Newscast - Africa

Securities and Exchange Commission filings showed that Tesla chief Elon Musk sold nearly $4 billion worth of shares in the electric car company.
Musk has been pushing for ways to pay for the massive deal, for which he took on billions of dollars in debt and earlier sold $15.5 billion worth of shares in Tesla.
Documents filed with the United States SEC indicated that he had disposed of more than 19 million shares, in excess of $3.9 billion.
Musk took control of Twitter and fired its top executives in late October after a drawn-out back-and-forth between the world’s richest person and the influential social media company.

German sportswear giant Adidas slashed its earnings forecast saying the end of its partnership with rapper Kanye West would cut this year’s net income in half.
The group now expects a net profit from continuing operations of 250 million euros for 2022, down from a 500-million-euro estimate last month, which was a downgrade from previous forecasts partly because of slowing sales in China.
Adidas says its full-year revenues are forecast to grow at a low-single-digit rate, compared with the mid-single-digit rate it had still expected last month.

Burkina Faso's transitional prime minister has replaced two ministers, only two weeks after the formation of a new government.
The minister for industry and trade, as well as the one in charge of lands and housing, were replaced through a decree read out on national television on Wednesday.
Donatien Nagalo’s appointment as trade minister had faced opposition from traders’ associations, who accused him of malpractices as a former head of the country’s national union of traders.
He has now been replaced by Serge Gnaniodem Poda, an executive of BCEAO, the central bank of the common regional currency.

The leader of a military movement in the country says there is a risk Sudan could split because the current military junta in charge of the country is not ready for a peaceful settlement and want to stay in power,
The leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, Abdelaziz al-Hilu, says that his group will opt for independence if the government in Khartoum does not change.
The SPLA-North is in control of a large swathe of land in the Nuba mountains in the country’s south, as well as part of the Blue Nile in the southeast.
Mr. Al-Hilu says his group prefers unity but warned that if Khartoum wants to maintain the old Sudan of segregation and oppression then “we will opt for independence.

Thousands of public workers in South Africa downed tools in a nationwide strike over wages after talks with the government hit a deadlock threatening to affect essential services.
The wage stalemate between the government and its employees escalated after Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi last week declared he would unilaterally implement a three per cent increase across the board.
Unions want a 6.5 percent hike.
Union members including nurses, immigration workers, and some police officers picketed outside the Treasury office in Pretoria waving black placards reading public servants are bleeding.
The PSA had warned that the strike would have a serious impact on the home affairs, transport, and border control departments.

The UNESCO International Center for Higher Education Innovation has trained 50 lecturers across five tertiary institutions in digital education.
Malam Auwalu Umar, Director of Public Affairs Directorate, at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, says the initiative was in collaboration with the International Institute for Online Education.
Umar says that the training was aimed at strengthening the digital transformation of higher education teaching and learning.
He further explained saying that it was a training of trainers program, which was basically an online course in design, development, and production.
He says the training was focused on general courses in three thematic areas of engineering/computing, medical/bioscience, as well as humanities/social sciences.

The Federal Government is targeting a 6.3 percent rate, 7 percent economic growth, and a 0.3 percent poverty rate by 2050.
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, says the Nigeria Agenda 2050, which was developed by the current administration, was designed to transform the country into an upper middle-income developing country with a per capita income of $33,000.
He says the National Development Plan 2021-2025 had the vision to unlock the potential of the country in all sectors of the economy for sustainable, holistic, and inclusive national development.
He says the Nigeria Agenda 2050 would be implemented through a series of medium-term plans and annual budgets.

The Minister of Environment, Mohammed Abdulahi, says the Federal Government is spending nine percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product to address climate change in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s GDP was worth $440.78bn in 2021, according to official data from the World Bank. Nine percent of this figure is $39.67bn; hence, Nigeria may spend around this amount in tackling climate change, based on the disclosure of the Federal Government.
Abdulahi disclosed this while addressing African leaders during the inauguration of the African Carbon Market Initiative, a side event organized by Climate Action at the ongoing COP27 in Egypt.

Greece’s government says it will introduce a bill to ban the sale of spyware following media reports of a state-sponsored phone-tapping scandal that targeted at least 30 people, including politicians and business people.
Government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou says they won’t allow any shadow to remain on issues that poison Greek society adding that a bill will soon be submitted to parliament.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis slammed the accusations as an incredible lie”, adding that the report was unfounded as it presented no evidence that his cabinet was behind the surveillance.
Oikonomou says the Greek state had not used or bought any such spyware and added that judicial authorities would investigate the latest report.

A cybercriminal or cybercrime organization has threatened to leak customer data from Australia’s largest health insurer within 24 hours after the company refused to cooperate with its extortion attempt.
Australia’s Medibank says it was aware of the threat after announcing the previous day it would not pay a ransom for the personal information of almost 10 million current and former customers.
Medibank Chief Executive Officer David Koczkar says they knew the publication of data online by the criminal could be a possibility, but the criminal’s threat is still a distressing development for our customers.
Koczkar urged customers to remain vigilant and warned they could be contacted by the criminal directly.