China unveils plan to drive economic growth above 5 per cent annually, IMF forecasts 3.5 per cent shrink
China started the year with a stock market rout and deflation at levels unseen since the global financial crisis of 2008-09. The property crisis and local government debt woes persisted, increasing pressure on China’s leaders to come up with new economic policies.
US sanctions Zimbabwe president over ‘criminal network of government officials and businesspeople’
Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the changes to Zimbabwe’s sanctions regime “are intended to make clear what has always been true: our sanctions are not intended to target the people of Zimbabwe.”
Research: Junk food addicts with high ‘bliss point’ usually have low appetite for fresh fruits, vegetables and beans
A 2023 research report published in the journal Addiction found that: “Tobacco-owned foods were 29 per cent more likely to be classified as fat and sodium hyper-palatable food (HPF) and 80 per cent more likely to be classified as carbohydrate and sodium HPF than foods that were not tobacco-owned between 1988 and 2001.
Kenya new car sales plunge 15 per cent in 2023 as new taxes and weaker currency bite
Individuals and businesses bought 11,370 units last year, the Kenya Motor Industry Association said in data released on Friday, down from 13,352 units sold in 2022.
Environmentalists push Nigeria to delay Shell’s $2.4 billion sale of assets in sorely polluted Niger Delta
Activists say Shell has a history of poor divestment in the region. They point to a wellhead blowout in the Santa Barbara River, which flows through the Niger Delta, in 2021. The wellhead wasn’t producing but wasn’t decommissioned by Shell or its new owners, Aiteo Eastern E & P. The facility spewed crude oil and associated gas for 38 days and caused planet-warming methane to be released into the atmosphere, killed fish and devastated riverside farms.
Congo Brazzaville starts exporting liquified natural gas a year after Italian firm ENI launched local project
Europe has been in search of new energy sources since moving to cut off Russian supplies following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
Nigerian civil servants launch nationwide strike over soaring inflation and unmet promises
Gasoline prices have more than doubled and inflation has shot up as a result, reaching close to 30 per cent last month, the highest in nearly three decades, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
With low ease of doing business index than the likes of Kenya, Morocco and Kosovo, EU finds it hard to match US on growth
The US economy is growing at more than 2 per cent per year while the euro zone is stagnating. Productivity – or the output of each hour worked and euro invested – has also grown more slowly on the east side of the Atlantic for 30 years.
South African prosecutors seek extradition of suspects in $580,000 stolen from the president’s house
Two men and a woman have been arrested and charged with the theft. Prosecutor Nkhetheni Munyai said at a hearing on Friday in the northern town of Bela-Bela that an extradition process to bring other suspects to South Africa had begun. He didn’t say how many suspects or where they would be extradited from.
Money laundering watchdog Financial Action Task Force drops UAE, Uganda, Barbados and Gibraltar from ‘bad boys’ roster
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is also Chairman of the Higher Committee Overseeing the National Strategy on Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, welcomed the move and expressed his appreciation to those who had worked to bring it about.
