Africa Briefs

Eskom price hike to cost SA 90 000 mining jobsSouth Africa's gold and platinum mines will shed around 90 000 jobs in the next three years as above-inflation electricity price increases by power utility Eskom add to already soaring operating costs, an industry body said on Monday."In total, as many as 90,222 jobs would be at risk solely as a result of the MYPD4 tariff increases granted by Eskom," the Minerals Council South Africa said in a presentation.Energy regulator Nersa said in early March Eskom could hike tariffs by 9.41% in the 2019, 8.1% in 2020 and 5.2% in 2021, far less than Eskom's request for increases above 15% in each of the three years.The industry body said in its presentation that 71% of all gold mines and 65% of platinum mines were "loss-making or marginal" by the end of 2018, adding the power price hike would make the situation even worse.Last week, Statistics South Africa data showed gold production contracted for the 15th month in a row, shrinking by 22.5% in January, while platinum output was up 8.8% in the same period."We see the Eskom crisis as not just a crisis but a potential disaster," said Minerals Council chief executive Roger Baxter. – Nampa/ReutersAround 1.85 mln people affected by Cyclone IdaiAbout 1.85 million people have now been affected by Cyclone Idai and its aftermath in Mozambique alone, the United Nations' humanitarian agency OCHA said yesterday, as aid workers raced to fathom the massive scale of the deadly disaster."Some will be in critical, life threatening situations. Some will sadly have lost their livelihoods, which whilst an appalling tragedy is not immediately life threatening,” OCHA coordinator Sebastian Rhodes Stampa said. – Nampa/ReutersEx-World Bank economist charged in South SudanA former World Bank economist whose detention in South Sudan has caused an international outcry was one of seven men charged on Monday with insurgency and sabotage, more than seven months after his arrest.Peter Biar Ajak, who is country director for his native South Sudan for the International Growth Centre which studies emerging economies at the London School of Economics, had been held since last July.Biar's lawyer and lawyers for the other defendants denied the charges against them, which were brought on Monday under anti-terrorism and security laws.South Sudan has been in a state of civil war since 2013, two years after its founding, after political disagreements between president Salva Kiir and his then deputy, Riek Machar, degenerated into a military confrontation.At its peak, the conflict uprooted a quarter of the country's population of 12 million and devastated its oil-dependent economy. A regionally brokered deal last year, which had Machar return to government again as Kiir's deputy, ended the fighting although pockets of violence remain in some parts. – Namps/ReutersUS approves F-16 sale to MoroccoThe United States on Monday approved the sale of 25 F-16 fighter aircraft to Morocco for US$3.8 billion, the State Department announced.Besides the new Block 70/72 F-16s, equipped with state of the art electronic systems and weaponry, Washington also approved the modernisation of 23 F-16s already in the Moroccan air force fleet, for US$983 million.The State Department said the sale would not affect the balance of forces in the region. It can still be blocked by the US Congress, which has 30 days to raise any objections.More than 4 500 of the Lockheed Martin-built F-16s have been delivered since 1978. It is gradually being replaced by the stealth F-35 fighters but more than 3 000 of F-16s are still in use in 25 countries, thanks to constant upgrades.The Moroccan military ordered 24 F-16s in 2008. It lost one aircraft in action in 2015 during Saudi-led air operations in Yemen. – Namps/ReutersEbola epidemic in DR Congo now exceeds 1 000 casesThe number of cases in a nearly eight-month-old epidemic of Ebola in eastern DR Congo now exceeds 1 000, almost two-thirds of whom have died, the health ministry said late Sunday."The accumulated number of cases is 1 009," of which 629 cases were fatal, it said.The outbreak was first recorded in North Kivu province on August 1, and then spread to neighbouring Ituri province.Its toll is the second deadliest in the history of Ebola, after an epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014-6 that claimed 11 308 lives, according to the website of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Efforts to contain the latest outbreak, the 10th in the DRC's history, have been hampered by poor security in the highly unstable east, which teems with militia groups. – Nampa/Reuters

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