Category: Semafor

Africa’s biggest grocer Shoprite plans to team up with upmarket lender Investec to offer customers a debit card and expanded financial services, as competition in South Africa’s banking sector heats up. Under the proposed tie-up, Shoprite, which built its retail empire by partly borrowing from Walmart’s mass market playbook, will ...

Gabon is planning a $2 billion project with Emirati and Chinese companies to mine and process rare earth elements and niobium, a metal used to strengthen steel, in a move aimed at exploiting the country’s undeveloped mineral wealth. The new investment would bring the long-stalled Mabounié deposit, southeast of Libreville, ...

An 80 cent “maternal drape” is saving women’s lives in Kano, Nigeria — the country where more women die in childbirth than anywhere else in the world. The drape measures blood loss during childbirth; once the level passes 300ml, midwives use massage, oxytocin, tranexamic acid, and IV fluids to encourage ...

Alexis’s view Nigeria’s Federal High Court invalidating the election candidacy of President Bola Tinubu’s leading challenger was unexpected — but not entirely surprising. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, runner-up in the last election, has fewer than 100 days to secure a reversal on appeal ahead of the January vote. But ...

, directed by Nitesh Tiwari. Timed for the Hindu festival of Diwali, this “thoroughly engaging, rousing, and spectacular” film — per The Guardian’s film critic — charts the titular Hindu epic over the course of three hours; a sequel is due in 2028. Featuring a superstar cast of Bollywood icons ...

The UN’s annual climate conference opened in Türkiye, with policymakers facing unprecedented challenges as the El Niño weather phenomenon exacerbates the impact of a warmer climate. Though experts have warned that the world will be exceptionally hot in the coming months, the COP31 summit is expected to be light on ...

Nvidia’s investigation of its CEO adds to a growing list of challenges facing the world’s most valuable chip firm. For one, huge Democrat wins in the midterm elections threaten to slow the pace of the AI infrastructure buildout in the US, a key source of demand for Nvidia’s chips. Competitors ...

Oil prices fell on renewed signs of diplomacy to end the Iran war, though dissent from Washington dampened outright optimism. US President Donald Trump, who will meet with Qatar’s prime minister today, downplayed the prospect of a return to conflict, while a flurry of meetings between Chinese and Gulf leaders ...

G7 foreign ministers meet this week in Paris to discuss how Europe can play a greater role in US efforts to end the war in Ukraine. The gathering comes the day before Russian and Ukrainian officials are set to take part in US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi, which European powers ...

Allegations of corporate espionage tied to Nvidia alongside growing political opposition to data center construction in the US have the potential to reshape the superpower tech race, albeit in differing directions. Nvidia’s CEO has been a key opponent of US restrictions on semiconductor equipment sales to China; while the controversy ...