DAR ES SALAAM | Tanzania&#8217;s government signed a $154 million contract on Saturday with the state-run China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) to expand the main port in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.
Tanzania is seeking financing for infrastructure projects as part of its plans to transform the country into a regional transport and trade hub.
Under the contract funded by a World Bank loan, CHEC, a subsidiary of the state-run China Communications Construction Co Ltd, will build a roll-on, roll-off (ro-ro) terminal and deepen and strengthen seven berths at Dar es Salaam port.
Tanzania hopes expansion of the port will increase container throughput to 28 million tonnes a year by 2020 from around 20 million tonnes currently.
<blockquote>&#8220;Deepening and strengthening of the berths will allow big container ships to dock in Dar es Salaam. All these efforts are being done in order to increase competitiveness of the port,&#8221; works, transport and communications minister Makame Mbarawa said at the signing of the contract.</blockquote>
East Africa&#8217;s second-biggest economy wants to profit from its long coastline and upgrade its rickety railways and roads to serve the growing economies in the land-locked heart of Africa.
Big gas finds in Tanzania and oil discoveries in Kenya and Uganda have turned East Africa into an exploration hotspot for oil firms, but transport infrastructure in those countries has suffered from decades of under-investment.
Tanzania said in January it will receive a $305 million loan from the World Bank to expand its main port, where congestion and inefficiencies are hampering service delivery.
The port, whose main rival is the bigger but also congested port of Mombasa in Kenya, acts as a trade gateway for landlocked African states such as Zambia, Rwanda, Malawi, Burundi and Uganda, as well as the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The World Bank said in a 2014 report that inefficiencies at Dar es Salaam port were costing Tanzania and its neighbours up to $2.6 billion a year.
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans to plough $60 billion into African development projects at a summit in Johannesburg in 2015, saying it would boost agriculture, build roads, ports and railways and cancel some debt.
(Reporting by Fumbuka Ng&#8217;wanakilala; Editing by George Obulutsa and Andrew Bolton)
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Tanzania signs $154 mln contract with Chinese firm to expand main port

Chris Mfula | LUSAKA
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) may grant Zambia up to $1.3 billion in a three-year credit facility to help plug a budget deficit of around 7 percent, the lender&#8217;s mission chief said on Saturday.
A decision will be made by the IMF board in August, Tsidi Tsikata told a joint news conference with the Zambian finance ministry, which pledged to halve the deficit to around 4 percent of gross national product by 2019.
Africa&#8217;s second-biggest copper producer has suffered from the steep commodity price drop of recent years. Last March, Zambia began talks with the IMF about a potential loan package after agreeing that its budget deficit was not sustainable.
Tsikita said Zambia needed to take concrete steps to achieve fiscal consolidation targets outlined in the 2017 budget which include improving revenue collection, limiting borrowing and scaling back on new capital projects.
<blockquote>&#8220;We aim to reach understanding in the coming weeks that would form the basis for presenting the authorities&#8217; request for an ECF (Extended Credit Facility) arrangement and report on the 2017 Article IV consultation to the IMF board in August 2017.&#8221;</blockquote>
The southern African country joined other sub-Saharan nations in borrowing on the eurobond market between 2012 and 2015, selling dollar-denominated debt.
The government relied on external financing as revenues failed to keep pace with spending.
(Reporting by Chris Mfula; editing by Alexander Smith)
&nbsp;

IMF may grant Zambia $1.3 billion funding package

Ayman Al Warfalli | BENGHAZI, Libya
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has been freed by an armed group in western Libya where he was being held following the 2011 revolt against his late father, former leader Muammar Gaddafi, one of his lawyers and the brigade involved said.
He was released in the town of Zintan under an amnesty law passed by a parliament based in eastern Libya, lawyer Khaled al-Zaidi said on Sunday, adding that Saif was headed to another city which could not be named for security reasons.
Saif, 44, is the most prominent of the late leader&#8217;s children, and was touted by some as a possible successor before the uprising six years ago in which Gaddafi was toppled and killed.
It is unclear what role the younger Gaddafi could play in Libya, where a complex array of armed groups and competing governments are vying for control.
<div class="teads-inread">But some in eastern Libya, where military commander Khalifa Haftar has been building power, have been pressing for Saif&#8217;s release amid a push from former regime figures to reassert influence.</div>
Earlier reports that Saif had been freed from Zintan turned out to be false and there have been conflicting reports about his status.
Zintan&#8217;s Abubaker Sadiq brigade, which was responsible for guarding Saif, said it had decided to release him following requests from the ministry of justice of a government based in eastern Libya.
&#8220;We decided to release Saif al-Islam Muammar Gaddafi, who is free, and we confirm that he left Zintan on the date of his release on the 14th of Ramadan (Friday),&#8221; the brigade said.
A Tripoli court sentenced Saif to death in 2015 for war crimes, including killing protesters during the revolution.
Libya slid into turmoil after his father&#8217;s overthrow, with rival governments and armed alliances competing for power. A U.N.-backed government now in Tripoli has struggled to impose its authority and has been rejected by powerful factions in the east.
Zintan, which grew powerful through its role in the 2011 uprising and has been at odds with authorities in Tripoli, had refused to hand Saif over. He is also sought by the International Criminal Court, which says his trial in Libya did not meet international standards.
It was unknown what terms Saif&#8217;s captors might have set for his release, and why they would have freed a prisoner seen as a major bargaining chip.
Zintan, about 145 km (90 miles) southwest of Tripoli, has its own divisions, but it has been broadly aligned with the government and armed forces based in eastern Libya.
A statement from Zintan&#8217;s military and municipal councils strongly condemned the decision to release Saif.
It said the move had &#8220;nothing to do with the legal procedures, but is collusion and betrayal of the blood of the martyrs and the military institution that they claim to belong to&#8221;.
(Additional reporting by Ahmed Elumami in Tripoli; writing by Aidan Lewis; editing by Patrick Markey and Jason Neely)

Gaddafi son Saif freed in Libya, whereabouts unclear – lawyer

ABIDJAN (Reuters) &#8211; Ivory Coast&#8217;s raw cotton output is forecast to hit 350,000 tonnes in the 2017/18 season, little changed from 340,000 tonnes in the last season, the Cotton Ginners&#8217; Association&#8217;s executive secretary Christophe N&#8217;Dry said on Friday.
Ivory Coast, the world&#8217;s top cocoa producer, is also one of Africa&#8217;s largest cotton exporters. Its annual output was about 400,000 tonnes before a 2002-2003 civil war halved it.
The government aims to boost output to 600,000 tonnes by 2020. Cotton farmers in Ivory Coast sow cotton by late May and the harvest runs from November through January or February.
(Reporting By Loucoumane Coulibaly; Editing by Edward McAllister)

Ivory Coast forecasts 2017/18 cotton output steady at 350,000 T

Stephanie Nebehay &amp; Aaron Ross | GENEVA
The top U.N. human rights official called on Friday for an international investigation into massacres and other crimes committed in Democratic Republic of Congo&#8217;s Kasai region where at least 42 mass graves have been found.
The call sets up the possibility of a diplomatic confrontation between the United Nations and the government of President Joseph Kabila.
The government had said it would accept U.N. technical assistance but wanted to retain control of the inquiry in response to a Thursday deadline by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra&#8217;ad al-Hussein for Congo to agree to a joint probe.
But in his statement on Friday, Zeid said the government &#8220;response to date falls short&#8221; and urged the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is holding a session until June 23, to act.
Government spokesman Lambert Mende told Reuters the government was not willing to go beyond its previous offer to run the investigation itself and accept U.N. technical help.
Hundreds have been killed and 1.3 million displaced in central Congo since last August in fighting between a militia and government forces. Violence has risen nationally since Kabila decided to stay in power beyond the December 2016 end of his mandate.
<blockquote>&#8220;The international community is throwing its weight behind ensuring that the endemic impunity in the DRC is brought to an end,&#8221; Zeid said.</blockquote>
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Aaron Ross in Kinshasa; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

UN rights chief seeks international inquiry into Congo massacres

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<a class="" href="http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000625931" data-videoid="3000625931" data-videotype=""><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" title="In near term, second Scottish referendum seems off the table: Pro" src="https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2017/06/09/104519692-6ED3-SSA-ThomasRaines2-06092017.600x400.jpg?v=1496987910" alt="In near term, 2nd Scottish referendum off the table: Pro" width="600" height="400" /></a>
<div class="headline">In near term, second Scottish referendum seems off the table: Pro  <time>2 Hours Ago | 01:44</time></div>
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<div class="group">
<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/08/uk-election-results.html" target="_self">The U.K. election has failed to give a decisive mandate</a> to either the ruling Conservative Party or the opposition Labour Party, sparking more political uncertainty and dealing a major blow to Prime Minister Theresa May.
The official result is a <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/08/uk-election-hung-parliament-2017-result-conservative-labour-may-corbyn.html" target="_self">hung Parliament</a> with no party able to form a majority on its own. Here&#8217;s what happens next, according to the U.K. Parliament.
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<div class="group-container ">
<h4 class="subtitle">What happens when no party wins a majority?</h4>
<div class="group">
The ruling Conservatives will remain in power while they try to negotiate a coalition or the government may attempt to try to govern with a minority of members of Parliament. Back in 2010, the last time there was a hung Parliament, the incumbent Labour government stayed in place until a majority government could be formed.
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<div class="group-container ">
<h4 class="subtitle">Will the party with the most seats automatically form the government?</h4>
<div class="group">
<div id="inline_movable_ad"> Not guaranteed. In order to govern, a party must be able to command a majority in Parliament (there are 650 seats in total) on votes of confidence and supply, either on its own or through support from other political parties whether there is a formal coalition in place or not. For instance, the Conservatives could partner with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) that has 10 seats to get over the finishing line. However, if they can&#8217;t seal a pact with the DUP (or someone else) and the Conservatives can&#8217;t claim a majority, May will likely resign and the Labour party will be invited next to try and form a coalition.</div>
By 7:30 a.m. London time, Prime Minister Theresa May&#8217;s ruling Conservative party had won 314 seats while the opposition Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, had 261 seats. Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party (SNP) had won 35 seats, the Liberal Democrats were at 12 and the Democratic Unionist Party had secured 10. Voter turnout was at 68.7 percent, according to the BBC.
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<a class="" href="http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000625930" data-videoid="3000625930" data-videotype=""><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" title="In electoral terms, almost every UK party lost: Pro" src="https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2017/06/09/104519691-6ED3-SSA-ThomasRaines1-06092017.600x400.jpg?v=1496987861" alt="In electoral terms, almost every UK party lost: Pro" width="600" height="400" /></a>
<div class="headline">In electoral terms, almost every UK party lost: Pro  <time>2 Hours Ago | 01:49</time></div>
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<h4 class="subtitle">How long can the negotiations last?</h4>
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The U.K. has had hung Parliaments before. For what it&#8217;s worth, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in 2010 finally formed a coalition five days after the elections. That same deal is very unlikely this time around as both parties now stand at polar opposites when it comes to the issue of Bexit.
[bc_video video_id=&#8221;5465508193001&#8243; account_id=&#8221;1571595826001&#8243; player_id=&#8221;default&#8221;]
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<h4 class="subtitle">What are the important upcoming events?</h4>
<div class="group">
The first important date is June 13 when the Parliament reconvenes. The next important hurdle after that is the vote on amendments to the Queen&#8217;s speech, which is scheduled for June 19.
<ul>
<li>Author &#8211; Neelabh Chaturvedi, special to CNBC.com</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>

UK in political deadlock — Here’s what happens next

<ul>
<li>The U.K. voted in a general election on Thursday and so far, PM May&#8217;s ruling Conservative party is in the lead.</li>
<li>An exit poll released on Thursday night indicated the Conservatives would win the most seats but lose its parliamentary majority.</li>
<li>Results for key seats continue to roll in.</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/nyshka-chandran/" rel="author">Nyshka Chandran</a> | <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/david-reid/" rel="author">David Reid</a> | <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/gemma-acton/" rel="author">Gemma Acton</a>
With the bulk of seats now declared in the general election, the <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/united-kingdom/" target="_self">U.K.</a> now faces a hung parliament.
<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/08/live-final-minutes-of-voting-in-uk-general-election.html" target="_self">Among the announced seats so far</a>, Prime Minister <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/theresa-may/" target="_self">Theresa May</a>&#8216;s ruling Conservative party has won 309 while the opposition Labour Party, led by <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/08/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leader-uk-election-manifesto-policies.html" target="_self">Jeremy Corbyn</a>, has gained 258. Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party has won 34 seats, the Liberal Democrats are at 12 and the Democratic Unionist Party has secured 10. Voter turnout was at 68.6 percent, according to the BBC.
There are 650 seats in total — 326 are required for a party to secure a parliamentary majority.
Reuters calculations on Friday also indicated May could no longer win a parliamentary majority.
A <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/08/uk-election-hung-parliament-2017-result-conservative-labour-may-corbyn.html" target="_self">hung parliament</a> — a situation in which multiple parties hammer out a coalition government — arises when neither party secures the 326 seats needed for a majority. Investors aren&#8217;t thrilled about that situation as passing legislation can be difficult with two parties that each hold strong political priorities.
Earlier, a BBC exit poll had indicated the Conservatives would win the greatest number of seats but lose its majority in Parliament — a scenario expected to hurt <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/08/uk-election-theresa-mays-future-tough-brexit-ahead.html" target="_self">upcoming Brexit negotiations as well as May&#8217;s political future</a>, according to strategists.
<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/08/british-pound-sterling-after-uk-election-exit-poll.html" target="_self">The British pound dropped sharply in Asian trade on Friday,</a> briefly falling below the $1.27 handle to a multi-month low. The currency has since recovered to linger around $1.2759.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-127887 size-large" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/JC-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="360" />
<h4 class="subtitle">&#8216;May should step down&#8217;</h4>
<div class="group">
After winning his seat back in Islington, North London, early on Friday, 68 year-old Corbyn called for May to step down. &#8220;People have said they have quite enough of austerity politics,&#8221; he said in a speech. &#8220;The PM called this election because she wanted a mandate. Well, the mandate she&#8217;s got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence.&#8221;
Betting exchange Betfair said that Corbyn was the favorite to become U.K. Prime Minister, Reuters reported.
In a speech on Friday, May said it will be incumbent on her party to offer stability if Conservatives win the most seats.
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon called the early results &#8220;disastrous&#8221; for PM May and expressed disappointment over the SNP&#8217;s performance, Reuters said.
Polling stations opened at 7:00 a.m. London time Thursday and closed at 10:00 p.m, with the main flurry of results coming in after 2.00 a.m. London time Friday.
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&#8216;A big miscalculation&#8217;
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On April 18, PM May surprised onlookers by calling a snap election— a decision aimed at strengthening her mandate to see the country through a hard Brexit. At that point, the Conservatives were polling ahead of Labour but as the campaign progressed, the polls narrowed sharply.
The Conservative campaign has attempted to focus on <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/brexit/" target="_self">withdrawal from the European Union</a>, repeating a mantra that only it can offer a &#8220;strong and stable&#8221; government as negotiations with Brussels heat up. This strategy has worked to an extent, with polls on leadership consistently backing May over Corbyn as a more trusted leader.
Corbyn has said he will honor the U.K.&#8217;s decision to leave but he&#8217;s widely expected to push for <a href="http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000625251" target="_self">a soft Brexit</a> and retain the benefits of the single market, a tariff free trading bloc for E.U. members.
&#8220;We have seen two dramatic political miscalculations by two conservative (U.K.) PMs in a short time span, it&#8217;s incredible,&#8221; said Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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<div class="group-container last">
<h4 class="subtitle">Terror comes to the fore</h4>
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The U.K. has suffered <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/05/civil-liberties-in-focus-after-uk-terror-attack.html" target="_self">three separate incidents of &#8220;terror attacks&#8221; in just three months</a>, pushing the issue of security to the fore of the election as both main parties accused each other of weakness.
Corbyn was criticized in the media for appearing weak on a &#8220;shoot to kill&#8221; policy and has apologized for statements made in the past describing Middle East factions Hamas and Hezbollah as &#8220;friends.&#8221;
Conservatives also felt a backlash. In her previous role as Home Secretary, May was responsible for cutting of the U.K.&#8217;s police force numbers — a decision that many believed put the nation at a greater risk of terror.
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UK faces hung parliament; Corbyn calls for May to step down

<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/arjun-kharpal/" rel="author">Arjun Kharpal</a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/ArjunKharpal">@ArjunKharpal</a> 
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Huawei will become the top personal computer maker in the world in three to five years, leapfrogging the likes of <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/AAPL" target="_self" data-gdsid="8016" data-inline-quote-symbol="AAPL">Apple</a>, <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/992-HK" target="_self" data-gdsid="2463" data-inline-quote-symbol="992-HK">Lenovo</a> and <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/HPQ" target="_self" data-gdsid="20154" data-inline-quote-symbol="HPQ">HP</a>, a top executive at the firm told CNBC on Wednesday, just days after launching new notebook devices.
In May, the Chinese firm took the wraps off of the MateBook X, MateBook D and MateBook E — the X is a laptop that competes directly with Apple&#8217;s MacBook line of products. For its part, the company says it is bullish on its plans in the PC space.
&#8220;Whenever Huawei decides to enter an area, make a product, our target is always to be a global leader,&#8221; said Wan Biao, chief operating officer of Huawei&#8217;s consumer business group. &#8220;I think this comes from Huawei&#8217;s unswerving input in R&amp;D, and our innovation capabilities. I think these has already been proven in our smartphone products.&#8221;
When asked how long it will take to sit at the top spot in the market, Wan said the &#8220;process would take about three to five years.&#8221;
The PC market has been declining for several years, but it recorded 0.6 percent growth in the first quarter of 2017, according to data from IDC. Given that low growth, it&#8217;s an incredibly tough market.
HP, Lenovo, Dell, Apple, and Acer make up the top five players in the world by market share, IDC said. So if Huawei becomes number one, that would mean beating out those top players. Wan, however, said he&#8217;s confident.
<div id="attachment_127783" style="width: 650px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-127783" class="wp-image-127783 size-large" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Huawei-Flickr-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427" />Photo: Flickr.</div>
&#8220;Of course, we are confident because of Huawei&#8217;s powerful innovation capabilities. In fact, in the laptop space some technologies are the same with smartphone. In the meantime, with the development of AI, AR and VR [artificial intelligence, augmented reality and virtual reality] technologies, the chance to succeed will only grow bigger for a strong innovative company,&#8221; Wan told CNBC.
Huawei&#8217;s consumer business is relatively young and began with smartphones. The Chinese giant is seeing success: reported revenues in its consumer business group were up 42 percent year-on-year in 2016 to 178 billion yuan ($26.19 billion). Smartphone shipments were up 29 percent to 139 million units, and Huawei is now the third-largest smartphone vendor in the world by market share.
Wan&#8217;s projection of being the top PC maker in only a few years mirrors similar bullishness from the company about smartphones. In 2016, Richard Yu, the CEO of the consumer division at Huawei, told CNBC that the firm would be number one in smartphones by 2021.
It may seem odd that Huawei is entering a stagnant market, but the tactic is to try and create an ecosystem of products for consumers. Not only does Huawei have smartphones, but it also sells smartwatches and Wi-Fi routers. Laptops are another edition to the portfolio.
&#8220;I think for Huawei&#8217;s strategy, one of the most crucial points is the connectivity of all things. Every object in the world should be able to connect … Therefore Huawei is also developing our business over these notions,&#8221; Wan said.

Huawei will leapfrog Apple and HP to lead the PC market in five years, top exec says

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s central bank is wary of cutting interest rates to support economic growth until it is convinced an improved inflation outlook can be sustained, monetary policy committee member Brian Kahn said on Thursday.
&#8220;We would not want to reduce rates and then be forced into a premature reversal of policy,&#8221; Kahn said in a speech at an investor conference.
&#8220;We see price stability as the main contribution we can make to long term growth. The current stance of monetary policy is not tight and is not a constrain to growth.&#8221;
Kahn said the central bank would likely cut its economic growth forecasts in July after data showed this week that South Africa had slipped into technical recession.
(Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by TJ Strydom)
&nbsp;

South Africa’s central bank wary of cutting rates: Kahn

Ed Cropley | MAIDUGURI
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has had to scale back plans for emergency feeding of 400,000 people in Boko Haram-hit northeast Nigeria due to funding shortfalls, a top U.N. official said on Wednesday.
The decision to cut aid for some believed to be on the brink of famine comes as the onset of the annual rains threaten to exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. Farmers have been unable to plant or harvest crops for years due to the Islamist insurgency.
&#8220;The plan was from the beginning to reach 1.8 million (people) this year but due to the funding constraints WFP has been forced to come up with a contingency plan,&#8221; said Peter Lundberg, the U.N.&#8217;s Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria.
The WFP is now focusing on supplying 1.4 million people deemed to be most at risk, with assistance for the remainder cut by around a third, Lundberg told Reuters in Maiduguri, capital of the hardest-hit state of Borno.
The U.N. says it needs $1.05 billion this year to deal with the crisis &#8211; one of three humanitarian emergencies unfolding in Africa &#8211; but has only received just over a quarter of that.
The reductions in Nigeria come a month after the WFP halved the monthly rations of more than 800,000 South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda because of a lack of funds.
MAROONED
More than 20,000 people are thought to have died and 2.7 million have been displaced in Boko Haram&#8217;s bloody eight-year battle to establish a medieval Islamic caliphate.
Two years ago, the group controlled an area the size of Belgium but a military push by Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger has ejected the militants from cities and major towns.
However, according to the latest U.N. assessments, huge swathes of land remain no-go zones, even with military escorts. As many as 700,000 people might still be trapped in these areas, Lundberg said.
The rainy season also makes it harder to bring in emergency supplies of food and medicine as dirt roads turn to rivers of mud for up to three months.
&#8220;Some of these places will be completely locked in because of the rain,&#8221; Lundberg said. &#8220;When the rain comes, we know there will be very big challenges.&#8221;
Furthermore, aid agencies have been prevented from building up large supply centres outside cities such as Maiduguri for fear they will be attacked.
In the town of Rann near the Cameroon border, nearly 50,000 people are about to become marooned with only two weeks&#8217; supply of food to hand, said Dana Krause, an emergency coordinator for the Swiss arm of the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
&#8220;The populations along the border are pretty much entirely dependent on external aid,&#8221; Krause said. &#8220;And by the end of July, Rann will literally be an island.&#8221;
As a last resort, a WFP spokeswoman said it was considering air drops for the most inaccessible areas.
Nigeria&#8217;s military did not respond to a request for comment.
(Editing by Susan Fenton)

Funds shortage forces UN to cut emergency food aid for 400,000 in Nigeria

Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo | JOHANNESBURG
South Africa&#8217;s rand steadied against the dollar early on Thursday ahead of local mining and manufacturing data and several key global events, including Britain&#8217;s general election.
At 0645 GMT, the rand traded at 12.8375 per dollar, barely changed from its overnight close of 12.8300.
April mining and manufacturing data due later in the day will give more clues to the health of the economy after South Africa sank into recession.
Focus globally on Britain&#8217;s election, as well as the European Central Bank policy announcement.
In the U.S., focus is on Senate testimony of James Comey, the former FBI chief sacked by President Donald Trump.
Stocks were set to open flat at 0700 GMT, with the JSE securities exchange&#8217;s Top-40 futures index largely unchanged.
In fixed income, the yield for the benchmark government bond due in 2026 added 2.5 basis points to 8.5 percent.
(Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Joe Brock)

South Africa’s rand steadies, focus on economic data

<a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/6758.T-JP" target="_self" data-gdsid="6180" data-inline-quote-symbol="6758.T-JP">Sony Corp</a> has sold more than one million units of its virtual reality (VR) headset globally, the Asia chief of the Japanese firm&#8217;s gaming unit said on Wednesday, as a relatively low price helps push the product into an early lead.
Sales of the PlayStation VR headset, released in October, have &#8220;exceeded our expectations,&#8221; Atsushi Morita, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia, said in an interview.
&#8220;We are boosting production and a supply shortage should be solved accordingly,&#8221; Morita told Reuters.
<div id="attachment_127705" style="width: 650px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-127705" class="wp-image-127705 size-large" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Playstation-VR-Flickr-1024x688.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="430" />Photo: Flickr.</div>
The sales momentum supports analysts&#8217; view that Sony is in a good position to build an early lead in the high-end VR headset race with its more modest price tag and by tapping the nearly 60 million users of its flagship PlayStation 4 console.
The headset, designed to work with the PlayStation 4 rather than requiring new equipment, retails at $399, cheaper than <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/FB" target="_self" data-gdsid="139619" data-inline-quote-symbol="FB">Facebook</a> Inc&#8217;s $599 Oculus Rift and <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/07/sonys-playstation-vr-headset-sales-top-1-million-units.html" target="_self" data-gdsid="3423">HTC</a> Corp&#8217;s $799 Vive.
According to researcher IDC, about 2 million VR headsets were shipped worldwide in the first three months of 2017. Excluding cheaper smartphone-based headsets, Sony ranked top with 429,000 units.
Morita stressed it was still the beginning of Sony&#8217;s long-term vision of VR eventually taking over functions offered by television sets.
&#8220;I believe that VR technology is the (greatest) innovation since the birth of television,&#8221; he said. &#8220;VR allows you to travel to World Heritage sites or to space while staying at home. It&#8217;s like a time machine or a door to anywhere.&#8221;
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Sony’s PlayStation VR headset sales top 1 million units

<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/jordan-novet/" rel="author">Jordan Novet</a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/jordannovet">@jordannovet</a>
<ul>
<li>Facebook plans to move WhatsApp, which is used by more than 1 billion people, from IBM&#8217;s SoftLayer cloud to Facebook&#8217;s own data centers.</li>
<li>The WhatsApp messaging app relies on more than 700 high-end IBM SoftLayer servers.</li>
<li>WhatsApp is one of IBM&#8217;s high-profile customers for its cloud service, which lags behind market leader Amazon Web Services, as well as Microsoft Azure.</li>
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<a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/FB" target="_self" data-gdsid="139619" data-inline-quote-symbol="FB">Facebook</a>&#8216;s WhatsApp messaging service, which is used by 1.2 billion people across the globe, is planning to move off of <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/IBM" target="_self" data-gdsid="20553" data-inline-quote-symbol="IBM">IBM</a>&#8216;s cloud and into Facebook&#8217;s own data centers, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The WhatsApp move, which could begin later this year, would result in IBM losing a high profile customer for its public cloud. A source claims that WhatsApp has been one of IBM&#8217;s top five public cloud customers in terms of revenue, and was at one point spending $2 million a month with IBM. (IBM says WhatsApp is not currently one of its top five public cloud customers.)
IBM&#8217;s public cloud business lags behind <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/AMZN" target="_self" data-gdsid="9399" data-inline-quote-symbol="AMZN">Amazon</a> Web Services (AWS), which is on top with 33 percent of the market in April, as well as <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/MSFT" target="_self" data-gdsid="25619" data-inline-quote-symbol="MSFT">Microsoft</a>&#8216;s Azure cloud, according to <a class="inline_asset" title="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/28/cloud-market-share-data-synergy-research.html" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/28/cloud-market-share-data-synergy-research.html" target="_self">Synergy Research</a>.
Facebook <a class="inline_asset" title="http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/19/facebook-to-acquire-whatsapp-for-about-16-billion.html" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/19/facebook-to-acquire-whatsapp-for-about-16-billion.html" target="_self">acquired</a> WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014 and has left the app running on the servers it has always used. Other companies that Facebook has acquired over the years initially used similar IBM SoftLayer servers, and Facebook was quick to bring them in-house, another source said. But with WhatsApp, Facebook has taken a much longer time.
Part of the reason was prioritization. When Facebook bought WhatsApp, it was already in the midst of a <a class="inline_asset" title="https://www.wired.com/2014/06/facebook-instagram/" href="https://www.wired.com/2014/06/facebook-instagram/" target="_self">yearlong migration</a> of its Instagram photo-sharing app, which it acquired in 2012, from AWS to its own data centers.
Also, Facebook separated its own Messenger messaging and calling app out from the core Facebook app months after the WhatsApp acquisition, and the social network&#8217;s CEO, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/mark-zuckerberg/" target="_self">Mark Zuckerberg</a>, didn&#8217;t want WhatsApp to &#8220;get Facebooked&#8221; — in other words, to get integrated with its own apps too soon, a source said. Since then both Messenger and WhatsApp have gained hundreds of millions of users.
At IBM, WhatsApp is considered a poster child for its cloud, two sources said — just as AWS has the likes of Airbnb and Netflix to boast about, while <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/GOOGL" target="_self" data-gdsid="19004" data-inline-quote-symbol="GOOGL">Alphabet&#8217;s</a> Google points to Snap and Spotify. (<a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/SNAP" target="_self" data-gdsid="163704" data-inline-quote-symbol="SNAP">Snap</a>, which operates the Snapchat social media app, has committed to paying Google $2 billion and Amazon $1 billion for hosting over five years, the company <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/09/snap-cloud-bill-aws-google-cloud-higher-than-2016-revenue.html" target="_self">disclosed</a> in February.)
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IBM hasn&#8217;t broadly advertised its business with WhatsApp, although the company has detailed WhatsApp&#8217;s usage in an off-the-record case study, a source said. It shows that WhatsApp runs atop more than 700 high-end servers split between data centers in San Jose, California, and Washington, D.C. At one point Facebook was spending nearly $2 million per month on the IBM cloud, a second source said.
&#8220;WhatsApp has been a great client of IBM Cloud as they used our global footprint and capabilities to scale their business,&#8221; IBM said in a statement. &#8220;We are proud of the role of IBM Cloud in their success. It is completely natural for Facebook to seek synergies across their business.&#8221;
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
People sent 63 billion messages on WhatsApp on New Year&#8217;s Eve, Facebook said. That usage requires hefty computing resources. Presumably, the WhatsApp app will operate more efficiently once it&#8217;s using Facebook servers, which could help Facebook save money. It&#8217;s unlikely — although not impossible — that WhatsApp&#8217;s users will notice any changes during the migration.
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<div class="group-container last">
<h4 class="subtitle">A common move as companies grow</h4>
<div class="group">
Relying on a third-party cloud provider is common for young companies, which have to choose their priorities. But cloud costs can add up as companies grow. Dropbox and Zynga are among the companies that have reduced their dependence on AWS.
When WhatsApp started in 2009, its engineers chose to run the underlying code on hosted servers from SoftLayer, which was then an independent company.
Typically in the public cloud, software that would normally run on a single server is chopped up into slices that are known as virtual machines, and can also be further divided into containers, all of which lets them run more efficiently with less hardware.
But WhatsApp has long circumvented this type of cloud resource, opting instead to use so-called <a class="inline_asset" title="http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/3/31/how-whatsapp-grew-to-nearly-500-million-users-11000-cores-an.html" href="http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/3/31/how-whatsapp-grew-to-nearly-500-million-users-11000-cores-an.html" target="_self">bare-metal servers</a>, which can deliver better performance. The SoftLayer public cloud was best known as a provider of these bare-metal servers when IBM acquired SoftLayer for $2 billion in 2013, and its bare-metal offerings remain available alongside virtual machines under IBM&#8217;s Bluemix portfolio of cloud services.
While Facebook has housed its own servers and storage in co-located facilities from the very early days of the company, it started building its own data centers in 2010, following in the steps of Alphabet&#8217;s Google. Facebook has also designed a lot of its own data center hardware to improve efficiency, and has released many of the designs under the Open Compute Project, allowing low-cost manufacturers to build and sell the hardware to both Facebook and other companies. The company has saved more than $2 billion in data center costs by building in accord with the designs that it has shared in the Open Compute Project, an executive <a class="inline_asset" title="http://www.infoworld.com/article/2895067/data-center/facebook-open-compute-project-billions-in-savings.html" href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/2895067/data-center/facebook-open-compute-project-billions-in-savings.html" target="_self">said</a> in 2015.
Last week Laurent Potdevin, CEO of athletic goods retailer Lululemon, <a class="inline_asset" title="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/02/lululemon-ceo-blames-ibm-for-site-outage.html" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/02/lululemon-ceo-blames-ibm-for-site-outage.html" target="_self">faulted IBM</a> for an outage of its website. But IBM did score a victory recently, signing <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/LLOY-GB" target="_self" data-gdsid="23680" data-inline-quote-symbol="LLOY-GB">Lloyds Bank</a> to a 10-year deal, according to <a class="inline_asset" title="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/06/lloyds_confirms_ibm_cloudy_outsourcing/" href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/06/lloyds_confirms_ibm_cloudy_outsourcing/" target="_self">The Register</a>.
Disclosure: <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/03/nbc-invests-500-million-in-snapchat-ipo.html" target="_self">CNBC parent NBCUniversal is an investor in Snap</a>.
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Facebook is planning to move WhatsApp off IBM’s public cloud, source says

Tanisha Heiberg | JOHANNESBURG
Large global mining companies have cut back on investments despite a turnaround in profitability and a spike in commodity prices, a PricewaterhouseCooper&#8217;s (PwC) report revealed on Wednesday.
Capital expenditure, an measure of confidence in future returns, fell 41 percent in 2016 to a record low of $50 billion.
&#8220;Everyone is gun shy at the moment and they are not investing until they are very comfortable that the returns will be there,&#8221; PwC director and report co-author Andries Rossouw told journalists on the sidelines of a junior mining conference in Johannesburg.
The report showed that profitability in the industry recovered to an aggregate net profit of $20 billion from $28 billion in losses in 2015.
Glencore, Anglo American Plc and Rio Tinto, were among the forty companies included in PwC&#8217;s 14th report on the industry.
This one drew on analyses of performance and global trends from financial information during 12-month reporting periods for companies between 1 April 2015 and 31 December 2016.
(Reporting by Tanisha Heiberg; Editing by Ed Stoddard and Elaine Hardcastle)
&nbsp;

Capital expenditure by top global miners at record low: report

Tiisetso Motsoeneng | GABORONE
Botswana&#8217;s largest tourism company, Wilderness Holdings , is the government&#8217;s preferred bidder for national airline Air Botswana, which is being privatised, a transport ministry official said on Wednesday.
Wilderness, which operates small aircraft under Wilderness Air, beat South Africa&#8217;s CemAir at the last hurdle of the bidding process, Kabelo Ebineng, permanent secretary in the transport and communication ministry, said.
&#8220;Looking at what we want to achieve with the airline, Wilderness has been chosen by the cabinet as the preferred bidder,&#8221; Ebineng told a parliamentary committee. &#8220;We expect a deal to be completed in the next 9-12 months.&#8221;
Air Botswana has been making losses, blamed on a large workforce and an aging fleet, which prompted the government to launch a turnaround plan that includes cutting costs and cancelling unprofitable routes. It has already stopped flights to Harare and Lusaka.
Ebineng did not elaborate on what form the privatisation will take, but the government in its invitation for bids had said it was open to joint ventures, ownership, franchising and concessions.
Wilderness runs luxury resorts in eight African countries and Wilderness Air operates 35 small aircrafts in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia, mainly for tourists.
Air Botswana operates four domestic routes and also flies to Cape Town and Johannesburg.
(Writing by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Tourism company Wilderness picked as preferred bidder for Air Botswana

<div id="article-byline"> <a href="http://www.reuters.com/journalists/sonali-paul">Sonali Paul</a> | MELBOURNE</div>
A dispute between two Australian energy companies escalated on Thursday, potentially delaying a promising oil project off Senegal which was due to start producing as early as 2021.
The deepwater SNE project is being closely watched as it would be the first oil development in the West African nation, in an offshore area that has recently attracted oil giants BP Plc, Total SA and China&#8217;s CNOOC Ltd.
Woodside Petroleum, Australia&#8217;s biggest independent oil and gas producer, bought a 35 percent stake in the project from ConocoPhillips last year and as part of the deal was due to become the operator later this year.
Woodside said on Thursday that minority stakeholder FAR Ltd had advised that it would not support arrangements for Woodside to take over as operator from Britain&#8217;s Cairn Energy PLC.
FAR contends that it should have had pre-emptive rights over the ConocoPhillips stake, which was sold for what was considered a cheap price of $350 million, and has said the Senegalese government has yet to approve the deal.
Woodside said it did not believe that FAR&#8217;s claims had any merit.
<blockquote>&#8220;These actions by FAR put at risk the timely development of the SNE oil field in a prospective emerging basin,&#8221; Woodside Chief Executive Peter Coleman said in the statement.</blockquote>
FAR Managing Director Cath Norman, who has kept a low profile over the ownership dispute up to now, said given that Woodside was not operator of the field, it could not claim that development would be delayed.
&#8220;We are correcting the mistruths that are in the announcement by Woodside stating that the development will be delayed. Cairn is the operator, not Woodside,&#8221; Norman told Reuters.
FAR is planning to take the dispute to international arbitration if the pre-emptive rights are not resolved, Norman said, as the SNE project is its core asset, with an estimated resource of 641 million barrels.
Woodside has flagged the Senegal development as one of its key near term growth projects.
FAR has a 15 percent stake in the project, while Cairn Energy has a 40 percent stake and the state owns the remainder.
Spokesmen for Cairn were not immediately available to comment outside office hours.
(Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Richard Pullin)

Woodside faces delay on Senegal oil project over ownership row

British Prime Minister Theresa May was met with a chorus of boos and shouts of &#8220;vote Labour&#8221; as she visited London&#8217;s biggest meat market in the early hours of the final day of the election campaign.
May, who is widely expected to win re-election in Thursday&#8217;s vote, was visiting the Smithfield Market in central London with her husband Philip when several butchers started booing, jeering and yelling &#8220;vote Labour&#8221;.
Continuing to smile, the prime minister shook hands with other butchers who were dressed in white on one of the market&#8217;s many stands.
May called the snap election in April in a bid to increase her majority and strengthen her hand for the Brexit talks but her campaign has struggled in recent weeks due to a series of policy missteps.
(Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

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Tanzania signs $154 mln contract with Chinese firm to expand main port

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Funds shortage forces UN to cut emergency food aid for 400,000 in Nigeria

South Africa’s rand steadies, focus on economic data

Sony’s PlayStation VR headset sales top 1 million units

Facebook is planning to move WhatsApp off IBM’s public cloud, source says

Capital expenditure by top global miners at record low: report

Tourism company Wilderness picked as preferred bidder for Air Botswana

Woodside faces delay on Senegal oil project over ownership row

Butchers give British PM May the cold shoulder at campaign stop

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