Trading company Glencore said on Wednesday it would buy up to $3 billion worth of its shares as higher pricing and production boosted full-year adjusted core earnings by 8 percent. 



 The share repurchase plan follows last year’s announcement of a $1 billion buyback, reflecting the recovery in mining companies following the commodity price crash of 2015-16. 



The miner and trader lowered its 2019 forecast for copper output to about 1.50 million tonnes from an earlier target of 1.54 million tonnes and said output from its Mutanda mine in Congo would fall to would fall to 100,000 tonnes per year.



However, it said the overall 2019 production target in all commodities would be higher than 2018.



Earlier this week, the world’s biggest miner BHP kicked off the reporting season for global majors and reported a drop in first-half 2019 profit as a decline in copper earnings and a series of output disruptions drove up costs.



Glencore’s adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose to $15.77 billion for the year ended Dec. 31, below an estimate of $16.14 billion by VUMA consensus.



Its marketing adjusted EBIT slumped 17 percent to $2.4 billion, hurt by a challenging cobalt market in the second half of the year.



 Analysts at Morgan Stanley said the EBITDA and net profit misses were unlikely to repeat in 2019.



The company said it would buy back $2 billion worth of its shares in a plan that will run up to end of 2019 and $1 billion more based on delivery of non-core disposals.



Glencore shares were up 1.4 percent on Wednesday. The stock has lost over a fourth of its value last year because of tougher mining laws in Congo, a subpoena for documents by the U.S. Department of Justice and its exposure to coal taking a toll. -Reuter



&#8211; Barbara Lewis and Muvija M

gettyimages-990518108-594×594

Glencore’s 2018 Earnings Rise, Announces $3 Billion Share Buyback Plan

On the cards this year? More polls, power struggles and ambitious projects.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Whichever way one looks at it, 2019 promises Africa a spot
in the limelight like no other.



A record 22 countries, almost half of the continent, will be
asking their citizens for fresh mandates to rule democratically, according to
the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa. 



By any measure, it’s a big number of politicians submitting
themselves to the will of the people, especially given Africa’s past struggles
with coups and the rule of law.



Whether those polls are conducted freely and fairly is the
next stage in the continent’s drive to improve governance. The Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Africa’s largest country, started the year rolling with
a disputed election that may yet see an historic transfer of power from one
civilian administration to another.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2019/02/10/the-claim-that-democracy-fares-better-in-the-west-than-in-africa-is-a-fallacy/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The Claim That Democracy Fares Better in the West Than in Africa Is a Fallacy (opens in a new tab)">The Claim That Democracy Fares Better in the West Than in Africa Is a Fallacy</a>



It’s a step seen in only a handful of African countries
since independence in the 1960s, with the likes of Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria,
among others, managing the feat as leaders clung to power by all means
necessary including vote-rigging, outright violence against political opponents
and coups.



The continent’s largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa,
will be among the first to kick-start the process with Nigerians getting the
chance to hand President Muhammadu Buhari another term or hand power to Atiku
Abubakar, a former vice president who was part of Buhari’s alliance when he
first ran in 2015.



In South Africa, expectations are President Cyril
Ramaphosa’s African National Congress will be returned to power with a bigger
mandate. 



Elsewhere around the continent, votes are expected in
countries ranging from Chad to Somaliland but the chances of opposition
victories remain few and far between even as the continent battles a host of
problems from sub-par economic growth to growing indebtedness, particularly to
China.



The World Bank estimates Africa’s economy will grow by 3.6%
this year, but that growth rate masks huge disparities between nations and is
only slightly ahead of its population growth rate of just above 2.5% per annum,
the fastest in the world.



In the meantime, many of its economies are sinking further into debt, just a few years after debt relief that spurred some of the fastest growth the continent had seen in years. 



A 2018 World Bank list of the most indebted countries has South Africa’s 55 million people carrying $792 billion of foreign and local debt, followed by Sudan at $528 billion and Egypt with $299 billion.



But it is the growing debt of some of Africa’s poorest
countries that is beginning to raise concern again. The Overseas Development
Institute last year warned that 40% of sub-Saharan African countries were in
danger of slipping into a debt crisis, adding to warnings by the International
Monetary Fund.



Analysis shows that a fifth of the external debt is held by
China, with another 35% held by multilateral organizations like the World Bank
and another 32% held by private investors. And some of those countries may
begin struggling to pay those loans, according to analysts.



So while there is much to look forward to in 2019, Africa
collectively has lots to do. One ray of hope, is coming from an unlikely
source, the Africa Union (AU). For years, the successor of the Organization of
African Unity has largely remained a political talk-shop, attended mostly by
politicians.



But the last few years have seen change, with economics
beginning to become an integral part of its conversations, culminating in the
launch of the African Continental Free Trade Area last year, an ambitious plan
tying up the continent from the Cape to Cairo.



Building on to that project, was the African Import-Export
Bank, which collaborated with the AU to organize the Intra-African Trade Fair,
the first continent-wide marketplace for goods and services which attracted 42
countries to Cairo, saw some 1,100 exhibitors and more than $33 billion in
deals concluded.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 



If that’s a harbinger of continental resolve to work together, Africa may yet be the place to be in 2019.



Education Quality and the Youth Skills Gap Are Marring Progress in Africa



-Godfrey Mutizwa

NIGERIA-VOTE

2019: Africa’s Year In The Sun

Carmaker Ford (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=F.N">F.N</a>), technology giant IBM (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=IBM.N">IBM.N</a>), South Korean cathode maker LG Chem (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=051910.KS">051910.KS</a>) and China’s Huayou Cobalt (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=603799.SS">603799.SS</a>) have joined forces in the first blockchain project to monitor cobalt supplies from Democratic Republic of Congo. 



The pilot, overseen by responsible-sourcing group RCS Global, aims to help manufacturers ensure that cobalt used in lithium-ion batteries has not been mined by children or used to fuel conflict.



Companies are under pressure from consumers and investors to prove that minerals are sourced without human rights abuses, but tracking raw materials throughout their journey is challenging.



The project announced on Wednesday has been quietly under way since December. Starting with industrially mined cobalt in Congo, it is monitoring supplies all the way to lithium-ion batteries for Ford vehicles.



Supplies of cobalt, expected to be needed in huge quantities for electric vehicles and electronic devices, are concentrated in Congo, a sprawling, volatile nation that has been racked by civil war and political tension.



The outcome of elections in December, which had been intended to be Congo’s first democratic transfer of power in six decades, is contested. 



RCS says the IBM blockchain platform could be used to include other minerals and to allow artisanal miners, which analysts say are the biggest issue with regard to ethical sourcing, to join a blockchain-based network of validated participants.



Blockchain, famed as the technology behind cryptocurrency bitcoin, works by providing a shared record of data held by a network of individual computers rather than a single party.



For the pilot project, which should be completed around the middle of the year, cobalt from Huayou’s industrial mine will be placed in secure bags, entered into a blockchain and traced from the mine and smelter to LG Chem’s cathode and battery plant in South Korea and then on to a Ford plant in the United States.



Because minerals are often combined with metals from various sources when they are smelted, they are particularly difficult to track.



The RCS project seeks to enforce best practice by using guidelines drawn up by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.



IBM said it was exploring the potential of chemical analysis using artificial intelligence to pinpoint the origin of cobalt and ensure so-called clean cobalt was not smelted with minerals sourced less responsibly.



“There is no fool-proof method, but you have to keep the ball moving forward, to keep raising the level of accuracy,” Manish Chawla, general manager of IBM’s mining and industrial sector business, told Reuters.



VW and Ford team up



“Blockchain has been proven to be a very effective technology in raising the bar.”



IBM has already worked with retailers including Walmart (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WMT.N">WMT.N</a>) and Carrefour (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CARR.PA">CARR.PA</a>) to trace food through supply chains. 



In the mining sector, meanwhile, Anglo American’s (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AAL.L">AAL.L</a>) De Beers has begun using blockchain to track diamonds. -Reuters



&#8211; Barbara Lewis

HP1EF1E1203PY

Ford and IBM among quartet in Congo cobalt blockchain project

From the mine to your finger, this is how blockchain is helping stop conflict diamonds minimizing its presence in the supply chain.

Do you know where your diamonds come from? Ethically-sourced minerals and gems have gained a lot of traction of late. And increasingly, globally, consumers want to ensure that what they are buying is conflict-free.
In 2003, the Kimberley Process (KP) was established to increase transparency in the diamond trade while eliminating trade in conflict diamonds. Two years later, Everledger created the Diamond Time-Lapse Protocol, a high-tech traceability initiative built on a blockchain-based platform for the diamond and jewelry industry.
And in January, the De Beers Group announced that it would be developing the first blockchain technology initiative (called Tracr) which will be made available to the rest of the industry at the end of the year.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, blockchain refers to a chain of transactions grouped into ‘blocks’ that are not editable by anyone – it’s an incorruptible digital ledger where every transaction is linked to the next. What is revolutionary about blockchain technology is that both people and organizations can transact in the form of smart contracts.
Why use blockchain to track diamonds through supply chains?
“Unlike other commodities – such as oil, copper or gold – individual diamond cuts have unique elements, these can be turned into data attributes that reinforce the immutability of every transaction on the blockchain,” explains Melina Mutambaie Katende, a blockchain researcher from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, currently studying at the University of Johannesburg&#8217;s department of Applied Information Systems.
“In computer science, the word ‘immutable’ comes from object-oriented programming. It means that the state of any object recorded in a piece of code cannot be modified once it has been created. Blockchain is a prime example of immutable records.”
IBM’s TrustChain initiative has already been up and running for a year. TrustChain is a consortium which uses blockchain technology to track and authenticate diamonds, precious metals and jewelry at all stages of the global supply chain, from mine to retailer. With this kind of blockchain, everything is decentralised, which means anyone can go into a ledger and see the movement of a particular stone or set of stones. It’s about transparency, proving to consumers that their purchases don’t include conflict metals or blood diamonds, and are ethically-sourced.
“Richline Group, whose head office is in South Africa, is the manufacturer. Then there’s Helzberg, a jewelry retailer, and Leach Garner, a precious metals supplier, as well as Asahi Refinery, who also do precious metals. It’s from [the] ground to wearing it on your finger,” explains Bridget van Kralingen, a Senior Vice President at IBM who heads up Global Industries, Platforms and Blockchain.
<div id="attachment_37112" style="width: 208px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37112" class="size-medium wp-image-37112" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Bridget-van-Kralingen-pic-supplied-198x300.jpg" alt="" width="198" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Bridget-van-Kralingen-pic-supplied-198x300.jpg 198w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Bridget-van-Kralingen-pic-supplied-300x453.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Bridget-van-Kralingen-pic-supplied-600x907.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Bridget-van-Kralingen-pic-supplied-768x1161.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Bridget-van-Kralingen-pic-supplied-678x1024.jpg 678w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Bridget-van-Kralingen-pic-supplied.jpg 1355w" sizes="(max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px" />Bridget van Kralingen, SVP, IBM Global Business Services.</div>
But this level of transparency isn’t free. Will consumers be willing to pay extra for a digital copy verifying the provenance of the materials used in their engagement rings?
The answer is yes: according to Van Kralingen, 66% of people are willing to pay more for something that’s sustainably and ethically sourced – this number goes up to 73% where millennials are concerned.
“One company can lie. Eight companies are scarcely likely to lie to you. Business is an exchange but you need proof for trust. Blockchain brings proof. With TrustChain – you can prove it and you have an ecosystem which puts its name behind it. It makes your product superior from a sustainability point of view,” she says.
A tamper-proof system, like TrustChain, is needed to track minerals in order for producers to legally obtain them, yet blockchain does have its faults – as a system, it will need to find a way to accommodate small scale and artisanal miners, for one.
According to Nicolaas C Steenkamp, a well-known independent mining consultant, blockchain cannot fully ensure that conflict minerals don’t make it into the market – it just makes it harder for them to enter the market.
“The sad reality is also that if products such as minerals and gemstones are worth enough, syndicates will find a way to influence the system. As the verification of blockchain platforms currently run on a 51% basis, employing ‘boiler rooms’ could be used to manipulate the provenance records,” he says.
Blockchain will only have value for the entire supply chain when you have a majority buy-in from the industry. Considering how often the minerals or gemstones physically change hands, the blockchains will also become increasingly complex.
“There are already rumblings around the increasingly long time the verification of a transaction takes. Mines based in remote areas with limited connectivity may struggle to connect and run these platforms if it takes several hours of even days,” explains Steenkamp.
<div id="attachment_37113" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37113" class="size-medium wp-image-37113" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Nicolaas-Steenkamp-credit-Willem-Viljoen-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Nicolaas-Steenkamp-credit-Willem-Viljoen-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Nicolaas-Steenkamp-credit-Willem-Viljoen-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Nicolaas-Steenkamp-credit-Willem-Viljoen-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Nicolaas-Steenkamp-credit-Willem-Viljoen-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Nicolaas-Steenkamp-credit-Willem-Viljoen-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Nicolaas-Steenkamp-credit-Willem-Viljoen.jpg 1365w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Nicolaas Steenkamp. Photo provided.</div>
TrustChain is an enterprise blockchain, which means it is secure, scalable and fast. It’s also private and permissioned. Currently, IBM is running 400 blockchain networks across various industries around the world.
&nbsp;
“Technology is not the issue, it’s already good enough for many exchanges and transactions. It’s not going to be as fast as doing high-speed trading in an investment bank, but you wouldn’t want to put that on a blockchain,” says Van Kralingen.
From food safety to trade finance, blockchain is an engine that will change the way the world does business. Its potential to eliminate paperwork, enable new business models and improve transparency and traceability is unmatched.
“The world that we’re going into is one where people want people to be treated fairly… We’ve come a long way from pure convenience. In the supply chain, convenience is a key factor, closely followed by personalization. But then you get sustainability and ethics. Blockchain is made for that,” says Van Kralingen.

Diamond on white background, Illustration

Blood Diamonds To Blockchain Diamonds?

The tense, but eventually successful, haggling of a natural gas supply deal between Tanzania and Nigeria’s Dangote Cement is a pointer to what awaits East Africa as the region sets off the delicate journey of exploiting its new found vast reserves of oil and gas.
Tanzania’s President John Magufuli on December 10 announced that an agreement had been reached to supply natural gas to Dangote’s $500-million cement factory in the East African nation’s southeastern town of Mtwara, ending tensions after price negotiations with the state-owned Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) stalled.
“They (Dangote Cement) will now buy natural gas directly from the state-run TPDC instead of going through middlemen,” Magufuli said after a meeting with the company’s chairman, and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote.
Magufuli blamed unspecified middlemen for “interference”, saying Dangote Cement had sought “at-the-well prices” and that the issue had now been resolved to supply the company with the commodity at a “reasonable” tariff.
The Tanzania-Dangote price haggle offers a sneak-peek of the tough oil and gas supply contract negotiations that authorities in East Africa are certain to face in the exploitation of newly struck reserves.
East Africa has caught the attention of the global energy industry following the discovery of huge reserves of oil in Uganda and Kenya and natural gas in Tanzania. An estimated 6.5 billion barrels of oil were discovered in Uganda’s Albertine basin near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In Kenya it is estimated that the recoverable reserves total 750 million barrels of crude.
Tanzania said in February 2016 that it had discovered an additional 2.17 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of potential natural gas deposits, increasing its total estimated recoverable natural gas reserves to more than 57tcf.
The exploitation of these vast reserves will however require caution to ensure the region avoids the pitfalls of the unpopular oil curse. The nature of contracts reached with buyers has a direct impact on the country’s development.
Supply contract negotiations are not an easy task because one has to juggle maximizing revenue for government and investor protection from high cost of doing business. Given the lengthy life and complex nature of supply contracts, a miscalculation has monumental effects on either of the negotiating parties and it is vital that keen attention is paid during the entire process to attain a balance.
“One of the key concerns is that African governments that are major producers of fossil fuels (and other minerals) do not receive sufficiently large rents or revenues from the production of these extractive products. This is attributable to a number of reasons, including contracts and regimes that are not designed to extract maximum rents,” the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Union (AU) say in a joint study titled Oil and Gas in Africa.
Oil and gas supply contracts are particularly complex because they are not fully driven by demand-supply factors; at times they are driven by geopolitical factors. Newcomers in the game must tread carefully or risk being short-changed by the more experienced industry insiders who are privy to sale strategies.
The middle-men have a nose for quick cash and will not miss a chance to ride on the inexperience of new players in the industry to profiteer through deal-cutting. The middle-men, in most cases, fan graft in order to thrive, leaving in their wake massive damage.
Benchmarking with peers and best practice is the way to beat such odds because it helps build on contract experience. The World Bank-backed Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) can help address such challenges by laying bare all the deals.
“Accountability and transparency in the management of public resources is critical in ensuring positive development results impact – and perhaps nowhere more so than when significant natural resource wealth such as oil and gas are present,” the AfDB and AU say in the report.
Under the EITI, mining firms are required to publish payments made to governments and to make public revenues received available for audit and monitoring. The EITI monitors and reconciles company payments and government revenues. Each signatory country owns the process, which is overseen by participants from the government, companies and national civil society.

Prepare For  tough negotiations

It was just after the crack of dawn that my tracker and I were hacking our way through the thick undergrowth of the Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo (also Congo-Brazzaville). Soon we could sense the presence of a large group of gorillas. They were foraging for roots, shoots and termites while a few were high up in the trees in search of fruits. Out of nowhere, a pair of brown eyes was suddenly gazing at us from behind the undergrowth. It was a young juvenile male, also very curious. He stared, blinked and then emerged from his seclusion, almost as though he wanted to greet us in his abode.
This moment could not have happened but for over 17 years of hard work by researchers who have helped habituate gorillas to human presence. This difficult process has been accomplished by the sheer skill of the famous BaAka (pygmy) trackers. Unlike with the mountain gorillas, the habituation process of western lowland gorillas has proven difficult because of several factors: limited visibility in the lowland forests, difficulties following gorilla tracks through the dense forest and across the long distances that they travel.
The Odzala park in Congo’s remote north-west is one of Africa’s oldest. It is 13,600 square kilometers of pristine rainforest and an integral part of both the Congo Basin and the TRIDOM Transfrontier Park overlapping Gabon, Congo and Cameroon.
<div id="attachment_31792" style="width: 704px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31792" class="wp-image-31792 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321-694x1024.jpg" alt="" width="694" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321.jpg 694w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321-300x443.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321-600x885.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321-203x300.jpg 203w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321-768x1134.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 694px) 100vw, 694px" />Gorillas are still being hunted for their bush meat and the young sold as pets; five percent of the species is killed each year.</div>
Covered in forests, rivers, marshes and swamps, the park receives 1,500 millimeter of rain annually. The TRIDOM is the first three-country transboundary area to become a World Heritage Site and is one of the largest blocks of pristine tropical lowland forest in the world.
As the juvenile gorilla approached me, two other members of the group, a young female and another male, peeked through the undergrowth. The three of them were fast approaching me. While my heart was pounding with excitement, I was reminded by the tracker and forest companion Zephron that we had to maintain a seven meter distance from the animals, lest we transmit human diseases. So I had to backtrack with a heavy heart while still covering my face with a surgical mask.
My tracker understood their movements and soon positioned me in a different location. His tracking experience came to play as the huge silverback male emerged right in front of me. Known as Neptuno by the researchers, he was 35 years old, handsome, big and 380lbs to boot. He managed his group of 16 gorillas by leading, protecting and showing them prime feeding grounds. Neptuno was keeping a check on me while ensuring his group’s safety. Soon, the other 15 members filed past me. Some stopped to look, others rushed while a few sat down to observe me. Neptuno was with the young and either led the group or stopped to ensure their safety. He was known to charge human beings when threatened.
Odzala Camps was launched in 2013, boasting the highest density of gorillas in Africa including seven habituated western lowland gorilla families (about 105 gorillas). Visitors encounter 11 species of diurnal primates including chimpanzee, De Brazza’s monkey, putty-nosed monkey, grey-cheeked mangabey, crowned monkey, colobus monkey and moustached monkey. The area includes birdlife and herds of forest elephant and dwarf buffalo.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-31790 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/01-schlein-distribution-gorilla-labeled-2.jpg" alt="" width="504" height="513" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/01-schlein-distribution-gorilla-labeled-2.jpg 504w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/01-schlein-distribution-gorilla-labeled-2-300x305.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/01-schlein-distribution-gorilla-labeled-2-295x300.jpg 295w" sizes="(max-width: 504px) 100vw, 504px" />
I am one of less than 750 visitors to have experienced this park. Access was impossible prior to 2013. It took a long time for Spanish primatologist Magda Bermejo to win the trust of the Ndzehi people as they had seen western lowland gorillas in the rainforest being poached, hunted for trophies, or shipped off to zoos. Eventually, when she earned their respect, the Ndzehi packed up their whole village and moved with Bermejo to Lossi, home to the largest population of gorillas in the Congo, to help her with her research. Their intimate knowledge of the rainforest and gorilla-tracking skills proved invaluable to Bermejo’s work.
A recent census of the gorilla populations in equatorial Africa was thought to be 100,000. In 2004, there was an Ebola outbreak in Odzala wiping out 90% of the resident population of 10,000. Because of these outbreaks, the International Union for Conservation of Nature updated the status of western lowland gorillas from “endangered” to “critically endangered”.
The gorillas are still being hunted for their bush meat and the young sold as pets; five percent of the species is killed each year. Commercial poaching of chimpanzees, forest elephants, and western gorillas results from increased amount of commercial logging and infrastructure. The Wildlife Conservation Society is working in the Congo and surrounding countries to limit the bush meat trade by enforcing laws and also helping the local people find new sources of protein.

47-_RIP3264-BnW

The planet of the Apes

If you haven’t heard about it, you’ve already missed it. The 2015 Africa Games in Brazzaville, Congo, came and went without much ado. But, if you were South African swimmer Ricky Ellis, coming back with one gold and three silver medals from the small francophone country, it was a time of his life, in the pool and out.
“Obviously, Africa [swimming] is not considered great. But, the competition wasn’t as easy as we thought. We knew the Egyptians were going to come at us. There are a couple of Egyptians who did really well at Junior World Champs and they had a big cash incentive to win. From what I can remember they were getting $8,000 for a gold and I think a bonus $2,000 for a championship record. Some were flown in from the USA,” says Ellis.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4212" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_8587-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
The tall backstroke swimmer is no stranger to competition. In December, he swam in the World Short Course Championships in Qatar and has plunged into the pools at the 2012 Africa Games. He is also on the cusp of Olympic glory, needing to drop 0.7 seconds on his personal best to qualify for Rio next year.
“My personal best has been 55.1 seconds last year at Nationals. It was good enough to go to the World Champs but [the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee] chose not to send me. You can never say definitely. But if you do qualify it’s pretty certain you can go to the Olympics,” says Ellis.
Brazzaville welcomed the swimmers of Africa by pulling out almost all the stops.
“In terms of the conditions, [Brazzaville was] way better than anything in South Africa. They had built a brand new pool, with new starting blocks. They had the overflow pool and it was a constant three meters deep, which is Olympic standard. But they didn’t have the backstroke ledges, which I was a little upset about. Still, you don’t get [pools like that] in South Africa.”
Away from the water it was a hair-raising experience for Ellis.
“When we arrived in Brazzaville we drove through poverty. There are huge crowds of men standing around. There are army guys everywhere with AK-47s. There were even guns strapped to the stands. Sitting in the bus, it’s quite nerve wracking to pass by soldiers who are training and have left their weapons on the floor,” he says.
“We were expecting it to be hot. The smog felt like we were in Beijing. The thing we were most scared of was the mosquitos. We were very scared of catching malaria. When we walked into the hotel room, we saw the carcasses of old mozzies on the floor. Luckily the mozzies decided they wanted to bite my roommate, Brent Szurdoki, instead of me.”
If the 28-year-old Ellis qualifies he will be a late comer to the pool. He is well over the average age of Olympic swimmers; according to USAswimming.org, in 2012 the average age for men is 25.8 years and 21.6 years for women.
“I started swimming from the age of four or five. I can remember crying a lot from the cold water in winters. But over time you get used to it. I only really started to swim well when I was about 20. That’s when I thought about moving to the States. I stuffed around at [the University of the Witwatersrand] doing a BCom General instead.”
“The youngsters push me at training every day. Most of them leave for the US. I get older and they get younger every year,” he says.
Ellis remains undeterred with his ever increasing age; after all, he’s just getting a taste for medals.

Medals Galore  AK-47s On The Floor

Almost two decades ago, a group of talented football players became known as the golden generation of South African soccer.  In 2013, Orlando Pirates, one of Africa’s oldest football clubs, is looking to recapture the championship of the continent. The Soweto club is still the only South African team to have ever won the competition. Eighteen years on, the club is making progress. They have just qualified for the group stages of the tournament following a drama-filled encounter against the Democratic Republic of Congo’s TP Mazembe. The first leg of the encounter at Soccer City, Johannesburg, ended with Pirates hammering Mazembe 3-1. The return leg in Kinshasa was a hostile game which Mazembe won by a goal to nil.
Before the match, police detained two South African journalists who ended up missing the game. Mazembe denied any involvement and said the problems with the broadcasting of the match was due to a technical problem at the station.
“It must be stated that we are a law-abiding club that believes in fair play. All the international journalists that traveled for the match, and were duly accredited, were ushered into the press tribune where they covered the match unhampered. The media reports that journalists from the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) were arrested after the match are totally unfounded and false,” says Mazembe team president, Moise Katumbi-Chapwe.
On the pitch, Pirate’s players told a different story upon their arrival in the country. They complained that the calls on the pitch were not going the Buccaneers’ way. On top of this, their captain, Lucky Lekgwathi, was sent off in the first half. Two dubious penalties were awarded to Mazembe. Pirates’ hero on the day was goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa, who saved the two penalties.
“The treatment in terms of food, accommodation and other things was okay. The only problem was on the field. The refereeing was poor and Lucky Lekgwathi did not deserve the red card. However, a fighting spirit kept us in the game,” Meyiwa told Kick Off magazine.
Their road in this year’s competition has been made even harder following the draw for the group stages. The draw for the 2013 CAF Champions League Group stages was conducted at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.
Pirates are in Group A, alongside AC Leopards (DRC), Zamalek (Egypt) and Al-Ahly (Egypt). Group B comprises of Recreativo Libolo (Angola), Esperance (Tunisia), Sewe Sport (Ivory Coast) and Coton Sport (Cameroon).
The group stages consist of eight teams divided into two groups. Each team, in their respective group, will play each other twice, in a home and away leg. The top two sides from each group will then qualify for the semi-finals.
It has been a rough ride for the Pirates’ players following in the footsteps of the golden generation of 1995. It was the year Pirates earned a gold star above their badge. Pirates drew two all at FNB Stadium, now known as Soccer City, in Johannesburg against ASEC Mimosa of Côte d’Ivoire. In the second leg in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, two weeks later, it looked like the Buccaneers—as Orlando Pirates are affectionately known—would lose the title on away goals but then, a moment of brilliance.
Defender Mark Fish cleared from deep in defence to Jerry ‘Legs of Thunder’ Sikhosana, who danced around two defenders before slotting the ball in the net. The goal sparked national celebrations akin to those of the release of former South African president, Nelson Mandela.
The captain of the 1996 Afcon winning team, Neil Tovey, summed it up best in his blog when he said: “I may have captained Chiefs from 1992 to 1999, but I will always give credit where it’s due. I believe triumphs like these bring the country closer together. The 1996 Africa Cup of Nations’ winning squad certainly fed off Pirates’ Champions League success in 1995.”
The Pirates team that made South Africa proud 18 years ago consisted of a number of quality players that were regarded as the best. The likes of goalkeeper Williams Okpara, Edward Motale, Mark Fish, Gavin Lane, John Moeti, Helman Mkhalele and Jerry Sikhosana made the world take notice of the force that was to be South African football.
The ‘sea robbers’ are hoping to add another star to their emblem. The treatment of the 2013 team hasn’t changed much from what the 1995 team received. The Pirates’ conquering team also went through a few hostile situations.
Former player turned football analyst Helman Mkhalele says the troubles against Mazembe brought back memories.
“What the team went through was horrible. It gives football on the continent a negative image, both on the field and administratively. We, as Africans want to win the World Cup one day but with such acts, we can forget it. When we reflect on the hurdles we overcame to win the title, they are similar to what they are going through. The experience taught me, personally, how to be stronger mentally, physically and wiser as a person. It also taught me how to handle tough situations and how to focus as a player to express myself,” says Mkhalele.
Former goalkeeper, Williams Okpara, who signed for Pirates from ACB in Nigeria, in 1994, remembers it as if it were yesterday.
“Looking at the current Pirates team, we have many good players who can do the job for the team. I was very impressed with Pirates’ performance against Djabal and also when we beat Zanaco away from home. The conditions in Zambia were not comforting because the pitch had long grass. It is good that Pirates players went all out showing great character and we won the game,” says Okpara.
Since Pirates’ won the trophy, South African football has suffered a lean spell. No South African team has managed to win the title. Mamelodi Sundowns managed to reach the finals in 2001 but lost to Egypt’s Al-Ahly.
Bafana Bafana has also struggled to make an impact in international competition. They were knocked out of the FIFA 2010 World Cup in the group stages, the worst performance ever by a host country.
Whether or not the future of South African football teams will be a bright one, will depend on how they do on the continent. What better way to do it than with the CAF Champions League. South African players will be used to the tough playing environment and this will in turn benefit the national team.

Come Back, The Golden Days

Picture yourself living in early 19th century Africa. What would you be clad in? Most likely an outfit made of traditional cloth, perhaps Kuba cloth.
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“We have one of the most beautiful art forms in Africa,” says Crown Prince Kwete Kwete.
Prince Kwete is the son of the 125th king of the Bakuba Kingdom, King Kot Mbueki III. Textiles from Africa are said to be one of the most important gifts to the world of art. The Kuba cloth is associated with royalty and has inspired great artists like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Matisse’s appliquéd techniques were influenced by the Kuba cloth displayed in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Kuba cloth originated with King Shamba Bolongongo and his son, Shaamweky. From the 16th century, the Kuba people have dressed themselves in Kuba cloth, wrapping it around their waists like a skirt. The cloth is made of raffia from the palm tree. The raffia is picked and dried, softened and woven into different lengths and sizes. The process can take three to four weeks or up to a year.
“Textiles are a sign of wealth for us and every king has a cloth that he wears during ceremonies. When a member of the royal family dies, women from the kingdom wear a certain color cloth for six months. Designs are symbolic and used for particular ceremonies,” says Prince Kwete.
When a king dies, his wives wear special red cloth with subtle patterns in velvet on the borders and openwork embroidery in the middle. Specially designed weavings made of leopard skin and shells are reserved for the king, his wives, the royal court and dancers.
The Kuba cloth is made by the people of the Bakuba Kingdom in the Democratic Republic of Congo—formerly Zaire. But it is the Shoowa, a small sub-tribe of the Bakuba who are renowned for making intricate textiles from the palm fiber creating a tuft pile-like effect using the clipped raffia threads. Weaving intricate geometrical designs can take up to a year.
Some of the designs are on display in museums around the world and have been studied by scholars like George Meurant of Belgium. The beauty and complexity of the Kuba cloth has only recently been appreciated at a time when the most elegant designs are disappearing. European collectors of African textiles started amassing collections of embroidered cut-pile textiles towards the end of the 19th century. These pieces often fetch millions of dollars at auctions. Most collectors are private individuals in America, Britain, France and Poland.
Kuba cloth is on the brink of being lost; Prince Kwete is trying to preserve it with the help of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
“The Kuba cloth is displayed in leading museums, but people do not know where the Bakuba Kingdom is located. Kuba is still existent and we are a population of approximately half a million people including immigrants. Congo is bigger than Eastern Europe and Kuba land is three times the size of Belgium,” he says.
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Together with his father, Prince Kwete is working with the central government of Congo to reach out to other Africans through culture.
“DRC is known for war, but there are attractive investment opportunities in the country.”
King Kot Mbueki III is the first king of Bakuba to have travelled to Kinshasa and Europe.
“He ‘broke away’ from the kingdom by preserving tradition,” says Price Kwete who describes the Bakuba Kingdom as democratic.
“The king is there to reign and not to rule. We have managed to maintain our culture and art because each tribe is represented in the king’s court. When selecting a chief of a village, the people of a village have to go to the king and suggest someone. My father then honors the people’s wish by appointing the suggested person. This goes back nine centuries.”
According to Kenyan fashion model Emma Too, the Kuba cloth is one of the most valuable African textiles together with the Ashanti and Kente from West Africa. American fashion designer Ralph Lauren is known to have made several designs using the Kuba cloth and supermodel Iman wore Kuba designs when she modelled for Africa Heritage. The cloth is also used to decorate homes. Because of its growing demand, the market has been flooded by fake cloth.
“You can tell an original Kuba cloth by how it has been sewn, designed and the quality. If you compare a genuine and fake cloth, the quality of material is world’s apart,” says Prince Kwete.
The people of the Bakuba Kingdom use the cloth as a source of income to support their families through school.
“Since our main source of income was farming and that can barely sustain families, you find people selling their valuable pieces,” says Prince Kwete, who regularly organizes auctions to arrange money for projects in the kingdom.
The price of the Kuba cloth depends on the year it was made, how long it took to make, the design and history of the piece. There is a museum in Mshenge—the capital of Bakuba—which is used by the royal family to display valuable pieces.
“Once any society in Africa loses its identity and adopts a new one, your culture disappears,” says Prince Kwete.

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