PARIS (Reuters) – France backs the ongoing talks between Tunisia and the International Monetary Fund, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, as the cash-strapped North African country eyes a key IMF bailout package. The French government issued a statement after Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna held talks in Paris on Tuesday with Tunisian counterpart Nabil Ammar….
NAIROBI (Reuters) – The World Bank said on Tuesday it approved a $1 billion loan to Kenya to support its budget as East Africa’s economic powerhouse confronts high debts and a weakening currency. The lending will be done through an instrument called a Development Policy Operations (DPO) loan, which commits Kenya to instituting reforms aimed…
KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni signed one of the world’s toughest anti-LGBTQ laws, including the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”, drawing Western condemnation and risking sanctions from aid donors. Same-sex relations were already illegal in Uganda, as in more than 30 African countries, but the new law goes further. It stipulates capital punishment…
WIESBADEN, Germany (Reuters) – Hanno Berger, a former tax inspector turned legal tax expert, was sentenced on Tuesday to eight years and three months in jail by a court in Wiesbaden, as the nation comes to terms with one of its biggest post-war frauds. Berger had already been sentenced to eight years in jail in…
KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda’s economy will expand by 6% in the next fiscal year that starts in July, an increase from a projected growth of 5.5% this year, boosted by petroleum industry-related investments, the finance ministry said on Tuesday. Ramathan Ggoobi, the finance ministry’s top technocrat, said in a statement that in the 2023/24 (July-June)…
HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s treasury has announced measures to encourage the use of the local dollar as opposed to the U.S. dollar, in a bid to boost the local unit and tame rising consumer inflation. The measures include a directive that all government departments collect fees in the local currency, the introduction of a 1%…
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed a panel to investigate U.S. allegations that a Russian ship had collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town last year, the presidency said in a statement on Sunday. The U.S. ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety said on May 11 that he was…
(This May 29 story has been refiled to fix a typographical error in paragraph 19) By Khalid Abdelaziz and Aidan Lewis DUBAI (Reuters) – Sudan’s warring military factions agreed on Monday to a five-day extension of a ceasefire agreement, after renewed heavy clashes and air strikes in the capital threw fresh doubts on the effectiveness…
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday said his government would consider visa restrictions against Ugandan officials and others for the abuse of human rights following the implementation of one of the world’s toughest anti-gay laws. Blinken said he has instructed the State Department to update travel guidance to U.S. citizens…
By Felix Onuah and MacDonald Dzirutwe ABUJA (Reuters) -Nigeria’s new President Bola Tinubu vowed at his swearing-in on Monday to expand the economy by at least 6% a year, lift barriers to investment, create jobs and unify the exchange rate, while also tackling rampant insecurity. Tinubu inherits a struggling economy with record debt, shortages of…