Category: INTERNATIONAL
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Egypt: Medicines Price Increase Comes Into Effect
Health minister Ahmed Emad said the cabinet approved decision to raise prices for 3,000 medicines; as of Thursday. This is the second wave of increasing medicines prices in less than one year. In May 2016, the cabinet decided to raise the medicines prices, less than EGP 30, up to 20%. The increase will reach up…
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Zimbabwe reverses telecoms price hike after public backlash
Zimbabwe has reversed a decision to impose a drastic increase in mobile phone data charges, which provoked an angry response from customers and critics who accused President Robert Mugabe’s government of trying to curtail the use of social media. Last year activists used the Internet to mobilise the biggest anti-government protests in a decade, bypassing…
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South Africa’s Harmony Gold says strike at mine resolved
South Africa’s Harmony Gold has brought all employees at its Kusasalethu mine to the surface and will restart production after an illegal sit-in of nearly 48 hours, the bullion miner said on Friday. About 1,700 workers at the mine situated 70 km from Johannesburg brought production to a standstill on Wednesday, demanding payment of a…
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Uganda: Where Is Uganda’s Oil Money?
The Uganda government is yet to start oil production, but it is already earning money that can be termed as oil related revenue. Over the last two weeks, the discussion in the country has been concentrated around the Shs6b that was paid to 45 public officials for ensuring that Uganda ripped benefits from two transactions.…
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South Africa’s cenbank to weigh in on Barclays Africa bailout report
South Africa’s central bank will give extensive comment to the anti-graft watchdog about a preliminary report claiming Barclays Africa Group benefited from an apartheid-era bailout, Governor Lesetja Kganyago told talk radio 702 on Friday. The Mail & Guardian newspaper reported that Absa, a unit of Barclays Africa Group, could be forced to pay 2.25 billion…
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Nigeria’s NNPC proposes changes to increase deepwater oil revenues
Nigeria’s state oil company has proposed legal amendments aimed at enabling the government to increase royalties and other revenues from deepwater oil production. OPEC member Nigeria has been hit hard by a slump in crude oil prices in the last two years, which helped to push the country into recession. And militant attacks in the…
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Tanzania: Marching Orders for Meat Factory, Mining Investors
President John Magufuli has directed responsible authorities to revoke licences issued to investors for a meat factory and mining in Shinyanga Region. He also revealed his government’s intention to modify the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF) system of issuing money to poor families following the discovery of 55,000 ghost households that were receiving cash transfers…
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China posts worst export fall since 2009 as fears of U.S. trade war loom
China’s massive export engine sputtered for the second year in a row in 2016, with shipments falling in the face of persistently weak global demand and officials voicing fears of a trade war with the United States that is clouding the outlook for 2017. In one week, China’s leaders will see if President-elect Donald Trump…
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EPA accuses Fiat Chrysler of excess diesel emissions
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday accused Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV of illegally using hidden software to allow excess diesel emissions to go undetected, the result of a probe that stemmed from regulators’ investigation of rival Volkswagen AG. FCA shares plummeted as the maximum fine is about $4.6 billion. The EPA action affects 104,000…
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Global stocks up on U.S. bank hopes, dollar and yields slip
European and U.S. stocks looked to end a sluggish week on a high note on Friday, while the dollar was on track for its biggest weekly fall in two months and U.S. bond yields eyed their longest run of weekly declines since July. Investors largely shrugged off figures that showed Chinese exports fell the most…