04 October 2021
Coffee: World market prices have doubled over the last twelve months and may go on increasing. Increased use of Robusta (less expensive and of lesser quality) may partly cushion consumers against the increase. The article goes into the reasons and the history of price fluctuations. For its author, the big question is whether “the smallholders and subsistence farmers who make up 95% of coffee farmers” will benefit from the higher prices.
https://theconversation.com/coffee-bean-prices-have-doubled-in-the-past-year-and-may-double-again-whats-going-on-169000
Libya: A fact-finding mission of the UN, the first ever, concludes “that violations which could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed across the country” and accuses all parties of the conflict (also other countries, foreign fighters and mercenaries) of “major violations”. The fact-finding mission’s list of the people responsible of the worst violations will remain confidential.
BBC Africa Live 04 October 2021. 13:46
Nigeria: Doctors will be back working on Wednesday after a strike against poor pay/allowances and lack of insurance cover that lasted for two-months. Their union “is giving the government another chance to meet its demands”. The government had threatened them with punishment unless they returned to work. A court order to return to work had been appealed by the doctors.
BBC Africa Live 04 October 2021. 10:17
Algeria: Income tax will be reduced to mitigate the effect of rising food prices and food price controls are to be tightened.
BBC Africa Live 04 October 2021. 6:04
Sudan: A two-week blockade of the country’s main port – Port Sudan – has caused a shortness in essential medicines, fuel and wheat. The government has promised the protesters “to work on a solution to the economic and political marginalisation of eastern Sudan”.
BBC Africa Live 04 October 2021. 4:32
03 October 2021
Kenya: In the Pandora Papers – “hundreds of thousands of pages of administrative paperwork from the archives of 14 law firms and service providers in Panama and the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and other tax havens” – reveal a network of offshore companies secretly owned by Uhuru Kenyatta’s family. The family has not yet commented the revelations.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58775944