Newscast - Africa

The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved The Gambia Second Fiscal Management, Energy and Telecom Reform Development Policy Financing.
World Bank Resident Representative, Feyi Boroffice, says the reforms that will be addressed under the PDF are very important in supporting the country's economic recovery and addressing macroeconomic vulnerabilities within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and global instability.

The Federal Government met with the striking members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities and other unions.
The meeting was chaired by the Chief of Staff to the President, Professor Ibrahim Gambari and was aimed at addressing the lingering industrial action by ASUU and other pressing issues of industrial actions in the tertiary institutions.
Gambari reiterated the Federal Government’s resolve to address the issues affecting the striking ASUU members.
He made the appeal at the 19th National productivity day and conferment of the National Productivity Order of Merit award held on Thursday.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports says President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the country's immediate withdrawal from all international basketball competitions for two years.
The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, says the withdrawal of Nigeria was to provide the government with the opportunity to revamp the sport from the grassroots as well as revive the domestic leagues which have become moribund.
He says the withdrawal would also allow for the setting up of an Interim Management Committee to oversee the management and development of the domestic Basketball Leagues in Nigeria and to further address other related issues around the advancement of the game in the country.

President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law, three bills aimed at improving the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing/proliferation financing framework in Nigeria.
The President described the bills as being in tandem with this administration’s commitment to fighting corruption and illicit financing activities, as well as critical to the governance agenda and the development of Nigeria.
He says the new laws have provided enough punitive measures and containment strategies against abuses and compromises noting that the inadequacy of all the repealed Acts had impacted legal actions against offenders.

Google says that it struck licensing deals with 300 news publishers in Europe in its latest effort to comply with a recently introduced European Union copyright law.
The tech giant signed the agreements with national, local and specialist news publications in Germany, Hungary, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland and said discussions with many others are ongoing.
The new law allows search engines like Google to link to and use snippets of news content while giving publishers new rights when extended previews are used online.
The company also said it’s rolling out a new tool to offer licensing agreements to thousands of other European publishers, starting in Germany and Hungary.

The Philippines’s economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter, boosting expectations of interest rate hikes to curb rising inflation, a key challenge facing the country’s newly-elected president.
The Southeast Asian country’s gross domestic product grew 8.3 per cent during the January-March period compared with a year earlier, well ahead of forecasts and faster than the 7.7 per cent expansion in the previous quarter.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the country’s central bank, holds its next policy meeting on May 19 amid growing expectations of an interest rate hike to tame rising prices that could threaten the economic recovery if left unchecked.

Germany's government says it will increase the number of German troops serving in the UN peacekeeping mission by 300 soldiers to 1,400.
Government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann says this is intended to compensate for capacities previously undertaken by French forces.
The Associated Press reports that this support and training will now be offered to Niger's government in its fight against Islamist militants.

Ethiopia’s state-owned telecom operator, Ethio Telecom, has introduced 5G mobile phone networks in the country’s capital, Addis Ababa.
Ethio Telecom hopes the move will give it an edge over the upcoming competition - a consortium of international telecom providers entering the country’s lucrative market for the first time.
The company however says the expansion of the network is dependent on the readiness of the players in the ecosystem including the availability of 5G enabled devices and smartphones.
Chinese telecom giant Huawei is supplying the necessary equipment for the services.

Ghana’s consumer price inflation rate has hit 23.6%, a sharp rise from 19.4% in March.
Government Statistician Kobina Annim says that imported goods surpassed locally produced items for the first time in over two years.
The rise in the cost of food and services has been condemned by Ghanaians who said the cost of living here was fast becoming unbearable.
Experts have warned that the surge in international food prices is expected to hit African economies the hardest and could trigger social unrest in some countries.

The World Bank says it intends to resume direct budget support to Mozambique, six years after it was suspended when more than $2.7bn of undisclosed state debts were discovered.
World Bank official Idah Pswarayi-Riddihough says the first trench of $300m would be up for approval by the end of June.
She explained that this help would allow the government to create more resources for development that would also help deflect the economic impact of the Ukraine crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.