Lusaka / AFP Zambian President Edgar Lungu called for national unity in his inauguration speech on Tuesday, as a defeated opposition candidate dismissed the ceremony as “illegal and unconstitutional”. Lungu, who first took power last year, won the August 11 election by around 100,000 votes but his opponent Hakainde Hichilema has alleged that the result was riddled with fraud. ...

  Tripoli / AFP Libya’s UN-backed unity government lost control on Monday of a third oil port seized by rival forces, raising fears of a major outbreak of fresh violence in the chaos-ridden country. The loss comes after fighters backing a rival administration in east Libya seized two other terminals from guards loyal to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) ...

  AFP Stock markets struggled on Tuesday as investors contemplated the US interest rate outlook and oil prices slumped on a gloomy outlook for crude demand. Frankfurt, London and Paris had opened brightly, after a leading US Federal Reserve official tempered comments from her colleagues on the need for an early US interest rate hike. But the gains faded away ...

  AFP Shares in South Korean giant Samsung Electronics rallied on Tuesday, recovering almost half the losses from a two-day collapse linked to its troubled smartphone, as traders welcomed news it had sold its printer unit for $1.05 billion to US firm HP. The company plunged more than 10 percent on Friday and Monday after it urged global consumers to ...

  AFP Tokyo stocks ended higher on Tuesday with traders weighing speculation about a possible US interest rate hike while looking ahead to an upcoming Bank of Japan policy meeting. Dealers tracked a rally on Wall Street following dovish remarks by Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard who argued against hiking US interest rates quickly. She said the central bank should ...

  Bloomberg The outlook for one of the world’s worst-performing stock markets is getting dimmer. China’s benchmark equity index was jolted out of its inertia on Monday when the cost of borrowing the yuan in Hong Kong jumped the most in seven months, exacerbating concern about a global selloff. The Shanghai Composite Index tumbled as much as 2.6 percent after ...

  Bloomberg The tyranny of distance is weighing on Australia’s banks in the U.S. bond market. The yields that dollar debt buyers demand from Australia’s largest lenders are higher than for Canadian banks with similar credit ratings, an analysis of more than 80 securities compiled by Bloomberg shows. While the two commodity-producing nations’ banks are among the developed world’s most ...

  Bloomberg Postal Savings Bank of China Co. is seeking as much as $8.1 billion in a Hong Kong initial public offering, which could become the world’s biggest share sale this year. The Beijing-based bank is offering 12.1 billion shares at HK$4.68 to HK$5.18 apiece, according to terms for the deal obtained by Bloomberg on Tuesday. Cornerstone investors, who commit ...

  Bloomberg Banks may face an increase of about 10 percent in their capital requirements as a result of the overhaul of risk-assessment rules under way at the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, according to Philippe Heim, chief financial officer of Societe Generale SA. The Group of 20 nations and the Basel Committee’s oversight body “want to concretely deliver reform ...

  Bloomberg Kenya’s central bank said lenders should peg their loans to its Central Bank Rate, or CBR, in line with a new law capping costs and as the International Monetary Fund warned that legislation limiting how much lenders charge for credit risks impeding access to loans. East Africa’s biggest economy has introduced restrictions on borrowing costs that set commercial ...