China, Libya vow to cement ties
Dbeibah, who leads the country's Government of National Unity, is in Beijing to attend the 10th Ministerial Conference of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum on Thursday. Last year, bilateral trade between China and Libya reached $6.1 billion, up 16.09 percent year-on-year, according to official statistics. Also on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Dbeibah, who is also Libya's foreign minister. Dbeibah said that his country values developing ties with China, and the two countries' practical cooperation has played an important role in promoting Libya's socioeconomic development. He also said that Libya expects China to play a bigger role in working for a settlement of the Palestinian issue at an early date.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 23:17 UTC
Morocco Re-elected to UN Human Rights Committee – The North Africa Post
Morocco was re-elected, in the person of Mahjoub El Haiba, to the UN Human Rights Committee, during the elections held on Wednesday in New York, on the occasion of the 40th Meeting of States Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. El Haiba, currently a university professor, boasts a long career in the field of human rights. He previously held the positions of Secretary General of the Advisory Council for Human Rights (now the National Human Rights Council) and First Inter-ministerial Delegate for Human Rights. Since his first election to the Human Rights Committee, El Haiba has endeavored to strengthen the working methods of this important conventional body. The Human Rights Committee, composed of eighteen experts elected by the States Parties according to equitable geographical distribution, is in charge of monitoring the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by these States, adopted in 1966.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 23:04 UTC
North Korea fires missile barrage toward its eastern waters days after failed satellite launch
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Thursday fired a barrage of suspected ballistic missiles toward its eastern sea, according to South Korea’s military, days after its attempt to launch a military reconnaissance satellite ended in failure but still drew strong condemnation from its rivals. It said the South Korean military has increased surveillance and vigilance and is closely sharing information with the United States and Japan. Japan’s coast guard issued a maritime safety advisory over the North Korean launches and urged ships to exercise caution if they find any fallen objects. On May 17, South Korea’s military said that North Korea fired suspected short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast. North Korea later said it tested a tactical ballistic missile with a new autonomous navigation system.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 22:22 UTC
Innovating tomorrow’s banking in Africa – Intelligent CIO Africa
The inaugural ‘Banking on the Future’ conference, hosted by EFT Corporation, brought together industry leaders, innovators and stakeholders to imagine, discuss and shape the future of digital banking at Victoria Falls from 13 to 15 May. The landmark event brought together leaders from the continent’s top banks to discuss the latest digital banking technologies and the immense opportunities for growth and innovation across African markets. Stephen Enderby, CEO of EFTCorp, said: “Hosting the first ‘Banking on the Future’ conference was the natural next step in our commitment to unlocking the potential of digitising African banking. Just some of these included the importance of actional strategy and collaboration, customer centricity and the impact of AI. Instead, leadership, coupled with multi-skilled teams and an actionable strategy, forms the golden thread for the banking of the future.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 22:11 UTC
Seeking Solutions to Africa’s Climate Struggles
I left Zimbabwe for Nairobi to attend the African Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit, only to encounter yet another manifestation of climate change. And while today’s climate crises are prompting international appeals for food aid, the long-term solution is to help African farmers adapt. This means giving them access to innovations like stress-tolerant food crops, better climate forecasts, and new ways to maintain healthy soils. We can take advantage of advances in long-range climate forecasts to help African farmers anticipate and navigate shifting weather patterns. But African countries cannot fend off the food impacts of climate change by themselves—and nor should they.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 19:44 UTC
Israel shrugs off UNSC bid to ‘stop the killing’ to continue Rafah assault
Israel has continued its assault on Rafah, ignoring a draft resolution to the UN Security Council to “stop the killing” in the city in southern Gaza. Previously, as it attacked targets in northern and central Gaza, Israel’s military had designated Rafah as a safe zone. US President Joe Biden has joined the calls for Israel to refrain from launching a major military operation in Rafah. “We have not seen them smash into Rafah,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. A civil defence official in Gaza said an Israeli strike on a displacement camp west of Rafah on Tuesday killed at least 21 people.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 19:31 UTC
Orange Middle East & Africa and Amazon Web Services Collaborate to Bring Advanced Cloud Technologies to Customers in North and West Africa
According to McKinsey, early indications show that Africa is embracing cloud services, and there are no signs of slowing down2. The new AWS Wavelength Zones will allow customers to take advantage of cloud services and help meet compliance requirements for applications requiring locally-hosted data. The work together will also strengthen local digital businesses and startups, by encouraging innovation and offering simplified access to cloud services and development tools. AWS Wavelength Zones will run a broad range of AWS services, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS), Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Services (Amazon EKS), Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon EMR, and Application Load Balancer as part of Elastic Load Balancing (ELB). With AWS Wavelength, customers can use the same AWS APIs, tools, and functionality they are familiar with to build their applications.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 17:54 UTC
Paystack-led Group Acquires Nigerian Digital Bank Brass
SharePaystack, a prominent Nigerian fintech company, led an investment group to acquire Brass, a digital bank serving small businesses in Nigeria. The acquisition marks a significant transition for Brass, as its co-founders, Sola Akindolu and Emmanuel Okeke, will be exiting the business. The fresh capital injection in March 2024 allowed Brass to resume processing withdrawals for affected businesses, paving the way for the acquisition. Paystack, on the other hand, has built payment tools for businesses across Africa, potentially providing a customer pipeline for Brass. Nevertheless, the acquisition represents a strategic move for the investment group, allowing them to tap into the growing digital banking market for small businesses in Nigeria.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 16:53 UTC
Huawei Network Summit 2024 (Northern Africa) Is Successfully Held to Help Build a Digital-Intelligent Africa
Launching Xinghe Intelligent Network products and solutionsKey launches include the Xinghe Intelligent Campus, Xinghe Intelligent Fabric, Xinghe Intelligent WAN, and Xinghe Intelligent Network Security. Xinghe Intelligent Campus: Intelligent experience assurance is a key focus of Xinghe Intelligent Campus. Regarding wireless network security, Huawei launched Wi-Fi Shield technology, an innovation that prevents unauthorized users from eavesdropping any valid data, ensuring robust wireless network security. Regarding wireless network security, Huawei launched Wi-Fi Shield technology, an innovation that prevents unauthorized users from eavesdropping any valid data, ensuring robust wireless network security. Xinghe Intelligent Network Security: As network security becomes one of top priorities, Huawei launched the Xinghe Intelligent Network Security Solution that provides enterprises with integrated intelligent security protection across clouds, networks, edges, and endpoints.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 15:22 UTC
Progress stalls on area-wide North Sea field development
A few miles to the north of Kvejke, the JV is a partner in the Kjøttkake exploration well, which is set to spud during the fourth quarter. The prospect could hold 27 MMboe; the key risk is hydrocarbon retention. Offshore Sarawak on the Longboat operated Block 2A, mapping of the giant Kertang prospect is nearly complete, as the partners seek to identify an optimal well location to test the multiple prospective horizons. One surrounds Kertang, where various large analogous structural have been mapped. Various companies have approached concerning Block 2A, and the company plans to open a farm-out process later this year.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 15:11 UTC
Huawei Launches Xinghe Intelligent Network to Help Build a Digital-Intelligent Africa-Huawei Enterprise
Launching Xinghe Intelligent Network products and solutionsKey launches include the Xinghe Intelligent Campus, Xinghe Intelligent Fabric, Xinghe Intelligent WAN, and Xinghe Intelligent Network Security. • Xinghe Intelligent Campus: Intelligent experience assurance is a key focus of Xinghe Intelligent Campus. • Xinghe Intelligent Fabric: By leveraging AI Turbo and a network scale load balance (NSLB) algorithm, Xinghe Intelligent Fabric performs network-wide intelligent optimization. • Xinghe Intelligent WAN: Drawing on an adaptive multi-path selection algorithm, Xinghe Intelligent WAN intelligently schedules millions of service flows on the entire network. • Xinghe Intelligent Network Security: As network security becomes one of top priorities, Huawei launched the Xinghe Intelligent Network Security Solution that provides enterprises with integrated intelligent security protection across clouds, networks, edges, and endpoints.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 14:52 UTC
Connectivity in the Middle East and North Africa
This report explored the status of the development of broadband infrastructure as a foundation for digital transformation and a prerequisite to the socioeconomic development of the Middle East and North Africa as part of an effort to explore Internet connectivity in the region. The study follows up on Internet Society’s report Middle East and North Africa Internet Infrastructure that was published in 2020, by investigating the developments of broadband infrastructure across the Arab region until 2021 while examining the ramifications of the digital divide and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the network performance and the Internet development plans. The report provides an analysis of recent statistics and findings on connectivity to identify potential routes to address related challenges, and underlines policy recommendations, business models, and potential technologies to further improve network connectivity in the Arab countries. In the effort toward ubiquitous access, governments of the region need to clarify their role in infrastructure rollout depending on the economic setup of the market. The report includes four main sections, Understanding the Connectivity Gap in the Arab Region, Access Infrastructure, Network Resilience, Network Resilience, and the COVID-19 crisis.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 14:15 UTC
Turkish steel industry aims to increase trade volume with North Africa
Wednesday, 29 May 2024 17:03:42 (GMT+3) | IstanbulThe Turkish Steel Exporters’ Association (CIB) visited Tunisia with a trade delegation on May 22-24 with the aim to increase the trade volume between Turkey and North African countries and expand Turkish steel exporters’ presence in the region. Underlining that the association is accelerating international trade visits to reach the export figures recorded in 2022, Adnan Aslan, CIB chairman, stated that the goal is to “seek new export markets”. Noting that Turkey’s steel exports by value in the first four months this year increased by 12 percent year on year, reaching approximately $5.2 billion, Mr. Aslan said that, although the country’s steel exports are believed to have started more strongly this year compared to 2023, the exports are 32 percent lower compared to the same period in 2022. Stating that the association is targeting 17 million mt of exports with a revenue of $16 billion in 2024, Aslan added, “We are targeting $32 billion in export revenues for 2028.”Stressing that Turkey’s steel exports to Tunisia decreased by 42 percent in 2023, the CIB chairman said that, with the duty implemented in January 2024, exports to Tunisia decreased by approximately 34 percent in the first four months of this year. In addition, “We lost the competitiveness we had gained after the pandemic as a result of the exports of China, the Russia-Ukraine war, global tightening and increasing costs,” Aslan said.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 14:06 UTC
DRC unveils new government after month-long impasse – The North Africa Post
Internal disagreements on positions in the cabinet delayed the announcement by president Felix Tshisekedi, who won the presidential vote in late 2023. The announcement of a cabinet of 54 ministers came after the president chose the country’s first female Prime Minister in April, Judith Suminwa. The new government will have to tackle the endemic insecurity problem that poses a serious obstacle to one of the most populous countries in Africa. The country’s mineral wealth, estimated at $25 trillion, has yet to be tapped into due to corruption and instability in the country’s east, where different rebilions are ongoing, notably that led by the M23 movement. Armed clashes have forced an estimated 6 million people to flee their homes in the country, while 1 million sought asylum elsewhere.
Source:The North Africa Journal
May 29, 2024 14:03 UTC