🇿🇦🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia Offers Credit Deal to South Africa to Boost Trade

Saudi Export-Import Bank signed a $25 million credit agreement with South Africa’s Standard Bank Group Ltd. to facilitate trade between the kingdom and the continent’s largest economy.

The deal will support the export of Saudi Arabian goods to Africa and “build bridges that will last far beyond today,” Naif Al-Shammari, Saudi Exim’s deputy chief executive officer, said at a Saudi-South African Business Forum in Johannesburg on Monday. The trade-finance institution also signed an agreement with Absa Group Ltd., he said, without giving more details.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-14/saudi-exim-signs-25-million-credit-line-deal-with-south-africa-s-standard-bank

https://archive.is/aU4US

🚢 MSC container ship loses boxes overboard off South Africa

The MSC Taranto lost five empty containers overboard on 2 October between 01:00 hrs and 04:00 hrs local time while sailing past South Africa, the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) said.

Another MSC vessel the MSC Antonia lost 46 containers overboard and suffered damaged to a further 305 boxes in the Indian Ocean corridor off South Africa on 28 August.

At least five other container vessels have lost over 200 containers in severe winter weather in recent months while transiting the waters around South Africa. These incidents involved box ships Benjamin Franklin, the CMA CGM Belem, Maersk Stepnica, Rio Grande Express, and MSC Antonia.

The waters off South Africa have been seeing far greater numbers of container ships due to diversions via the Cape of Good Hope on voyages between Asia – Europe and the US East Coast to avoid Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Winter storms have resulted in a growing number of container stack collapses and casualties on ships transiting the Cape.

🔗 https://www.seatrade-maritime.com/accidents/msc-container-ship-loses-boxes-overboard-off-south-africa

🇿🇦🇳🇦 A South African and Namibian delegation met in Windhoek this week to continue negotiations on the Orange River Boundary dispute between the two countries.

A treaty signed in 1890, when the neighbors were under colonial rule, specifies that the border runs along the northern bank of the river — which would place it under South Africa’s jurisdiction. While Pretoria continued to recognize that demarcation, Namibia wants the the borderline moved to the middle of the river.

The exact position of the current border between South Africa and Namibia has been subject to ongoing discussions between the two states for decades. The last officially agreed upon position of the border was determined in the Anglo-German Treaty of 1890, an agreement between Great Britain and Germany resolving territorial claims between the two colonial powers in Africa.

Despite several negotiations and alleged agreements between Namibia and South Africa, to officially move the border to the middle or thalweg of the river, the issue has not been resolved to date.

@SouthAfricaReports

🇿🇦🇮🇱🇵🇸 Opinion: Can South Africa support Palestine while supplying Israel with coal?

Despite having taken Israel to the International Court of Justice over genocide, South Africa is now the country’s main coal supplier after Russia.

More than 15% of coal consumed by Israel has been of South African origin. South Africa is now Israel’s main coal supplier (behind Russia) after Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, banned coal exports to Israel in August, citing the use of Colombian coal by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.

Since October 2023, three shipments of coal – totalling almost 500 kilotonnes – left South Africa’s main coal-exporting terminal, the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT), for Israel, according to global trade data website Kpler.

🔗 The Africa Report

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe to compensate white farmers who lost land in seizures 20 years ago

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe says it will compensate local and foreign white farmers who lost land and property more than 20 years ago in farm seizures meant to redress some of the wrongs of colonialism.

About 4,000 white farmers lost their homes and swathes of land when the Black-majority country’s then-president, Robert Mugabe, launched the often-chaotic redistribution program in 2000, which turned violent at times. Mugabe, who died in 2019, said it was aimed at addressing colonial-era land inequities after the southern African nation gained independence from white minority rule in 1980.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube announced Wednesday at a meeting with diplomats that his government approved 441 applications for compensation worth $351.6 million from local white farmers and 94 applications from foreigners worth $196.6 million, but only 1%, or $3.5 million, will be paid in cash to local farmers who lost land. The balance, Ncube said, will be paid through the issuance of treasury bonds.

Foreigners will receive an initial $20 million to be shared equally among the 94 claimants from Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and several countries in eastern Europe, he said.

White farmers who owned the majority of prime farmland were removed from their farms, often forcibly by violent mobs led by veterans of the country’s 1970s independence war. Some farmers and their workers died or were seriously injured in the violence that included beatings and rape, according to Human Rights Watch.

The seizures badly impacted commercial farming, forcing a country that was a key regional food producer and exporter to rely on assistance from donors. Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector has rebounded in recent years, but recent droughts are now the main challenge.

https://apnews.com/article/zimbabwe-white-farmers-land-colonialism-mugabe-8ef1747c1f02d92487b0c47bb1be1f4d

🇨🇳🇿🇦🇹🇼 China Urged South Africa to Move Taiwan Embassy

South Africa has told Taiwan to move its de facto embassy out of its administrative capital at the urging of China, according to a Foreign Ministry official in Taipei — highlighting Beijing’s expanding sway among developing nations.

Taiwan got the ultimatum to relocate the office to Johannesburg from Pretoria on Oct. 7, according to the official, who asked not to be identified discussing the sensitive matter. South Africa wants the change to happen by the end of the month, the person added.

South Africa started asking Taiwan to make the switch in December 2023 after a BRICS summit it hosted, the official said on Thursday, referring to an event that Chinese leader Xi Jinping attended earlier that year.

@SouthAfricaReports

Black students in South Africa, all born long after apartheid and with every government benefit in their favour, gleefully chant about killing whites.
There’s no fixing this.

🔗 Rieb van Janbeeck

🛢South Africa Is Still Tapping Oil Stockpile to Fund Fuel Subsidy

South Africa is still selling oil from strategic stockpiles to fund measures introduced two years ago to cushion consumers from a spike in road fuel prices.

The Strategic Fuel Fund Association paid the National Treasury 2 billion rand ($114 million) in proceeds from the sale of oil inventories for the financial year through March, the Central Energy Fund said in a response to questions. In 2022, authorities made reductions to fuel levies to help protect consumers and businesses against the impact of rising crude prices.

https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/government-continues-to-tap-oil-stockpiles-to-offset-rising-petrol-prices/

Amazon goes nuclear, to invest more than $500 million to develop small modular reactors

🔸AWS announced it has signed an agreement with Dominion Energy, Virginia’s utility company, to explore the development of a small modular nuclear reactor, near Dominion’s existing North Anna nuclear power station.

🔸AWS, Amazon’s subsidiary in cloud computing, has a massive and increasing need for clean energy as it expands its services into generative AI. The agreement is also a part of Amazon’s path to net-zero carbon emissions.

🔸Amazon is the latest large tech company to buy into nuclear power to fuel the growing demands from data centers. Google and Microsoft have announced similar plans.

🔗 https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/16/amazon-goes-nuclear-investing-more-than-500-million-to-develop-small-module-reactors.html

🇿🇦🇷🇺South African Government in Disagreement Over Putin, Russia

South Africa's two biggest parties in its Government of National Unity is in disagreement over whether Russia should be considered an ally.

In a briefing held at the Kremlin before the XVI Brics Summit in Kazan, Russia, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told Putin that Russia will remain South Africa's ally: "We are rather pleased that with your support, in every respect, we have been able to reach this point in the history of our country. We continue to see Russia as a valued ally, as a valued friend who supported us right from the beginning, from the days of our struggle against apartheid, right through to now."

The leader of the Democratic Alliance, the ANC's biggest partner in government, John Steenhuisen said in a statement: "We cannot and will not agree that South Africa should consider an authoritarian regime, that is currently violating international law by waging an imperialist war of aggression against a sovereign state, as an ally."

Prior to the formation of the GNU, the DA, and the ANC had fundamental differences on several matters related to South Africa's foreign policy.

@SouthAfricaReports