PRETORIA (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa has raised the minimum threshold for black ownership of mining companies to 30 percent from 26 percent but has not decided if firms must retain that structure permanently, Mines Minister Mosebenzi Zwane said on Thursday.
Mining companies in the world&#8217;s top platinum producer have complained about a lack of consultation over revisions to an industry charter which sets targets for black ownership and participation, and say onerous rules would hurt investment.
The rand fell 2 percent after Zwane unveiled details of the revisions while the Johannesburg bourse&#8217;s Mining Index extended its decline to more than 3 percent.
Zwane said companies had 12 months to meet the new 30 percent target. The Mining Charter was introduced in 2002 to increase black ownership of the mining industry, which accounts for about 7 percent of South Africa&#8217;s economic output.
The Chamber of Mines, an industry body, has taken the government to court over the interpretation of the ownership rules. The government has said companies must keep to black ownership targets even if black shareholders sell their stakes.
Uncertainty about the government policy remained, however, as Zwane said &#8220;we have not dealt with that&#8221; issue.
The Chamber of Mines, which represents companies such as Anglo American and Sibanye Gold, did not take part in the launch because of what it said was a lack of consultation in drawing up the charter.
(Reporting by Tanisha Heiberg; writing by Ed Stoddard; editing by James Macharia and David Clarke)
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South Africa raises mining sector black ownership requirement to 30 percent

On Wednesday, June 14, Parliament approved the handing over of the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia.
According to reports, some members of Parliament (MPs) chanted “islands are Egyptian” after final approval was confirmed by a vote of hands.
The issue of the island’s sovereignty has been topical for over a year: in April 2016 President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, during a visit by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, recognised Saudi sovereignty over them, then a lower court blocked their cession (after there were some protests against it, notably by journalists), then, in January of this year, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the government’s appeal against the lower court’s June 2016 ruling. That decision in January was then annulled by Cairo’s Urgent Matters Court.
Critics of the plan to cede the island argue that neither the courts nor Parliament can ultimately decide on their fate – only a referendum would authorise a handover.
Article 151 of the 2014 constitution states: “The President of the Republic represents the state in foreign relations and concludes treaties and ratifies them after the approval of the House of Representatives. They shall acquire the force of law upon promulgation in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. With regards to any treaty of peace and alliance, and treaties related to the rights of sovereignty, voters must be called for a referendum, and they are not to be ratified before the announcement of their approval in the referendum. In all cases, no treaty may be concluded which is contrary to the provisions of the Constitution or which leads to concession of state territories.”
The text appears clear on the issue, but it is unclear whether the issue will be put to a popular vote. This could mean that any parliamentary decision is open to being challenged on constitutional grounds.
The question thus arises as to how Egyptians would vote if they were called upon to do so in a referendum on the islands.
A survey conducted by Baseera (the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research) released on Tuesday found that 47% of Egyptians believe the islands belong to the country, 11% believe they belong to Saudi Arabia and 42% are unsure (or, perhaps, declined to give answer that would put them at odds with the head of State).
When the same question was put to them in April last year – after the deal was announced – 30% believed the islands were Egyptian, 23% believed they were Saudi and 47% did not know.
Thus, if anything, the public has been swayed by the arguments against the deal over the past year.
Furthermore, Baseera found that 42% of respondents felt it was necessary that the issue goes to a referendum – 37% felt parliamentary approval would be enough and 3% said the judiciary should decide, with the remainder unsure.
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<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-128750" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Egypt-Islands-1-300x200.png" alt="" width="300" height="200" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-128751" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Egypt-Islands-2-300x200.png" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
The sporadic protests last year against the ceding of the islands did not gain momentum. Media reports state that there were protests on Tuesday evening, with journalists conducting a sit-in at the Egyptian Press Syndicate offices in Cairo, and Wednesday but they have not yet been on the scale that would concern Mr Sisi.
It is likely that protests will begin to grow in coming weeks if activists and dissidents are able to organise.
The country is currently under a state of emergency – in place since April for three months after terrorist attacks on Coptic churches – which gives security forces added powers to keep a lid on dissent. Whether these powers will be used to hold off protests remains an open question.
The islands debacle has seriously dented Mr Sisi’s popularity and his government’s legitimacy. But he is seemingly unperturbed.
In recent months, he has become more strident as he clamps down on the media (we hear that over 60 websites have been blocked, both local and international), arrests opposition politicians (including Khaled Ali, a human rights lawyer that fought the case against the ceding of the islands, and members of his left-leaning Bread and Freedom Party) and rolls back judicial independence (in April the controversial Judicial Authorities Law was passed which gives the president the ability to appoint the judiciary’s most senior members).
Declining political capital and authoritarian overstretch in a harsh economic environment (inflation is still hovering around 30%, though we forecast that it will ease in coming months) is a recipe for a popular backlash.
We have been surprised by the quiescence of the Egyptian public so far, but this concession to the Saudis could push patriotic buttons and bring people onto the streets, even those broadly supportive of the president.

Egypt – Parliament approves ceding of Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia

MOGADISHU (Reuters) &#8211; At least 19 people were killed when Islamist attackers launched a car bomb and gun attack on a busy hotel and adjacent restaurant in the Somali capital, a police officer said on Thursday.
A car driven by a suicide bomber rammed into the Posh Hotel in south Mogadishu on Wednesday evening before gunmen rushed into Pizza House, an adjacent restaurant, and took 20 people hostage. Posh Hotel is the only venue with a discotheque in the capital.
Abdi Bashir told Reuters the Somali security forces took control of the restaurant at midnight after the gunmen held hostages inside for several hours. Five of the gunmen were killed, Bashir said.
&#8220;We are in control of the hotel but it was mostly destroyed by the suicide bomber,&#8221; he told Reuters by phone.
Witnesses said there were bodies lying at the scene on Thursday morning as ambulances came to take them away.
Al Shabaab, the Islamist militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
(Reporting by Faisal Omar; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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At least 19 killed in hotel attack in Somalia’s capital

NAIROBI (Reuters) &#8211; Acacia Mining&#8217;s &#8220;very existence&#8221; has been jeopardised by accusations of wrongdoing levelled against it by the Tanzanian government, chief executive Brad Gordon said in an internal memo seen by Reuters.
In the memo, Gordon denied accusations of tax evasion and forging documents to avoid paying taxes. He also said the firm operated through locally registered subsidiaries, contrary to a government accusation it had been operating illegally.
Acacia has been caught up in President John Magufuli&#8217;s campaign to reform the mining industry, a key source of foreign exchange for the East African country. The sector accounts for 4 percent of Tanzania&#8217;s gross domestic product.
(Reporting by David Lewis; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Ed Cropley)

Tanzania claims threaten Acacia’s “very existence”: CEO

Tom Miles | GENEVA
Democratic Republic of Congo has suffered two separate outbreaks of polio, a debilitating and potentially deadly disease that the world is trying to eradicate, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.
Confirmation of the outbreaks in Congo&#8217;s Haut-Lomami and Maniema provinces came less than a week after the WHO said polio had resurfaced in Syria, in an area partly controlled by Islamic State.
&#8220;WHO assesses the risk of further national spread of these strains to be high, and the risk of international spread to be medium,&#8221; the WHO, the U.N. health agency, said in a disease outbreak report.
Like the Syrian outbreak, the four Congolese cases were caused by circulating vaccine-derived polio virus type 2, which emerges in areas with only patchy vaccine coverage after being excreted by people who have been vaccinated.
In 1988, the goal of eradicating the disease globally was set for the year 2000, but it has been repeatedly pushed back, with billions of dollars spent on trying to snuff out the last remaining pockets of disease.
The new head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, welcomed $1.2 billion of new funding for the battle against polio, made at the Rotary Convention in Atlanta, the WHO said.
&#8220;It is humbling to see again the power of this incredible global partnership to generate funding to fight one of the world’s most horrible and debilitating diseases,&#8221; Tedros said in a WHO statement. &#8220;We must finish the job properly to ensure that there is no chance of this terrible disease coming back.&#8221;
Thirty years ago, polio paralysed more than 350,000 children each year in more than 125 countries around the world, the statement said. Since then, incidence of the disease has been reduced by more than 99.9 percent, it said.
Polio invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours. It spreads rapidly among children. If transmission can be ended, it would be only the second human disease to be eradicated since smallpox was banished in 1980.
The original wild virus still circulates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with a total of five cases this year. Vaccine-derived polio is a risk for war zones and other areas with poor health coverage.
The Congolese cases are the first in the country since 2012. Nigeria, Laos, Myanmar and Ukraine have also seen vaccine-derived polio cases in the past three years.
(Reporting by Tom Miles, editing by Larry King)
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WHO confirms Congo polio outbreaks in new eradication setback

Tarek Amara | dTUNIS
The World Bank has approved a $500 million credit for Tunisia to help the North African country with budget support, a government official said on Tuesday.
The new loan came just after the International Monetary Fund released a $320-million delayed tranche of Tunisia&#8217;s IMF loan after the government agreed to speed up economic reforms.
Praised as a model of democratic transition following its 2011 uprising to oust autocrat leader Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has so far mostly failed to deliver on planned economic reforms to help create jobs and cut public deficits.
(Reporting by Tarek Amara; writing by Patrick Markey)
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World Bank approves $500 mln credit for Tunisia: gov’t official

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<li class="">Multiple fatalities have been reported after a massive fire engulfed a block of flats in central London.</li>
<li>More than 200 firefighters and as many as 40 fire engines have been sent to the location to tackle the flames, according to London Fire Brigade.</li>
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<div class="source"><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/sam-meredith/" rel="author">Sam Meredith</a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/@smeredith19">@smeredith19</a></div>
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A massive fire raged through the night at a 24-storey block of flats in central London on Wednesday, with multiple fatalities reported.
London Fire Brigade said over 200 firefighters were on the scene to tackle the major blaze at a tower block in north Kensington, with 40 fire engines also sent to the location.
The fire was first reported shortly after 1.15 a.m. BST, with the Metropolitan Police confirming people were being treated for &#8220;a range of injuries&#8221;.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
A resident sent me this video they took when they escaped the building around 1:30 am <a href="https://t.co/WdNMQpa2Mv">pic.twitter.com/WdNMQpa2Mv</a>
— AssedBaig (@AssedBaig) <a href="https://twitter.com/AssedBaig/status/874855458649014272">June 14, 2017</a></blockquote>
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British media reported people trapped in the upper floors desperately screaming for help as the fire spread through the building, which contains 120 homes.
A police update at around 4.00 a.m. BST said Grenfell Tower &#8220;residents continue to be evacuated&#8221;.
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We have taken 30 patients to five London hospitals following the fire at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GrenfellTower?src=hash">#GrenfellTower</a> &amp; we remain on scene <a href="https://t.co/lxfRseAIkg">pic.twitter.com/lxfRseAIkg</a>
— London Ambulance (@Ldn_Ambulance) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ldn_Ambulance/status/874859134440673284">June 14, 2017</a></blockquote>
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London ambulance service reported at 6.15 a.m. BST that 30 patients have been taken to five hospitals following the incident at Lancaster West Estate.
&#8220;Our priority is to assess the level and nature of injuries and ensure those in the most need are treated first and taken to hospital,&#8221; Stuart Crichton, assistant director of operations at London Ambulance Service, said in a statement.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, issued a statement and described the flumes as a &#8220;major incident&#8221;.
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Major incident declared at Grenfell Tower in Kensington. 40 fire engines &amp; 200 firefighters at the scene &#8211; follow <a href="https://twitter.com/LondonFire">@LondonFire</a> for updates.
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) <a href="https://twitter.com/SadiqKhan/status/874827945117876225">June 14, 2017</a></blockquote>
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The cause of the fire remains unknown at this stage, the Fire Brigade said.

Huge fire engulfs London tower block, fatalities reported

<div id="article-byline"> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/journalists/heather-somerville">Heather Somerville</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/journalists/joseph-menn">Joseph Menn</a> | SAN FRANCISCO</div>
Uber Technologies Inc Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick told employees on Tuesday he will take time away from the company he helped to found, one of a series of measures the ride-hailing company is taking to claw its way out from under a mountain of controversies.
Kalanick&#8217;s move comes after a months-long investigation led former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who was hired by Uber to look into its culture and workplace practices after a female former employee publicly accused the company of what she described as brazen sexual harassment.
Uber on Tuesday released the recommendations from that report, which include reducing Kalanick&#8217;s sweeping authority and instituting more controls over spending, human resources and the behavior of managers. (<a href="http://bit.ly/2rX2xA5">bit.ly/2rX2xA5</a>)
Kalanick&#8217;s departure, even if it is temporary, is a thunderclap for the Silicon Valley startup world, where company founders in recent years have enjoyed great autonomy and often become synonymous with their firms.
It also marks a pivotal moment for the world&#8217;s most valuable venture-backed private company, which has been largely defined by Kalanick&#8217;s brash approach.
Kalanick, 40, said he needed the time away to grieve for his recently deceased mother and to work on his leadership skills, according to a staff email seen by Reuters. He did not say how long he would be away.
&#8220;If we are going to work on Uber 2.0, I also need to work on Travis 2.0 to become the leader that this company needs and that you deserve,&#8221; Kalanick wrote in his email. &#8220;During this interim period, the leadership team, my directs, will be running the company.&#8221;
According to a source familiar with the matter, Kalanick can return to the company whenever he would like.
MORE OVERSIGHT NEEDED
The company on Tuesday shared with its staff 47 recommendations for management and policy changes that were unanimously adopted by the board on Sunday. Kalanick was not at the meeting, said a source who was present.
The meeting was marred by private equity executive David Bonderman making a sexist remark about women talking too much. He later resigned from the board of directors, calling his comment &#8220;careless, inappropriate, and inexcusable.&#8221;
The recommendations from Holder&#8217;s firm, Covington and Burling, include adding an independent director to the board and considering an independent chair; mandated manager training; and a bigger and more independent audit committee to oversee spending and management.
&#8220;I would now suggest to any startup, here are the Covington rules, and when you get passed 100 people, put these in place,&#8221; said Steve Blank, a startup founder and mentor and adjunct professor at Stanford University.
Other recommendations prohibit romances between bosses and their subordinates and create clearer guidelines on the use of drugs and alcohol.
<div id="attachment_91805" style="width: 650px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-91805" class="wp-image-91805 size-large" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Uber-Flickr-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="360" />Photo: Flickr.</div>
&#8220;I think it paints a picture of a company pretty out of control with no oversight from the board or basic controls,&#8221; said Elizabeth Ames, senior vice president at the Anita Borg Institute, which advocates for women in technology.
At Tuesday&#8217;s employee meeting, human resources chief Liane Hornsey thanked the former employee who wrote about harassment, Susan Fowler, for being a catalyst for the changes. She received applause from employees, according to the source at the meeting.
Holder&#8217;s recommendations stressed the importance of a new chief operating officer. The company has been searching for a No.2 executive for more than three months and is also looking for a chief financial officer.
A number of senior Uber managers left in recent weeks as the Holder investigation and a parallel probe focused strictly on sexual harassment and other employee complaints, conducted by the law firm Perkins Coie, moved forward.
The most recent departing executives included Emil Michael, head of business and Kalanick&#8217;s closest confidant, and Eric Alexander, who ran the Asia Pacific region.
Uber said last week it had hired two women to fill top roles: Harvard Business School management professor Frances Frei will serve as an executive coach and Apple Inc marketing executive Bozoma Saint John was hired to mend Uber&#8217;s brand. Uber also added a second woman to its board, Wan Ling Martello, an executive vice president at Nestle, to serve as an independent director.
There are 14 people at Uber who report directly to Kalanick and who will likely take on more responsibility in his absence. They include Ryan Graves, head of operations and one-time chief executive at Uber.
FOUNDER POWER
Uber grew to a valuation of $68 billion in seven years amid non-stop controversy. It has upended the tightly regulated taxi industry in many countries and changed the transportation landscape, but has run into legal trouble with a rough-and-tumble approach to local regulations and the way it handles employees and drivers.
Uber has suffered a series of damaging setbacks in recent months, including a federal probe into the company&#8217;s use of technology to evade regulators in certain cities and a trade secrets lawsuit filed by Alphabet Inc&#8217;s self-driving unit, Waymo.
Some venture capitalists say Uber&#8217;s challenges should serve as a warning that the Silicon Valley ethos of leaving founders in control of companies, even after they grow into big corporations, can be a dangerous proposition.
&#8220;Inevitably, this will help drive the pendulum back toward better governance inside an organization,&#8221; said Robert Siegel, a lecturer at Stanford University and venture capitalist at XSeed Capital. &#8220;Sometimes we conflate great business leaders with strong personalities with great governance.&#8221;
(Reporting by Heather Somerville and Joseph Menn; Editing by Bill Rigby, Peter Henderson, Jonathan Weber and Lisa Shumaker)
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Uber CEO takes leave of absence amid sweeping changes after scandals

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South African financial services firm Alexander Forbes Group said its chairman Sello Moloko will retire in August and appointed Moses Kgosana, a non-executive director of the company and a former CEO of KPMG South Africa, as his successor.
Moloko will step down at the end of August after holding the position for nearly 10 years, during which he saw the company through the 2008/09 global financial crisis and its re-listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2014.
Chief Executive Andrew Darfoor said he welcomed the appointment of Kgosana, who is currently executive chairman of his own property investment company.
&#8220;I am privileged to be handed the reins of a company such as Alexander Forbes with a strong heritage and market leading history in the financial services sector,&#8221; Kgosana said in the statement put out by Alexander Forbes.
He will become chairman on Aug. 31.
(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; Editing by Susan Fenton)

South Africa’s Alexander Forbes appoints ex-KPMG chief as chairman

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s rand inched higher early on Tuesday, adding to the previous session&#8217;s gains, with focus on political uncertainty in Britain and the United States trumping local concerns in a search for yield.
At 0640 GMT, the rand traded 0.16 percent firmer at 12.8000 per dollar compared to close of 12.8200 overnight in New York.
The rand has gained around 1.2 percent since Moody&#8217;s downgraded the country&#8217;s credit by one notch on Friday with a negative outlook, but leaving it the only major agency to rate South Africa as investment grade.
Last Thursday&#8217;s shock election result in Britain which left Prime Minister Theresa May short of a parliamentary majority has sent jitters through developed markets. A probe into firing of FBI head also stymieing dollar progress.
The focus shifts to the meeting of U.S. Federal Reserve. The bank is widely expected to raise interest rates, with investors looking for fresh hints on the pace of tightening in coming months.
South African bonds were flat, with the yield on benchmark 2026 government bond unchanged at 8.48 percent.
(Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana)
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South Africa’s rand inches ahead as political worries stall major currencies

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<li>Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he bought Bitcoin at $700</li>
<li>Bitcoin surged past $3,000 over the weekend</li>
<li>Wozniak said he bought Bitcoin mostly to see what you could do with it.</li>
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<div class="source"><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/todd-haselton/" rel="author">Todd Haselton</a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/@robotodd">@robotodd</a></div>
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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak revealed he bought bitcoin when it was at at $700 during an interview with CNBC at eMerge Miami on Monday.
Wozniak didn&#8217;t disclose how much he acquired, but the <a class="inline_asset" title="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/11/bitcoin-bulls-runs-wild-as-cryptocurrency-surges-above-3000.html" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/11/bitcoin-bulls-runs-wild-as-cryptocurrency-surges-above-3000.html">cryptocurrency surged above $3,000</a> over the weekend, meaning he gained $2,300 even if he just bought a single bitcoin.
&#8220;I remember getting interested in bitcoin some time ago,&#8221; Wozniak said. &#8220;It was $70 for a bitcoin, man and I went online and you had to have a special bank account at a special bank and I couldn&#8217;t buy any bitcoin so I gave up. Eventually I got some of them at the $700 stage and it went down to $350. I didn&#8217;t invest, I did it so I could play with bitcoin.&#8221;
Wozniak said he wanted to see what it was like to try to shop with bitcoin, at places like restaurants and hotels. &#8220;It&#8217;s not that easy to do yet, but it&#8217;s getting there. I was just playing around trying out how to buy and sell stuff and I didn&#8217;t care I lost a ton of money, but now I&#8217;m way up,&#8221; Wozniak added
Woz also touched on blockchain technology and why he thinks it&#8217;s important. &#8220;I like the blockchain technology,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Every single transaction is noted and saved, and that probably has a lot of good security and traceability and looking-back aspects to it &#8230; That&#8217;s probably why a lot of banks are interested in it.&#8221;
Bitcoin was priced at about $700 in June of last year before losing value, and again in late October and early November before it began skyrocketing in value this year.

Apple co-founder Wozniak bought bitcoin at $700 for fun: ‘Now I’m way up’

Saeed Azhar and Tom Arnold
DUBAI (Reuters) &#8211; Egypt&#8217;s EFG Hermes wants to enter Nigeria through an acquisition and expects to get regulatory approval to start a brokerage business in Kenya this year as part of a big push into frontier markets, a senior executive told Reuters on Monday.
The investment bank also plans to boost its research team to between 12 and 15 from eight over the next 12 months as interest among institutional investors grows in smaller, fast-growing economies in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, Ali Khalpey, CEO of EFG Hermes&#8217; Frontier market unit, said in an interview.
EFG took a controlling stake in Karachi-based Invest and Finance Securities Ltd last year, which now operates as EFG Hermes Pakistan Ltd, with a staff of 60 people.
As well as Nigeria, Kenya and Pakistan, EFG is also eyeing expansion into Bangladesh and Vietnam, said Khalpey, who joined EFG from frontier-focused investment bank Exotix Africa LLP.
<blockquote>&#8220;We have chosen those five markets as we like the macro-environment and want to be on the ground to benefit from the growth story,&#8221; he said.</blockquote>
&#8220;The frontier market should be a decent part of the revenue growth of EFG Hermes&#8217; overall business,&#8221; Khalpey added, without disclosing any revenue targets.
Once it gets the regulatory approval in Kenya, EFG hopes to have an office with 10 to 15 people to serve as a base for Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda, he said.
&#8220;We like to look at illiquid, non-transparent markets where being on the ground gives incredible competitive advantage over everybody else,&#8221; he said.
Khalpey said he was quite excited about long-term prospects for Pakistan, where the economy has been growing at a good pace and the stock market has performed well, until a recent correction.
In May, index provider MSCI reclassified Pakistan as an emerging market from frontier market status. Economic growth is projected at 5.3 percent this fiscal year &#8211; short of the government&#8217;s 5.7 percent target but the fastest since 2007.
Despite the spate of positive news, Pakistani stocks have been hurt by political uncertainty as the country&#8217;s prime minister Nawaz Sharif faces an investigation into corruption allegations linked to the so-called Panama Papers leak. He has denied any wrongdoing.
&#8220;It is an unfair environment to judge Pakistan long term, short term there are clearly some challenges,&#8221; Khalpey said.
&#8220;We are there for the long term and we see a very long term growth trajectory for Pakistan.&#8221;
(Reporting by Saeed Azhar and Tom Arnold; Editing by Mark Potter)
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EFG Hermes eyes acquisition in Nigeria, Kenya brokerage licence

TJ Strydom | JOHANNESBURG
South African life insurer MMI Holdings said it will start offering loans and take deposits as part of a deal with lender African Bank, as it looks to revive declining profits.
MMI, the No. 3 long-term insurer in South Africa, has seen profits drop for the past two years as weak growth and poor investment returns weighed on revenues.
The insurer plans to use African Bank to build up a loan book in excess of 10 billion rand ($780 million) over the next five years and to share the profits equally with the bank.
<blockquote>&#8220;African Bank will be the exclusive provider of consumer credit products to MMI, for solutions falling within its product range,&#8221; MMI said, adding that the lender will use the insurer&#8217;s existing sales channels.</blockquote>
African Bank, a lender that grants loans not backed by assets, was rescued and recapitalised by South Africa&#8217;s central bank after its parent African Bank Investments Limited collapsed in 2014.
In April last year, the bank was split into a &#8220;good&#8221; business aimed at attracting new clients, and a new company to mop up old debts.
&#8220;African Bank will act as sponsoring bank to facilitate deposit-taking and extend transactional banking capabilities that MMI wishes to offer to its clients,&#8221; the insurer said in a statement.
MMI also plans to sell to African Bank&#8217;s clients, making its full range of insurance products available to African Bank account holders, with the goal of generating more than 1 billion rand in premiums within five years.
($1 = 12.8432 rand)
(Reporting by TJ Strydom; Editing by Susan Fenton)

South African insurer MMI in lending, sales deal with African Bank

BERLIN (Reuters) &#8211; The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) expect economic growth in Africa to pick up this year and next.
Presenting their latest forecasts at the sidelines of a G20 Africa summit in Berlin, both organisations forecast gross domestic product (GDP) to expand by 3.4 percent this year after 2.2 percent in the previous year.
For 2018, OECD and AfDB expect the upturn to gain further momentum with a predicted expansion rate of 4.3 percent.
(Reporting by Gernot Heller; Writing by Michael Nienaber; Editing by Andrea Shalal)
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Growth in Africa to pick up this year and next: OECD & AfDB

<div id="article-byline"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/journalists/megan-rowling">Megan Rowling</a> and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/journalists/andrew-mambondiyani">Andrew Mambondiyani</a> | BARCELONA/HARARE</div>
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<div>When a big earthquake, flash flood or other sudden disaster hits, aid agencies spring into action with emergency responses and public appeals for donations. With droughts, it&#8217;s different.</div>
If the rains don&#8217;t come, it can take months for the effects to be felt by poor rural families. Hunger kicks in only after crops fail, food stocks are exhausted and livestock start dying &#8211; but by then, help often comes too late to head off the worst.
The humanitarian world is still struggling to find a timely way to tackle &#8220;slow-onset&#8221; crises like droughts.
But a UK-based coalition of 42 relief groups from five continents, aiming to make aid delivery more effective, thinks it might have an answer.
The Start Network, funded by the British, Dutch and Irish governments, is putting together a new financing facility to enable a faster and more coordinated response to droughts, and plans to test its model in Pakistan and Zimbabwe.
In May, the network convened local and international agencies in Harare to discuss how it might work in the southern African nation still smarting from a devastating 2015-2016 drought, driven by the El Nino climate pattern, which left some 4 million people in need of food aid.
A 2016 U.N.-led appeal for more than $350 million to respond to the drought was less than 50 percent covered by donors.
&#8220;We realized humanitarian responses were not kicking in fast,&#8221; said Emily Montier, manager of the drought project for the Start Network. &#8220;There was a long period of procrastination with some decisions having to be made far away, resulting in delays.&#8221;
The &#8220;drought financing facility&#8221; aims to combine contingency funds, insurance and new modeling technology to shift humanitarian response from reaction to anticipation, she added.
&#8220;This will save more lives, livelihoods and assets, and significantly reduce costs,&#8221; she said.
Montier said many aid groups responding to drought had tried to access the Start Network&#8217;s existing fund for swift relief in small-scale crises, but it backs 45-day projects which is too short for drawn-out situations like droughts.
&#8220;Droughts were coming to that mechanism purely because there was nothing else out there,&#8221; Montier told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
LOCAL NEEDS
Other efforts to provide cash in time to stop droughts turning into hunger crises are gathering steam, including the African Risk Capacity, which provides payouts to African governments that take out cover, and index-based insurance for farmers, now growing in popularity from Kenya to India.
The Start Network facility aims to be more flexible while still operating on a national level, releasing its own funds for aid organizations to respond to smaller crises and tapping insurance payouts for large emergencies.
How it functions will differ according to the country. In Zimbabwe, a lot is already happening to help communities weather drought but that needs to be stepped up when conditions worsen, whereas in Pakistan, chronic dryness in some areas has created humanitarian needs that are simply going unmet, said Montier.
Shahida Arif, Asia regional learning adviser for the Start Network, said water shortages in Pakistani provinces like Sindh cause long-term nutritional problems and food insecurity.
With little help at hand, poor families are forced to sell off their cattle and other meager assets to survive.
&#8220;The government agencies do not have any plan so far to respond to drought,&#8221; said Arif.
That could change after Pakistan&#8217;s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) announced in February it would join the Start partnership to test the new facility in places like Sindh where tens of thousands of people were suffering the effects of drought.
With work near completion on web-based scientific models to calculate drought risks and potential funding options, the Start Network is talking to donor governments about funding the next stage of implementing the facility in Pakistan and Zimbabwe.
Josh Ling of Mercy Corps in Pakistan said the project had &#8220;huge potential&#8221; to improve the lives of drought-hit communities, as it is designed to allow agencies to act rapidly and on a far bigger scale than individual insurance policies.
In Zimbabwe, some of the agencies involved &#8211; which include CARE International, Christian Aid and ActionAid &#8211; suggested the facility could be expanded to cover drought impacts on livestock as well as crops, and should also be used for floods.
If successful, the model may be applied to other natural hazards, Montier said. &#8220;There is a real need to gather more evidence around these approaches and how they work in practice,&#8221; she added.
(Reporting by Andrew Mambondiyani in Harare and Megan Rowling in Barcelona; editing by Ros Russell. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women&#8217;s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit <a href="http://news.trust.org/climate">news.trust.org/climate</a>)

Aid groups seek to turn on funding tap to douse drought crises

South Africa&#8217;s Sibanye Gold said on Monday that 178 illegal miners have now been arrested at its Cooke operations since the start of a violent wildcat strike last Tuesday.
A company source, who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak on the record, also said the strike was continuing. The strike was triggered by worker resentment at a company drive to root out illegal miners, who pilfer gold from its shafts after gaining access by employee collusion.
The illegal miners arrested have been forced to come to the surface because of the strike, which has emptied the shafts of employees, thereby starving them of their sources of food and water underground &#8211; an inadvertent consequence of the stoppage.
(Reporting by Ed Stoddard, editing by Louise Heavens)

South Africa’s Sibanye says 178 illegal miners now arrested at strike-hit Cooke mine

<ul>
<li>Follow these tips if you&#8217;re tired of going over on your data</li>
<li>The iPhone has an area that shows you how much data you&#8217;re using</li>
<li>You can even see which apps are consuming the most data</li>
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<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/todd-haselton/" rel="author">Todd Haselton</a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/@robotodd">@robotodd</a>
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The end of the month is nearing and, boom, suddenly you&#8217;re hit with a notification: You&#8217;re starting to run out of data. &#8220;Would you like to pay $9.99 to purchase more data?&#8221; a message asks. That&#8217;s the best case scenario. Worst case, you don&#8217;t see the message, or your kids ignore it, and suddenly you&#8217;re faced with an expensive phone bill.
It&#8217;s the worst, and it&#8217;s a problem that many consumers without unlimited data plans still face. The good news is you can help avoid getting hit with these messages and possible overages by keeping a closer eye on your data usage each month.
The iPhone has a built-in feature that shows how much data you&#8217;ve used during a pre-determined period. I&#8217;ll show you how to turn it on at the beginning of each carrier bill cycle so that you can keep an eye on your data usage all month long.
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<h2 class="subtitle">Open the settings menu on your iPhone and tap &#8220;Cellular&#8221;</h2>
<div id="attachment_128147" style="width: 540px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-128147" class="wp-image-128147 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1.jpg" alt="" width="530" height="298" />Todd Haselton | CNBC</div>
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On this page, you&#8217;ll see all sorts of data management options. Let&#8217;s take a look at how you can use them to your advantage.
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<h2 class="subtitle">View your current data usage</h2>
<div id="attachment_128148" style="width: 540px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-128148" class="wp-image-128148 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2.jpg" alt="" width="530" height="298" />Todd Haselton | CNBC</div>
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You can see how much data you&#8217;ve already used by reading the &#8220;Current Period&#8221; line. Take note of this if you&#8217;re interested in how much data you&#8217;ve already used, because we&#8217;re going to reset it to zero.
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<h2 class="subtitle">You can also prevent certain apps from downloading data – like those that might be particularly offensive during a specific month.</h2>
<div id="attachment_128149" style="width: 540px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-128149" class="size-full wp-image-128149" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/3.jpg" alt="" width="530" height="298" />Todd Haselton | CNBC</div>
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This is particularly useful if you have kids who complain they aren&#8217;t sure how they&#8217;re using so much data. Look here and you&#8217;ll find your answers.
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<h2 class="subtitle">Now scroll to the bottom of the page and tap &#8220;reset statistics&#8221;</h2>
<div id="attachment_128150" style="width: 540px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-128150" class="size-full wp-image-128150" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/4.jpg" alt="" width="530" height="298" />Todd Haselton | CNBC</div>
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This resets your data usage. You&#8217;ll want to repeat this at the beginning of each billing cycle so you can see how much data you&#8217;re using. If you&#8217;re unsure how much data you&#8217;re allowed each month, check your last bill or contact your wireless carrier.
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<h2 class="subtitle">Check weekly</h2>
<div id="attachment_128151" style="width: 540px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-128151" class="wp-image-128151 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/5.jpg" alt="" width="530" height="298" />Todd Haselton | CNBC</div>
Keep an eye on that &#8220;Current period&#8221; section weekly to see how much data you&#8217;re using. Setting a calendar reminder can help. If you&#8217;re limited to 1GB per month, you&#8217;ll want to budget 1GB per week or less so that you&#8217;re not bouncing from Wi-Fi hotspot to Wi-Fi hotspot just to surf the web.
Pro tip: Carriers sometimes include this information in their apps, so consider downloading the Verizon, Sprint, AT&amp;T or T-Mobile app to keep a second eye on your monthly data usage.
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International News

South Africa raises mining sector black ownership requirement to 30 percent

Egypt – Parliament approves ceding of Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia

At least 19 killed in hotel attack in Somalia’s capital

Tanzania claims threaten Acacia’s “very existence”: CEO

WHO confirms Congo polio outbreaks in new eradication setback

World Bank approves $500 mln credit for Tunisia: gov’t official

Huge fire engulfs London tower block, fatalities reported

Uber CEO takes leave of absence amid sweeping changes after scandals

South Africa’s Alexander Forbes appoints ex-KPMG chief as chairman

South Africa’s rand inches ahead as political worries stall major currencies

Apple co-founder Wozniak bought bitcoin at $700 for fun: ‘Now I’m way up’

EFG Hermes eyes acquisition in Nigeria, Kenya brokerage licence

South African insurer MMI in lending, sales deal with African Bank

Growth in Africa to pick up this year and next: OECD & AfDB

Aid groups seek to turn on funding tap to douse drought crises

South Africa’s Sibanye says 178 illegal miners now arrested at strike-hit Cooke mine

How to set up your iPhone to avoid expensive surprises on your phone bill

News Tips

Advertise With Us

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