Business Express Swaziland

05/05/2023

US President Won’t Attend King Charles III’s Coronation

……Trump Labels it as disrespectful

The Business Insider has reported that Former president Donald Trump blasted President Joe Biden for not attending King Charles III's upcoming coronation, despite the fact that no US president has ever attended one.

"Certainly, he should be here as our representative of our country," Trump told British outlet GB News in an interview on May 3. "I was very surprised, I think it's very disrespectful for him not to be here."

Trump also appeared to reference Biden's age affecting his ability to travel, telling GB News, "I don't think he can do it physically."

Biden took 18 international trips during his first two years in office, according to the Pew Research Center. So far in 2023, he has traveled to Mexico, Poland, Canada, Ireland, and took a surprise trip to Ukraine.

Historically, US presidents have always sent delegations to British coronations and have not attended themselves
The Bidens attended Queen Elizabeth's funeral in 2022.
Biden's absence at the coronation keeps with historical precedent. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent four representatives to Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953, according to The New York Times.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt skipped King George VI's in 1937 and sent a delegation led by General John J. Pershing, a World War I commander, Boston University history professor Arianne Chernock wrote for The Conversation. President William Howard Taft sent mining engineer John Hays Hammond in his stead to King George V's coronation in 1911, The New York Times reported.

While both the president and the first lady traveled to the UK to attend Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in September, only Jill Biden will attend the coronation on behalf of the United States, leading a delegation that has yet to be announced.

According to a White House readout of a phone call between Biden and Charles in April, the president "congratulated the King on his upcoming Coronation" and "conveyed his desire to meet with the King in the United Kingdom at a future date." President Joe Biden for not attending King Charles III's upcoming coronation, despite the fact that no US president has ever attended one.

"Certainly, he should be here as our representative of our country," Trump told British outlet GB News in an interview on May 3. "I was very surprised, I think it's very disrespectful for him not to be here."

Trump also appeared to reference Biden's age affecting his ability to travel, telling GB News, "I don't think he can do it physically."

Biden took 18 international trips during his first two years in office, according to the Pew Research Center. So far in 2023, he has traveled to Mexico, Poland, Canada, Ireland, and took a surprise trip to Ukraine.

Historically, US presidents have always sent delegations to British coronations and have not attended themselves
The Bidens attend Queen Elizabeth's funeral in 2022.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden attend Queen Elizabeth's state funeral on September 19, 2022. Geoff Pugh - WPA Pool/Getty Images
Biden's absence at the coronation keeps with historical precedent. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent four representatives to Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953, according to The New York Times.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt skipped King George VI's in 1937 and sent a delegation led by General John J. Pershing, a World War I commander, Boston University history professor Arianne Chernock wrote for The Conversation. President William Howard Taft sent mining engineer John Hays Hammond in his stead to King George V's coronation in 1911, The New York Times reported.

While both the president and the first lady traveled to the UK to attend Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in September, only Jill Biden will attend the coronation on behalf of the United States, leading a delegation that has yet to be announced.

According to a White House readout of a phone call between Biden and Charles in April, the president "congratulated the King on his upcoming Coronation" and "conveyed his desire to meet with the King in the United Kingdom at a future date."

Source:Business Insider

04/05/2023

AfCFTA To Bring 18 Million Jobs

….$440billion to be generated

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA )is one of the flagship projects of Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want. It is a high ambition trade agreement, with a comprehensive scope that includes critical areas of Africa’s economy, such as digital trade and investment protection, amongst other areas.

Among its objectives,the AfCFTA seeks to eliminate barriers to trade in Africa and to significantly boost intra-Africa trade, particularly trade in value-added production and trade across all sectors of Africa’s economy.

An April 2023 World Bank Report indicates that a fully maximized AfCFTA, if fully and effectively implemented will yield the following gains:

1.$440b in income
2.18 million new jobs by 2035
3.109% growth in intra Africa exports
4.32% in global exports

The reports said emphasis should be on translating commitments by signatories into concrete policies and regulations and to focus more on competitiveness.The World Bank report also challenged the trade agreement to focus on strengthening the private sector as a means to realize trade opportunities.

02/05/2023

Ukraine War: What China Gains From Acting As Peacemaker

After more than a year of no direct communication, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had a phone conversation on April 26 2023.

According to the Chinese record of the call, “the two sides exchanged views on China-Ukraine relations and the Ukraine crisis”, but globally it was seen as an attempt by Beijing to step in as peacemaker.

Meanwhile, Zelensky tweeted that he “had a long and meaningful phone call” with Xi, and later expanded on his Telegram channel saying that particular attention was “paid to the ways of possible cooperation to establish a just and sustainable peace for Ukraine”.

The most concrete outcome of the call is Xi’s confirmation that China will appoint a special representative on Eurasian affairs to Ukraine “to have in-depth communication with all parties on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis”.

If nothing else, this signals that China is getting serious with its mediation efforts and judges the time to be right for this, not least because of increasing tensions in the western alliance and doubts about the success of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

China’s move is another indication of a changing international order that Beijing is keen, and increasingly able, to shape. What is immediately at stake for China is its relationship with the EU. For the EU’s member states, the war in Ukraine, including a possible further escalation, is of much more acute security concern than it is for China.

European officials have repeatedly urged Beijing to use its influence over Moscow to “bring Russia to its senses”, as French president Emmanuel Macron put it on his recent visit to China.

Other senior EU officials, from European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to European Council president Charles Michel and the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell have similarly left no doubt that China’s stance on the war in Ukraine will shape the future of EU-China relations.

Given how important the EU and China are for each other economically, both sides have an interest in a stable and constructive relationship.

China-EU relations are, of course, part of a bigger picture of relations between China and the west. Yet even here, there are some signs of a possible opening. US treasury secretary Jane Yellen acknowledged that “negotiating the contours of engagement between great powers is difficult” but also noted that Beijing and Washington “can find a way forward if China is also willing to play its part”.

The Xi-Zelenskiy phone call fits into a careful and fragile choreography of moves that might gradually see a more effective management of the war in Ukraine that would, initially, prevent further escalation and eventually pave the way towards a settlement. While it would not resolve all of the contentious issues in China-west relations, it would remove one particularly problematic issue from the list of immediate concerns.

At the same time, China needs Russia as leverage in its great power competition with the west, and Xi is unlikely to abandon his partnership with Putin. But China also needs a Russia that is more controllable, and this means China needs an end to the war in Ukraine, which still has the potential to escalate further. By reigning in Russia over Ukraine, Xi can firmly establish China as an indispensable guarantor of sustainable security and stability in Europe.

Risks For The West

If the Chinese initiative is given the benefit of the doubt in Brussels and Washington and gains traction in Kyiv and Moscow, it gives Beijing a major opportunity to begin shaping a new Eurasian security order.

While the west may be able and willing to contain the Kremlin militarily and isolate Russia economically, Xi will have a major role to play in managing Putin politically. In other words, Beijing’s calculation may well be that for Europe to regain a measure of stability and security, China’s cooperation will be essential.
This does not diminish the importance of the transatlantic security relationship embodied by Nato, but it would mean an acknowledgement of the fundamentally changed dynamics of the European order and the far more critical role of China within it.

Bringing about a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine may take some time and require more than just Beijing’s mediation. But even an end to the fighting in Ukraine in the form of a stable ceasefire could benefit China. Such an intermediate outcome would make it more likely, for example, that the Black Sea deal, which allows Ukraine to export its grain, would be extended again, easing the global food crisis.

This would consolidate China’s influence and leadership in the developing world, further cementing its status as an important power broker in the new bipolar order sketched out in a 2019 white paper China and the World in the New Era.

Building A New International Order

While China’s more open engagement in mediation efforts to end the war in Ukraine could significantly advance Beijing’s vision of a new international order, it is not without risks for Xi. As Zelensky noted in his call with Xi, the “territorial integrity of Ukraine must be restored within the 1991 borders”. Russia’s predictable reaction, delivered by foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, was to accuse Ukraine of linking its willingness to negotiate “with ultimatums containing … unrealistic demands”.

Ultimately, the question for Beijing, which has consistently affirmed its support for the international norms of sovereignty and territorial integrity, becomes whether it can find a way to square the circle between Moscow’s internationally isolated insistence that its illegal war and land grab in Ukraine be recognised and Kyiv’s rightful demand that its borders not be subject to change by force.

This is a fundamental question for European and global order, and since the 1975 Helsinki Final Act the inviolability of borders was the foundational principle of European security.

Whatever the fate of China’s mediation efforts in the war are, they will be a major test of the skill and leverage that Chinese diplomats have and they will be an indication of how China intends to play its future role in a re-imagined Eurasia.

https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-china-gains-from-acting-as-peacemaker-204629

China’s approach to ending the Ukraine war will determine the future of the European security order.

21/04/2023

Reigniting The Call For A Multilateral Approach In Addressing Critical Global Issues…

Now,more than ever, we need to connect the dots between climate, poverty, food, water and energy.These issues cannot be addressed in isolation.

Ban Ki Moon -|Former UN Secretary General|

17/04/2023

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17/04/2023

The 2023 Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in Eswatini will host its 17th edition this year. The awards boast of 85 winners over its previous 16 editions, employing over 450 people and has generated a collective revenue of over E70 million, equivalent to $3.87m.
The 2023 edition saw FNB Eswatini pump in E1.5m ($82,000), an act described by FNB CEO Dennis Mbingo as,”Watering the Fields we also glean from.”
A date for the awards ceremony is yet to be determined.

24/10/2022

Research & Development Critical To Reducing Africa's Reliance In Global Pharmaceutical Markerts.
....AfDB Launches Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation

The board of the African Development Bank (AfDB) recently approved the establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation to transform the indigenous African pharmaceutical industry. The institution is the latest effort to enhance Africa’s access to the technologies that underpin the manufacture of medicines, vaccines, and other pharmaceutical products and decrease the continent’s reliance on importation.

AfDB’s President, Akinwumi Adesina, told Nature Africa that this reliance also harms research and development on the continent. It leaves Africa unable to produce the right medicines that fit the continent’s epidemiological profile and is at the core of Africa’s health independence.

“Because you are not able to do that, it has a knockdown effect on Africa’s ability over time to build the right R&D capacity and the ecosystems that you need to support a productive, efficient, cost competitive, global health delivery system,” he said.

When fully established, the institution would be a transparent intermediator that will broker deals and advance the interests of the African pharmaceutical sector with global and other Southern pharmaceutical companies to share IP-protected technologies, know-how, and patented processes.

It will prioritize technologies, products and processes focused primarily on diseases that are widely prevalent in Africa, including current and future pandemics.

“It will also build human and professional skills, the R&D ecosystem, and help upgrade manufacturing plant capacities and regulatory quality to meet World Health Organization standards,” Akinwunmi stated.

01/07/2022

Redefining Africa's Side Hustle Narrative

To a large degree, the African economy is held back by self created narratives and stereo typical ways of doing business. If Africa is to thrive; it would need to redefine and provide a proper context for the side hustle narrative.
Most side hustles, although they are creative and viable business ideas-have and will remain side hustles as they are founded outside the fundamental pillars that should anchor and propel a business to its greatness.
Ambition alone is not enough. Africa needs to unlock its greatness by unlocking the massive potential trapped within many misguided ambitions dressed as side hustles.
Hustles need to grow into profitable multinational corporations, accordingly, a collaborative effort for business mentorship and coaching should be be Africa's priority agenda on the discussion table.