Africa Business Radio

U.S. tech giant Google has paid Russia more than 32 million roubles in fines for failing to delete content Moscow deems illegal.Russia said it seek to fine the U.S. tech giant a percentage of its annual Russian turnover later this month for repeatedly failing to delete banned content on its search engine and YouTube, in Moscow’s strongest move yet to rein in foreign tech firms.Marco Pancini, YouTube director for interacting with state authorities in EMEA, says that Google had paid all enforced fines on time. These stood at 32.5 million roubles for this year.Communications regulator Roskomnadzor says it has the technical capability to slow down the speed of YouTube, Interfax reported, but that administrative measures are currently sufficient.

Cambodian lawmakers approved an amendment to the kingdom’s constitution barring political leaders from holding dual citizenship, a move seen as targeting the country’s most prominent opposition figure.Strongman leader Hun Sen had requested the Ministry of Justice to look into the amendment, saying in an October 6 post the change was needed in order to show loyalty to the nation and avoid foreign interference.The amendment says all candidates appointed as the prime minister, presidents of the National Assembly, Senate and the Constitutional Council must hold only Cambodian citizenship.

A senior United States diplomat has urged North Korea to end its concerning and counterproductive missile tests and resume negotiations.Sung Kim, the top US official on North Korea affairs, called on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to cease these provocations and other destabilising activities, and instead, engage in dialogue.

Saudi Arabia announced it aims to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2060, joining more than 100 countries in a global effort to try and curb man-made climate change.The announcement made by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was timed to make a splash before the start of the global COP26 climate conference being held in Glasgow, Scotland.Energy exports form the backbone of Saudi Arabia’s economy, despite efforts to diversify revenue as the world increasingly looks to transition away from reliance on fossil fuels.The country is forecast to make $150bn in revenue this year alone from oil.

The Republic of China’s government had fled to the island of Taiwan with millions of refugees as the communists took power but continued to hold the seat of China at the UN and was a permanent member of the Security Council with veto power. Officials in Taipei had the support of the US thanks to fears in the West that communism might sweep through Asia.The ROC had promised to return by the 1970s, but by then it was clear to many UN members its government no longer represented the hundreds of millions of people living across the Taiwan Strait in the now-communist controlled People’s Republic of China.

Pope Francis urged governments to stop returning migrants to countries like Libya where they are sent to detention centres rife with abuse, and prioritise saving lives of those crossing the Mediterranean.His message comes as Italy sees an increase in migrant arrivals from Libya, and the debate within a divided EU shifts to migrants entering the bloc’s eastern borders with Belarus.Francis expressed his closeness to the thousands of migrants, refugees and also others in need of protection in Libya.

Mali’s foreign ministry says its transitional government has given the Economic Community of West African States’ special representative 72 hours to leave the country following actions incompatible with his status ECOWAS, West Africa’s main political and economic bloc, has been pressing Mali to respect its commitment to hold presidential and legislative elections next February following an August 2020 military coup.

The UN says its flights to Mekelle in Ethiopia's Tigray region have been suspended after one of its planes had to abort its landing on the same morning as a military airstrike was carried out on the city.The Ethiopian government says its planes had been targeting a training centre used by Tigrayan rebels.The fact that airstrikes were being carried out in the same city on the same morning will be of great concern to the UN – as the plane had been cleared for take-off by the authorities in the capital, Addis Ababa.Seven million people are now in urgent need of assistance and the UN says malnutrition rates are rising every day.

Sudan’s top general declared a state of emergency, dissolved the authorities leading the country’s democratic transition, and announced the formation of a new government after soldiers detained civilian leaders Monday in what activists denounced as a “coup”.General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s says to rectify the revolution’s course, they have decided to declare a state of emergency nationwide… dissolve the transitional sovereign council, and dissolve the cabinet.His statement came as clashes erupted in the capital Khartoum, with soldiers firing live rounds at people who took to the streets to protest against the power grab.

A UN Security Council delegation is in Mali to meet politicians, members of civil society and military leaders at a time when there are fears that the officers who carried out a coup in August want to delay a return to civilian rule.The West African regional grouping Ecowas is insisting that the transitional President, Colonel Assimi Goita, hands over power after elections next February.The visiting delegation - which includes the ambassadors to the UN from Kenya, France, Niger and the US - is also assessing the security situation.Mali has seen frequent jihadist attacks as well as inter-ethnic violence in the north and the centre of the country.

The Presidency formally reacted to last week’s report by London-based The Economist magazine which said the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration wasn’t doing enough to address several challenges confronting the country, especially the rising state of insecurity.A statement from the presidency says the Buhari-led government had been busy addressing the four identified threats to the nation’s stability including terrorist attacks, kidnapping, herders-farmers clashes and activities of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra in the South-East zone.The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in a statement also emphasised that the resilience and fortitude of patriotic Nigerians would see the country through the current trying times

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is set to seek authorisation from the Pre-Trial Chamber of the court to open an investigation into cases of abduction of schoolchildren in several parts of Northern Nigeria.A statement by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project says they will also be investigated the closure of schools, and the persistent failure of Nigerian authorities at both the federal and state levels to end the abduction.The agency’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, says the ICC prosecutor’s decision followed a petition sent to the court by SERAP.SERAP argued that the severe and lifelong harms that result from depriving children of the right to education satisfy the gravity of harm threshold under the Rome Statute.

President Muhammadu Buhari has launched the country’s digital currency, naira.President Buhari says the adoption of new CBN digital currency is estimated to increase Nigeria’s GDP by $29billion over the next 10years.The President says Nigeria becomes the first country in Africa and one of the first few globally to introduce a digital currency to its citizens after countries like China, Bahamas, and Cambodia.The digital currency has two applications – eNaira speed wallet and eNaira merchant wallet, which were launched on the Google Playstore and Apple Store.

European Union leaders pressured a defiant Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to fall back into line on recognising that EU law trumps national decision-making, hoping that dialogue will stave off a fundamental crisis in the bloc.Morawiecki instead painted a picture of an overbearing union treating its 27 member nations as mere provinces, usurping ever more powers and feeling free to impose its values at will against the wishes of sovereign peoples.He countered that Poland will not act under the pressure of blackmail.

NATO defence ministers have agreed upon a new master plan to defend against any potential Russian attack on multiple fronts, reaffirming the alliance’s core goal of deterring Moscow despite a growing focus on China.NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says they continue to strengthen their alliance with better and modernised plans while also agreeing to a $1bn fund to provide seed financing to develop new digital technologies.Officials stressed that they do not believe any Russian attack is imminent. Moscow has denied any aggressive intentions and said it is NATO that risks destabilising Europe with such preparations.

US President Joe Biden says the United States would come to Taiwan’s defence if the island were attacked by China, in comments that appeared to be a departure from a longstanding US policy of strategic ambiguity.The White House told reporters that US policy on Taiwan had not changed.A spokesperson says the US defence relationship with Taiwan is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act. A spokesperson added that they will uphold their commitment under the Act and continue to support Taiwan’s self-defence.

The United Nations launched a funding programme aimed at preventing the Afghan economy from collapsing during the winter by getting cash flowing through the local economy again.The UN Development Programme has set up a trust fund through which governments can channel finance via the UN to specific programmes on the ground, rather than sending money government-to-government, with Afghanistan now controlled by the Taliban.UNDP chief Achim Steiner says they are not only witnessing a nation and a country in the midst of political turmoil but also witnessing an economic implosion.

Ethiopia’s military launched two airstrikes on what a government official said were rebel-held facilities in Tigray, capping a week of near-daily attacks in the war-torn northern region.The strikes signalled the military was potentially widening its campaign of aerial bombardments which has drawn international rebukes and disrupted UN flights to the famine-threatened territory.Government spokeswoman Selamawit Kassa says the same mission destroyed a separate facility in the northern town of Adwa used to manufacture military equipment as well as fake military uniforms used by TPLF combatants.TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda says that the target in Mai Tsebri was a hospital and that the target in Adwa was a textiles factory that was looted in an earlier stage of the conflict by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers.

The WHO says that 80,000 to 180,000 health care workers may have been killed by Covid-19 up to May this year, insisting they must be prioritised for vaccination.The World Health Organisation says the fact that millions of health workers remain unvaccinated is an indictment on the countries and companies controlling the global supply of doses.WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says health care workers needed to be among the first immunised against the disease.He says data from 119 countries suggest that on average, two in five health and care workers globally are fully vaccinated.

The World Bank has warned that the rapid rise in energy prices seen in Europe and parts of Asia won't ease until the second half of next year, and it will have a knock-on effect on Africa.It says the global economy is struggling to satisfy a growing demand for oil and gas as it emerges from the pandemic.The Bank says those hardest hit will be those least able to afford food, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.It predicts food poverty will increase by 25%, potentially leaving almost 41 million people at risk of shortages.