Biz Hub Africa

Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed lost out to Chad’s Moussa Mahamat in the race to become the chair of the African Union Commission in the Round Seven vote. Ms Mohamed fell to a strong onslaught fronted by countries from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) after seven rounds of voting that saw three other candidates fall by the wayside early in the voting. Amina, 56, lost to Mahamat after heads of state voted in the seventh round. Yesterday’s elections in Addis Ababa, which were delayed for two hours after the opening ceremony, took up to 3pm, eating into the time of the voting for the AUC chairperson that was scheduled to take place at 2pm The African Heads of State and Government were forced to break and resume the voting session at 4pm. The African leaders took their seats at the assembly summit at 4.30pm and the voting started. In the first round, Amina was leading with 16 votes against Chad's candidate who had 14 vote...

President Uhuru Kenyatta in consultation with Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed. Kenya has gone all out in its bid to have Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed elected to head the Africa Union Commission. Pundits in diplomatic circles say the country’s push to have Ms Mohamed at the helm of AU has much to do with the ripple effect of the now collapsed International Criminal Court (ICC) charges against President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto. According to Meru Senator Kiraitu Murungi, Ms Mohamed had proved a strong force in arguing Kenya’s case at the ICC. Because of the ICC case, the Uhuruto government kicked off a strong Pan African agenda and Ms Amina pursued the goal expertly and with major successes. If elected the chairperson of the AU Commission, she will be some sort of a foreign minister for Africa, this will give Kenya good visibility and attract foreign investment,” said Mr Murungi. Murungi said Amina had the best credentials to resto...

The government of Canada has updated the settlement funds requirement for applicants under the  Federal Skilled Worker Class (FSWC) and  Federal Skilled Trades Class (FSTC) . Candidates who receive an Invitation to Apply (ITA) under the  Canadian Experience Class  (CEC) are not required to show settlement funds. In addition, candidates authorized to work in Canada and who have a valid job offer from an employer in Canada are not subject to the settlement funds requirement. Together, these three Canadian immigration programs make up the federal economic programs that receive applications through the  Express Entry  selection system. The increase in the settlement funds is marginal, at just over one percent for each family size. However, it is possible that this increase could affect some candidates’ eligibility. Consequently, all candidates are encouraged to double-check the new figures to ensure that they have the required funds. The new settle...

       Back in 2009 after finishing my high school education I thought that great things were ahead of me, but I was very wrong. I was supposed to at least join a middle level college the following year according to my grades, but also that didn’t happen. Reasons being that the following year my younger brother also cleared his high school with better grades than I did. Seeing this, I was very happy for him that I sacrificed my opportunity to join college just so he could join the aerobic school. He is soon clearing his studies and coming back home, for those several years that he have been away in some part of Europe. Back home here things have not been that good cause dad have been working his black ass off so that my other siblings to have better education. My little brother didn’t knew what took place immediately that he left the country, economy was not doing so great by then, some rich and affluence people pooled strings in the various areas in the lands minis...

  Gene Marks President of The Marks Group, Columnist, Speaker The FAA has proposed new rules for drones and I admit that I’m a little relieved. The rules limit the drones to only 55 pounds. They can’t be flown outside of the line of vision of the operator and can’t go higher than 500 feet (which is about 50 stories, still pretty high) and 100 miles per hour (which is pretty darn fast). Companies like Amazon are upset because they had plans to deliver packages across the country, so they’ll just have to settle with same day delivery on Sundays and generating $4 billion a year from cloud services. They’ll be fine. Me? I run a technology company so my whole life is dealing with stuff that frequently doesn’t work as expected. I can’t even get my computer to restart cleanly three times in a row and then I hear that Amazon wants to fly thousands of drones overhead? Regardless of security issues (which are still very much an issue even with the FAA’s proposed ruling) ...

Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer, pumping over two million barrels a day. For decades, the country has relied heavily on the oil sector to bring in taxes and foreign exchange. But the drop in the oil price has knocked the value of the local currency - the naira - by nearly 20%. Those immediately affected are ordinary people, and also the new generation of investors who only entered the oil and gas businesses in recent years.