World News

Ivory Coast and Ghana’s move to combat farmer poverty with a living income premium for their cocoa sales is being undermined by chocolate makers scaling down purchases and negotiating discounts on other parts of the price, sources said. Confectioners publicly backed a move by the two countries, which together account for 60% of global cocoa supply, to introduce a $400 ...

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of the Algerian capital, Algiers, in protest at the results of Thursday’s presidential election. They chanted slogans against the winner, ex-PM Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a former loyalist of ousted leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Protesters are demanding that the whole political establishment be swept away. Polling day itself was marred by protests and ...

WhatsApp will stop working on millions of phones in the next couple of months as the company withdraws support for some older mobile platforms. From February 1, 2020, any iPhone running iOS 8 or older will no longer be supported, along with any Android device running version 2.3.7 or older. Users of these operating systems are already unable to create ...

Nigeria says it will give all African travellers visas on arrival from January, dropping the requirement that they apply in advance. President Muhammadu Buhari said it showed Nigeria’s commitment to “free movement of Africans within Africa”. The announcement comes five months after Nigeria signed a deal aimed at promoting free trade on the continent. But Mr Buhari’s critics accuse him ...

The Director-General of the OPEC Fund for International Development (the OPEC Fund) Dr Abdulhamid Alkhalifa has signed a US$20 million development loan to help finance Burkina Faso’s Agricultural Value Chain Support Project (PAPFA). Dr Alkhalifa signed the loan in Ouagadougou with Burkina Faso’s Minister of Economy, Finance and Development, LassanéKabore. PAPFA aims to contribute to poverty alleviation and to enhance ...

The challenges faced by landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), some of the poorest in the world, can be overcome through more effective partnerships, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared on Thursday, at a conference held at UN Headquarters in New York. The Midterm Review of the 10-year Vienna Programme of Action For Landlocked Countries, is an opportunity for the international community to renew ...

Tanzania’s government is planning to stop individuals and groups of people directly filing complaints against it at the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), according to Amnesty International. The East African country’s government has the highest number of cases brought by individuals and NGOs as well as judgments issued against it by the human rights court, according to Amnesty. ...

Nigerians usage of bitcoin has continued to rise despite warnings by the Central Bank of Nigeria that digital currencies are not legal tender. The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria disclosed this in its release on ‘The Nigerian Banker’, in its December 2019 edition. Part of its report on digital currencies read, “The CBN has also declared that digital currencies ...

More African female agripreneurs must be supported to grow and progressively transition into the business segments of agricultural value chains which are most profitable. Monica Musonda, CEO of Zambian food processing company certainly faced hurdles in her rise to the top, but she overcame them. “Although the barriers to entry for women can be frustrating, they are often basic and ...

IMPACT’s new report reveals India to be one of the largest gold smuggling hubs in the world. As a result, gold that is tied to conflict, human rights abuses, and corruption in Africa and South America is entering legal international markets through India. In its latest report, A Golden Web: How India Became One of the World’s Largest Gold Smuggling Hubs , ...