Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara cooled their heels for two weeks after the 21 June signing of a Memorandum of Understanding as a tentative first step to digging themselves out of the Zimbabwe quagmire. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]...
"When I ask the ordinary people of Burundi who come to my political rallies what they most want in their lives in Burundi to day, they tell me 'To live without fear,'" says Alexis Sinduhije, leader of the recently formed Movement for Security and Democracy...
A Town called Addis By Dub Collossus Real World Cat: CDRW155 Direct from Addis Ababa, this album is the result of a project that pulls together an extraordinary but little known African musical heritage, a labour of love recording in a...
The first ever CBC--African Business Awards, held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London's fashionable West End, attracted a veritable Who's Who of the African business world. Over 450 invitees poured in from practically every country in Africa and...
Last year's tobacco selling season, for the first time in seven years, saw the commodity fetch good prices on Malawi's auction floors. At the start of the 2007 selling season in April the average price of tobacco ranged from $1.40 to $1.70/kg with...
Oil appears to have reached an endgame of sorts with prices remaining high, despite one or two false dips in July. It is certain that demand will remain unabated, but can Africa increase its output to shore up an increasingly meagre world oil supply?...
Chinese South Africans at last know where in the Rainbow Nation they belong. After years on a Chinese checkers board, being shunted from the black squares to the white and black squares to the white and back again, they finally have a legal colour...
Technology is transforming the lives of millions of African entrepreneurs and citizens, opening up new markets and opportunities for industries and money transfers. Sustained economic growth and poverty eradication in the least developed countries...
The biggest development in the East African telecoms sector this year has been the IPO of a 25% stake in Safaricom by the Kenyan government. The listing was hugely popular and more than 400% oversubscribed. It has been reported that over 800,000...
An exhibition of photographs--mounted in London by one of the UK's top brand architects, Brandhouse--depicting life in Ethiopia marked the completion of one of the most significant trade marking exercises for an African commodity. [ILLUSTRATION...
South Africans have long been victim to high prices for food and other consumer goods and services-and the reason has little to do with the latest round of global price hikes. As a flood of evidence is now showing--thanks to a terrier-like investigation...
While an unprecedented number of Africa's leaders bristled with indignation as Robert Mugabe, having 'won' an uncontested election took his place at the African Union Summit in Egypt last month, President Mugabe handed down a challenge of biblical...
While I was attending the annual African Banking Congress in Johannesburg, I had the good fortune of being able to participate in a master class on aspects of management. The master class consisted of a lecture and interactive simulations in which...
As attractive as the Nigerian business environment is said to be, a major disincentive is the rather high cost of doing business. A combination of factors such as poor infrastructure, high overheads, the cost of finance and uncertainty about inflationary...
Moving to the next stage The extraordinary growth in the number of mobile subscribers in Africa shows no signs of slowing down--if anything, as the recent flurry of mergers and acquisitions indicates, competition among telecoms, companies, including...
Wherever one looks in Africa there is increasing prosperity from commodity prices--and the best may be yet to come. The benchmark commodities index--the Jefferies-Reuters CRB spot index--had reached a record high at the end of last June. The index...
A series of worrying events have jolted South Africa's confidence for a slick and trouble-free soccer World Cup in under two years' time. Fifa's admission that the football world body does indeed have a 'Plan B' to switch the Cup away from South Africa...
A proposed merger between Bharti Airtel and South Africa's MTN collapsed in May, apparently because of the Indian firm's view that it would be taking over the latter. This was followed by an approach to MTN by another Indian firm, Reliance Communications,...
Mauritius, which should win every award going for innovation in the face of adversity, has embarked seriously on a programme of 'going green'. Finance Minister Rama Sithanen announced several measures in his June budget that will set the island nation...
Was it Thabo Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy' finally bearing fruit; or the harsh words from some of Africa's most powerful political leaders; or threats from the Eu or the printing of a Z$100bn banknote or indeed the country running out of paper on which...