DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

Here are some of the main players and negotiating blocs involved in the COP28 conference starting Nov. 30 in Dubai. In climate negotiations, Beijing argues that wealthy developed countries like the United States, the biggest historical CO2 emitter, should move first and fastest in climate policy and finance. Despite having the world's second largest economy after the United States, China considers itself as a developing nation in the climate talks. But U.S. delegates will face pressure for climate finance after Washington pledged no new climate cash to the United Nations this year. AFRICAN GROUP OF NEGOTIATORSAfrican countries will be pushing at COP28 for climate finance and financial mechanisms to speed up green energy projects.

Persons: Rula, Kate Abnett, Katy Daigle, Josie Kao Organizations: Abu Dhabi Sustainability, REUTERS, UNITED, Washington, United Nations, EU, GROUP, Marshall, European Union, Thomson Locations: UAE, Abu Dhabi, Dubai . CHINA China, China, Beijing, United States, U.S, Union, United, United Kingdom, London, Brazil, South Africa, India, Saudi Arabia, CHINA, Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal, Mozambique, Vanuatu, Costa Rica

☆ Gruelling African World Cup qualifying gets under way
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Mark Gleeson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The New York/New Jersey's FIFA World Cup 2026 logo is revealed during the kickoff event in Times Square in New York City, U.S., May 18, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsCAPE TOWN, Nov 14 (Reuters) - More places for Africa at the next World Cup finals has not lessened the intensity of the qualifying process, often described as the toughest in world football, and which kicks off this week. Carlos Queiroz, who coached Colombia, Egypt, Iran, Portugal, South Africa and now Qatar, once described the African preliminaries as "a nightmare". For the 2026 World Cup, the 54 African entrants were divided into nine groups with only the winners assured of a place at the finals. A total of 13 African countries, starting with Egypt in 1934, have played at the World Cup finals.

Persons: Brendan McDermid, Carlos Queiroz, Ed Osmond Organizations: New, FIFA, REUTERS, U.S, Mauritius, D, Eritrea, January’s Africa, Nations, Rwanda, Wednesday’s, Central African, Thomson Locations: York, New York City, U.S, Africa, Asia, South America, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Egypt, Iran, Portugal, South Africa, Qatar, Cameroon, Douala, Libya, Morocco, Tanzania, January’s, Ivory Coast . Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Djibouti, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Lesotho, Namibia, Niger, Sao Tome e Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan

But even EU countries clashed over how ambitious to be - and their ministers were locked in talks into the evening on Monday. The faultlines tended to fall between wealthier EU members seeking rapid climate action, and poorer economies concerned about the cost of quitting fossil fuels. Another submission, by Saudi Arabia, did not explicitly mention a fossil fuel phase-out. 'NOT VERY HOPEFUL'The resistance shows how hard it will be to strike an ambitious climate deal at COP28. "I am not very hopeful," Carlos Fuller, U.N. climate negotiator for Belize, said of the fossil fuels phase-out - which Belize supports.

Persons: Wolfgang Rattay, Carlos Fuller, COP28, Jennifer Morgan, Natalie Jones, Kate Abnett, Glwadys Fouche, Katy Daigle, Barbara Lewis Organizations: REUTERS, Rights, Diplomats, Reuters, African Group, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Thomson Locations: Niederaussem, Germany, Rights BRUSSELS, Poland, Czech Republic, COP28, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Belize, COP27, China, Japan, United States, Colombia, Norway, U.N, Paris, Oslo

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia faces a tough fight to regain a seat in the U.N.’s premiere human rights body in Tuesday’s election in the General Assembly, which voted last year to suspend Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine. The 193-member assembly will be electing 15 members to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, with candidates put forward by the U.N.’s five regional groups. Human Rights Watch said last week that Russia and China are unfit to serve on the Human Rights Council. The New York-based watchdog said China’s rights record should also disqualify it from the Human Rights Council. The Geneva-based Human Rights Council was created in 2006 to replace a commission discredited because of some members’ poor rights records.

Persons: ’, Moscow’s U.N, Vassily Nebenzia, ” Nebenzia, Felice Gaer, Jacob, Russia’s, Ferit Hoxha, Robert Wood, ”, Louis Charbonneau, U.N, Vladimir Putin Organizations: UNITED NATIONS, General Assembly, Rights, Albania, East European, Human Rights, Russia, Jacob Blaustein Institute, Advancement of Human, Human Rights Council, Security Council, United Nations, General, Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch, International, Court, The Locations: Russia, Moscow, Ukraine, Geneva, Bulgaria, United States, Russian, Ukrainian, U.S, America, Caribbean, Cuba, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Peru, China, Japan, Kuwait, Indonesia, Burundi, Malawi, Ghana, Ivory Coast, France, Netherlands, “, The New York, Xinjiang, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, South Korea, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Sudan

☆ Mzansi Youth Choir: The South African group that brought Simon Cowell to tears eyes next stage of US singing competition
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-22 | by ( Jackelyn Prager | Jackie Prager | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —On a stage more than 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) away from the small township of Soweto in Johannesburg, South Africa, the Mzansi Youth Choir was seeing their dreams come true before their eyes. Ever since, the choir has been back in South Africa preparing for the next step of their journey. “Coming to the US to perform on the world’s biggest stage, ‘America’s Got Talent,’ is a dream come true,” choir member Zoe Gulwa, 21, told CNN during a recent interview in Johannesburg. The Mzansi Youth Choir is family away from family,” said Mphahlwa. Trae Patton/NBC via Getty ImagesEyes on the prizeThe Mzansi Youth Choir has performed alongside musical talents including Shakira, Beyoncé and South African flutist Wouter Kellerman.

Persons: ‘, Zoe Gulwa, Jane “ Nightbirde ” Marczewski, Simon Cowell, “, ”, Nightbirde, ” Gulwa, would’ve, they’ll, Marina Zaaiman, Zaaiman, Jannie, Jannie Zaaiman, “ They’ve, Trae Patton, Shakira, Wouter Kellerman, America’s, ” “, Keneilwe Melato, It’s Organizations: CNN, NBC, Getty Locations: Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa

REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko Acquire Licensing RightsABUJA/NIAMEY, Aug 19 (Reuters) - A delegation from West Africa's main regional bloc ECOWAS met Niger's ousted president Mohamed Bazoum and held talks with junta leader General Abdourahmane Tiani in the capital Niamey on Saturday, a Nigerian presidential spokesperson said. The group that flew in was led by Nigeria's former military leader Abdulsalami Abubakar and included ECOWAS commission president Omar Touray, the source said. "After meeting .... (junta leader) General Abdoulrahmane Tchiani, the ECOWAS delegation in Niger have also visited President Mohamed Bazoum this evening," he wrote on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter. There was no immediate comment from the junta, which has held president Mohamed Bazoum since seizing power despite international calls for his release. ECOWAS has taken a harder stance on the Niger coup, the wider region's seventh in three years, than it did on previous ones.

Persons: Francis Kokoroko, Niger's, Mohamed Bazoum, General Abdourahmane Tiani, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Omar Touray, Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, General Abdoulrahmane Tchiani, Tiani, Alessandra Prentice, Toby Chopra, Jane Merriman Organizations: Chiefs, Defense, REUTERS, Rights, ECOWAS, West, Twitter, Islamic, U.S . State Department, Thomson Locations: Republic of Niger, Accra, Ghana, Rights ABUJA, NIAMEY, West Africa's, Niamey, Niger, al Qaeda, Islamic State

☆ Sudan: Testimonies detail atrocities by Wagner-backed militia
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Nima Elbagir Tamara Qiblawi Barbara Arvanitidis Gianluca Mezzofiore Pallabi Munsi Ingrid Formanek Saskya Vandoorne | Nima Elbagir | Tamara Qiblawi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +17 min

“I sat next to her in the car,” said Butheina Nourin, describing her perilous escape from Sudan’s Darfur region alongside the dead woman. A months-long CNN investigation uncovered an increase in Wagner supplies to the RSF that began in the run-up to Sudan’s conflict. Reports of atrocities committed by RSF fighters and their allied militias, clearly identified by their uniforms, are consistent across dozens of testimonies. Then-President Bashir was charged by the International Criminal Court in 2010 with crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in relation to the Darfur conflict. “Nobody in Sudan has more blood on their hands than Hemedti,” said Sudan analyst Eric Reeves.

Persons: wailed, “, ”, Butheina Nourin, Fatima, I, Nourin, Zohra Bensemra, Abdul Fattah al, Burhan, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Wagner, General Burhan, entrenching, –, Omar al, Bashir, Hemedti, Sergey Lavrov, Hussein Haran, ” Haran, Khamis Abbakar, Kholood Khair, ” Khair, Gen, Mahmoud Hjaj, Hala, SIHA, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalos, Hussein Malla, ” “, Gueipeur Denis Sassou, Eric Reeves, Al Jazeera, Karib, “ It’s, RSF –, Wagner –, Yeveny Prigozhin, Sudan ”, Hussein Organizations: CNN, ” Fighters, Sudanese, Rapid Support Forces, Reuters, Central African, Russian, Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service, UN, Strategic Initiative, Women, International Criminal Court, ICC, United Arab, United Nations, SIHA, Getty, European, US State Department, State Department Locations: Chad, Sudan, Sudan’s Darfur, Darfur, Borota, Latakia, Libya, Bangui, Central African Republic, Moscow, Ukraine, Khartoum, el, Geneina, Horn of Africa, State, Sudan’s, Yemen, Saudi, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Daman, AFP, Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Europe, EU, ”, Africa

"The internal dynamic of this war is a bit beyond what an external actor can really influence". After the latest 24-hour truce expired on Sunday, residents in Khartoum and capital area reported fresh artillery fire and clashes. The United States and Saudi Arabia, which lies across the Red Sea from Sudan, have sponsored talks in the Saudi port city of Jeddah. EXODUSThe failure of talks has put the nation, which was already reliant on aid, in a perilous humanitarian state. It could take generations to try to put back together," said Alan Boswell, Horn of Africa Director for Crisis Group.

Persons: Magdi El, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Abdel Fattah al, Burhan, Mohamed Mokhtar, Hemedti, Mokhtar, Omar al, Bashir, Mahasin Ibrahim, Alan Boswell, Horn, Aidan Lewis, Khalid Abdelaziz, Daphne Psaledakis, Nafisa, Edmund Blair, Frank Jack Daniel Our Organizations: Rapid Response Forces, United Arab Emirates, Valley Institute, U.S . State Department, Reuters, Crisis, Thomson Locations: Jeddah, Khartoum, CAIRO, truces, United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi, UAE, Cairo, Abu Dhabi, African Union, KHARTOUM, Omdurman, Bahri, Darfur, North Kordofan, Port Sudan, El Geneina, Chad, Sudanese, Africa, East, Europe, Dubai, Washington

CNN —Romania is recalling its ambassador to Kenya back to Bucharest and has apologized after its envoy in Nairobi allegedly compared a monkey to African diplomats. Documents obtained by CNN showed African diplomats formally condemning Dragos Tigau’s comments during a meeting of eastern European envoys held in April at the UN’s office in the Kenyan capital. “The African Group has joined us,” Ambassador Tigau allegedly said when a monkey appeared at a window in the conference room, according to the letter which demanded an apology. “The African Group would like to condemn in strongest terms possible the insulting, racist and degrading utterances,” wrote Chol Ajong’o, South Sudan’s ambassador to Kenya who leads African diplomats in Nairobi. CNN obtained two apology letters sent by Tigau to African diplomats four days apart.

Persons: Dragos Tigau’s, Tigau, “, ” Organizations: CNN —, CNN, Kenyan, African Group, ” Locations: CNN — Romania, Kenya, Bucharest, Nairobi, “, South, Romanian

☆ Genome data sheds light on how Homo sapiens arose in Africa
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON, May 18 (Reuters) - Our species arose in Africa more than 300,000 years ago, with the oldest-known Homo sapiens fossils discovered at a site in Morocco called Jebel Irhoud, located between Marrakech and the Atlantic coast. A new study tapping into genome data from modern-day African populations is offering insight into how this may have unfolded. The research indicated that multiple ancestral groups from across Africa contributed to the emergence of Homo sapiens in a patchwork manner, migrating from one region to another and mixing with one another over hundreds of thousands of years. The findings did not support a longstanding hypothesis that a single region in Africa gave rise to Homo sapiens or a scenario involving mixture with an unidentified closely related species in the human evolutionary lineage within Africa. "By building models of how these transmissions occurred, we can test detailed models that relate past populations to present-day populations."

☆ The Biden administration could exclude North Africans and Middle Easterners as 'white' in the 2030 Census. New categories will prevent undercounting of MENA people, advocates say.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Hannah Getahun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

It includes categories for Middle Eastern and North African people previously considered white. The proposed changes come after years of reviews on the way the US Census Bureau collects its data. Last year, President Joe Biden continued the review effort after former President Donald Trump's administration stalled on decisions regarding the implementation of proposed changes for the 2020 census, NPR reported. The new MENA category would also help with allocating resources to these groups, the document notes. A MENA category was supposed to be added to the 2020 census, but the bureau announced in 2018 that would no longer be the case until further research on the categories was done.

HONG KONG, Nov 17 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Naspers (NPNJn.J) has a new Tencent (0700.HK) quandary. In June, they launched an open-ended plan to gradually sell Tencent shares and use the proceeds to repurchase stock in both companies. The problem, however, is that Tencent stock has underperformed that of Naspers and Prosus. Over the same period Naspers shares rose 6% while those of its Dutch subsidiary are down 19%. “The Naspers Board and Prosus Board reiterate their continued confidence in Tencent's long term prospects and continue to believe that the share repurchase programme is in the best interests of Prosus, Naspers and their respective shareholders," they said in a statement.

View of a COP27 sign on the road leading to the conference area in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh town as the city prepares to host the COP27 summit next month, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt October 20, 2022. The Nov. 6-18 summit in Sharm el-Sheikh is the first annual U.N. climate conference to be held after the easing of COVID-19 restrictions. CONCRETE BARRIERAnother concern among activists is the difficulty ordinary citizens may face accessing Sharm el-Sheikh. A petition led by 12 Egypt-focussed rights groups has called on Egypt to address restrictions on civil society, saying "effective climate action is not possible without open civic space". "Certainly we're very alive to the fact that Sharm el-Sheikh is an enclosed space, very controlled, very curated," she said.

☆ Africa's next big thing will be its tech startups, says prolific investor
▼ + stars: | 2022-07-08 | by ( Paul Adepoju | For Cnn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Between 2015 and 2021, total annual funding flowing into African tech startups has grown by 1,000 per cent according to the African Tech Startups Funding Report 2021According to the report, 125 tech startups in Africa raised $185 million in funding in 2015 but in 2021, 564 startups raised $2.1 billion. In countries like Nigeria, which is home to five of the continent's seven tech unicorns, these success stories are still largely seen as Nigerian and African and not truly global tech companies. Akindele noted that taking African tech companies global would also require efforts similar to how Afrobeats became known around the world. Akindele noted that Africa's burgeoning fintech ecosystem is only about a decade old but he has high hopes for its growth in the global marketplace. Akindele noted that tech can be an avenue for Africa to quickly solve its problems, catch up with and overtake the rest of the world.

☆ Advertising for Latin American brands are pursuing more diversity in campaigns
▼ + stars: | 2021-05-14 | by ( Insider Intelligence | Matteo Ceurvels | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Many consumers in Latin America are no longer content to let brands sit on the sidelines of tough conversations. The following is a preview of one Media, Advertising, and Marketing report, the Analyst Take: How Brands in Latin America Are Addressing Diversity and Representation in Advertising. Latin America is a region of many paradoxes. Latin America companies promoting diversityLatin American ecommerce giant Mercado Libre is one example of a regional company that has embraced diversity in its marketing materials. The campaign also partnered with Young, Gifted, and Black (YGB), an image bank that offers photos taken by Black women, of Black women.

Search resuls for: "African Group"

15 mentions found