Botswana News
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BOTSWANA, 2016/05/15
An event dedicated to the development of the African aviation industry will take place next month in Tenerife (26-28 June) to encourage the launch of new air services to, from and within the African continent.
Routes Africa 2016 will help to improve African connectivity by bringing together airlines, airports and tourism authorities to discuss next air services. Around 250 route development professionals are expected to attend the forum which was founded ten years ago to stimulate increase in the industry.
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BOTSWANA, 2016/05/13
The collapse of virtual borders is one of the majority remarkable things to have happened in our lifetimes. In the world of cyberspace, time and distance have become almost peripheral considerations at the same time as it comes to doing business. Services from software development to accounting can be delivered across the world in the blink of an eye. Next business leaders will struggle to imagine an era at the same time as communication was neither immediate nor virtually free.
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BOTSWANA, 2016/05/12
Africa’s economic increase is likely to be slower in the intervening years than in the before decade, according to the new rating by Ernst & Young using a barometer to gauge the level of appeal and success.“The baseline projection of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for 2016 is presently reduced to 3%, while it was estimated at 6.1% in April 2015″, Ernst & Young points out in its rating.
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BOTSWANA, 2016/05/11
Oil, gold, diamonds, palm oil, cocoa, timber: raw materials have long been linked to Africa in a lot of businesspeople’s minds. And in fact the continent is highly dependent on commodities: they constitute as much as 95% of some nations’ export revenues, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
But propping a country’s entire economy on commodities is risky business, like building a mountainside home on stilts. You can’t be sure about the weather, or in this case the commodities market. The current free-fall of oil prices to less than $40 a barrel is a glaring example. “The commodities cycle has tanked out,” says Austin Okere, founder of Computer Warehouse Group (CWG), a Nigerian emerging multinational financial services company. “And this time it looks additional structural than cyclical, so it’s not a matter of waiting it out. Something has to give.”
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BOTSWANA, 2016/02/08
"Mean spirited", "inhumane" and desecrating the spirit of the Refugee Convention are some of the milder criticisms levelled at Denmark's harsh new asylum laws, passed last week.
Part new measures is a decision to strip new arrivals of any cash and valuables worth additional than 10,000 kroner (US$1,450), purportedly to pay for their upkeep. Switzerland and some southern German states have introduced similar policies.
It's a move that reflects the fragmenting world of European migration policy, lacking in solidarity, empathy and basic human decency. But what of the financial implications for asylum seekers?
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BOTSWANA, 2016/01/13
The Africa Union has merged its science and education bodies in a move designed to improve sectoral relationships, effectiveness and efficiency. The African Ministerial Council on Science and Technology and the Conference of Ministers of Education of the African Union will presently operate as one entity.
“The decision of the heads of states was as well motivated by the need to streamline ministerial conferences, limit their number and confer the power to convene them to the African Union Commission and save costs,” Dr Mahama Ouedraogo, the African Union’s chief of human resources, science and technology, told University World News.
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BOTSWANA, 2016/01/05
A community near the famed Serengeti national park in Tanzania is enlisting the help of bees to reduce escalating tensions with elephants that enrage locals by trampling upon their crops.
A fence made of beehives is being constructed around a one-acre farm close to the Ngorongoro conservation area as part of the pilot project to see if the buzzing bees will deter elephants that stroll on to cropland.
It’s hoped that the “bee fence” concept, which has by presently been deployed in Kenya and Botswana, will help reduce conflict in northern Tanzania, which has become a hotspot for clashes between humans and elephants.
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AFGHANISTAN, 2016/01/02
World economic increase will be disappointing next year and the outlook for the medium-term has as well deteriorated, the chief of the International Monetary Fund said in a guest article for German newspaper Handelsblatt published on Wednesday.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the prospect of rising interest rates in the United States and an economic slowdown in China were contributing to uncertainty and a higher risk of economic vulnerability worldwide.
Added to that, increase in world trade has slowed considerably and a decline in raw material prices is posing problems for economies based on these, while the financial sector in a lot of nations still has weaknesses and financial risks are rising in emerging markets, she said.
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BOTSWANA, 2015/12/03
The waste pile from Debswana’s Jwaneng diamond mine is visible for miles across southern Botswana’s wide, flat plains.
Additional than a billion tonnes of dirt have been dug up there over additional than 30 years of excavations. It is the richest diamond mine in the world, and it has been central to Botswana’s economic evolution since independence.
The neighbouring township of Jwaneng, with its modern hospital and well-staffed school, is a diamond town built by the mine and almost entirely dependent on it for its gain.
This dynamic is a microcosm for the country as a whole, and stands in contrast to the poor development track records of other extractives-based economies across Africa. Presently the challenge is to capture additional price in country.
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BOTSWANA, 2015/11/26
A 1,111 carat “high quality diamond” has been discovered at a mine in Botswana, said to be the biggest find in additional than a century, according to the mine company, AFP reports.
The gem, only second in size to the Cullinan diamond which was unearthered in South Africa in 1905, was mined by Lucara Diamond Corp.
“The magnificent stone, which originated from the south lobe of Lucara’s Karowe Mine, is the world second major gem quality diamond ever recovered and major ever to be recovered through a modern processing facility,” the Stockholm listed company said a statement.
Shares in Lucara shot up 34 % to 14.2 kronor in morning Thursday trading in Stockholm.
