in prison since April. Last year he was sentenced to a year in prison on charges of incitement against police. Bouali added that the court also imprisoned Ghannouchi’s son-in-law Rafik Abdessalem who is a senior Ennahda official, to three years in prison in the same case, in addition to fining the Islamist party $1.1 million. Ennahda in a statement…
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