Africa Business Radio

Seoul says Iran is expected to regain its vote in the UN General Assembly after South Korea paid Tehran’s delinquent dues to the world body with Iranian funds frozen in the country. Iran however announced that US sanctions had impeded its ability to make the payment on its arrears for the second year in a row. The finance ministry says Seoul completed the payment of Iran’s UN dues of about $18 million through the Iranian frozen funds in South Korea, in active cooperation with related agencies such as US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and the United Nations Secretariat.

The head of the German navy has resigned after coming under fire at home and abroad for saying that Ukraine would never regain the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach also said it was important to have Russia on the side against China, and suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin deserved respect. The comments came at a sensitive time as Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine’s borders. Russia denies it is planning to invade Ukraine.

Armenian President Armen Sarkisian announced that he was resigning his largely ceremonial position, citing the inability of his office to influence policy during times of national crisis. The announcement comes on the back of a period of instability in the ex-Soviet Caucasus nation in the wake of a war with its long-standing rival Azerbaijan. Armenia’s humiliating defeat and loss of disputed territory in late 2020 ultimately sparked massive street rallies and a domestic crisis that pitted Sarkisian against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. He says the president does not have the necessary tools to influence the important processes of foreign and domestic policy in difficult times for the people and the country.

The United Arab Emirates says it intercepted and destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles that were targeting the country, and there were no casualties. The defence ministry says the remnants of the intercepted ballistic missiles fell in separate areas around Abu Dhabi. Houthi-run Al Masirah television channel says the group would announce within hours the details of a wide military operation against Saudi Arabia and the UAE amid concern over a further escalation in tensions in the region amid Yemen’s years-long civil war.

The United States has ordered the families of all American staff at the US Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country amid heightened concern that Russia, which has massed troops on the border, is about to invade. The State Department also said that non-essential embassy staff could leave Ukraine at government expense and that all Americans should consider departing immediately. The US Embassy in Kyiv warned that military action by Russia could come at any time and the United States government will not be in a position to evacuate American citizens in such a contingency, so US citizens currently present in Ukraine should plan accordingly.

A Civil Society Organisations grouping has demanded the urgent introduction of wealth tax to facilitate the trickledown effect of financial resources to the country in a bid to reduce the alarming poverty levels. The Zimbabwe Fight Inequality Alliance's spokesperson, Janet Zhou declared a week of action, piling pressure on the government to introduce a tax for the country's wealthiest. Zhou says the abolishment of unjust and harmful tax incentives to multinational corporations is a long overdue outcome of a stakeholder consultative process. Zhou stressed that it is time the government introduced a Covid19 Windfall Tax for corporates and individuals who have made phenomenal profits since 2020 to fund a just and equitable response to Covid19 induced poverty and suffering.

The United Nations Refugee Agency is appealing for nearly $60 million for tens of thousands of victims of intercommunal clashes over dwindling resources in Cameroon's Far North region. UNHCR spokesman Boris Cheshirkov says the appeal will provide critically needed relief over the next six months for both the displaced and those sheltering them in Chad and Cameroon. Cheshirkov says the situation has calmed down in the last few weeks. He says security has been reinforced. He notes government-led reconciliation efforts, supported by the UNHCR are underway adding that urgent action is needed to address the root causes of the conflict.

The Swazi Observer newspaper reports that Eswatini will destroy 10,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines that have expired. The country's health ministry says that AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines are still available and therefore vaccination will continue. The Johnson & Johnson vaccines expired on Tuesday last week. The newspaper reports that the current batch of Pfizer doses expires next week.

Shell Petroleum Development Company will attempt to convince the Court of Appeal, Owerri Division, to upturn an N800 billion judgement against the oil giant by a Federal High Court in the state in 2020. The company however was expected to tell the appeal court that the lower court failed to listen to its argument that the oil spill claim was unsubstantiated. SPDC had appealed against the judgement and applied to suspend its enforcement. SPDC argued that the court was duty-bound to hear evidence to determine, first, if the spill occurred and the alleged cause before proceeding to fix liability and compensation, which it noted, didn’t happen in the case.

Aliko Dangote, says mechanical work on his much-awaited crude oil refinery had been completed and the facility would begin to run between August and September this year. Dangote says full production at the refinery could commence by the end of the year or the beginning of 2023. He says that Dangote Group would continue to do more towards strengthening investment in the country, stating that the company has been meeting its tax obligations. Dangote added that the Dangote Group had revitalised road infrastructure within Apapa and Isolo in Lagos, and also in Ogun and Kaduna, stressing that the group is equally involved in the development of deep seaports and other infrastructural projects across the country.

The Central Bank of Nigeria says that effective February 1, 2022, all import and export operations would require the submission of an electronic invoice authenticated by Authorised Dealer Banks on the Nigeria Single Window Price Portal – Trade Monitoring System. The apex bank explained that the introduction of the e-valuator and e-Invoice would replace hard copy final invoice as part of the documentation required for all import and export transactions going forward. The CBN Director, Trade and Exchange Department, Dr Ozoemena Nnaji pointed out that the new regulation aims to achieve accurate value from import and export items in and out of the country.

Chairman of the council, Samuel Nwanosike says that at least 112 illegal refineries have been discovered in Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State. He says that 99% of the discoveries were made in a particular community located along the OML 17 trunk lines. Governor Nyesom Wike had pledged N460 million to the 23 local government area chairmen to fight oil bunkering in the state. Each chairman will receive N20 million to destroy illegal refinery sites that have been identified in their respective domains.

Russia’s central bank proposed a blanket ban on the use and creation of all cryptocurrencies within one of the world’s biggest crypto-mining nations, citing the dangers posed to the country’s financial system and environment. The central bank also took aim at mining, which it said hurts the country’s green agenda, jeopardizes Russia’s energy supply and amplifies the negative effects of the spread of cryptocurrencies, creating incentives for circumventing attempts at regulation. The Central Bank called for individuals and businesses that flaunt the rules to be held to account, citing estimates that put Russia’s crypto trading turnover at about $5 billion a year.

South Korea unveiled a 14 trillion won supplementary budget on Friday to support the self-employed and small businesses that have taken a heavy hit from extended COVID-19 curbs. The finance ministry says some 11.5 trillion won will be used to help small business owners and compensate their losses caused by the extension of virus-related measures. Another 1.5 trillion won is earmarked to secure COVID-19 treatment pills for 400,000 people and 25,000 hospital beds. The other 1 trillion won will be used as contingency reserves should the Omicron coronavirus variant spread further and require more support.

China and Russia blocked a US push to impose United Nations sanctions on five North Koreans in response to recent missile launches by Pyongyang. China’s block came before a new closed-door council meeting on North Korea, also requested by Washington, and was followed by Russia’s decision to similarly oppose the American proposal. The US Treasury Department says one of the North Koreans being sanctioned, Choe Myong Hyon, was based in Russia and had provided support to North Korea’s Second Academy of Natural Sciences which is already subject to sanctions.

The US Embassy in Khartoum says that Washington would not resume its paused economic assistance to Sudan until violence there comes to an end and a civilian-led government is restored. The US halted $700 million in emergency assistance since the military coup in October. The US Embassy in Khartoum says the US officials strongly condemned the use of disproportionate force against protesters, especially the use of live ammunition sexual violence and the practice of arbitrary detention.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres says there is a demonstrable effort to make peace in Ethiopia after more than a year of civil war. Mr Guterres spoke to the African Union (AU) chief envoy to the Horn of Africa Olusegun Obasanjo who briefed him on the peace efforts. The UN chief says the AU envoy expressed optimism that there is now a real opportunity for political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict. Federal troops have been fighting rebels in the north of the country for more than a year now, in a war that has ended thousands of lives.

The authorities in Burkina Faso say they disrupted access to Facebook due to security fears. Government spokesperson Alkassoum Maiga says the authorities did not have to explain themselves on the shutdown first reported on 10 January and which appears to have continued. The government announced on 11 January that eight soldiers were arrested over a plan to destabilise the institutions of the republic, a development that local media said was a coup plot.

Sudan's military chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has appointed 15 ministers to a new government. The move comes almost three months after he seized power in a military coup that derailed a planned transition to elections. Correspondents say the naming of a new government is unlikely to appease the protesters who want the military to quit the political scene entirely. The United States has reiterated that it will not resume economic assistance to Sudan unless there is an end to violence and a civilian-led government is restored

A United Nations-backed agency, Medicines Patent Pool, has struck a deal for nearly 30 generic drug makers to manufacture low-cost versions of Merck & Co’s COVID-19 pill, molnupiravir for poorer nations. A Reuters report stated that the deal, negotiated by the UN-backed organisation with Merck, would expand output by increasing the number of companies that would produce the drug. The new agreement allows 27 generic drug makers from India, China and other countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to produce ingredients and the finished drug. The MPP stated that the deal stipulated that the pill would be distributed to 105 less-developed nations.